North-East Regional Day – March 2019

Dealing with expansion and development: report from the North-East Regional Meeting

Over 50 BAFM members from around the north-east attended a regional meeting on 30 March 2019 hosted by the Friends of Beamish.

The theme is successfully dealing with expansion and development which many museums and heritage sites in the region are experiencing. Keynote speakers included Ian Bean, Director of Projects of the Friends of Beamish and Sophie Hearn, Volunteer Coordinator at the Hylton Castle Project. Both Beamish Museum and Hylton Castle have undergone extensive developments over the last 12-24 months and this has had an impact on how friends and volunteers are recruited, managed and retained. In particular, Sophie Hearn recalled the different reasons people become friends of heritage site; often young people are looking to build their CVs, and actively want to develop new skills, whilst older people are often more motivated by opportunities to meet people and building friendships.

It is worth remembering this when recruiting new volunteers for that new project you have in mind.