Good advice from others; here's more thoughts.

Interesting situation, and people do indeed grab at straws when they
want their museum to stay alive.  The first key question is whether the
city is willing to lease for a long length of time -at least 20 years if
not more- or they risk having the same thing happen again.  (We recently
renegotiated from a year to year lease to a 20 year lease. Everyone said
the city would never go for it, but they did.)

Then, I think I'd suggest to them treating the situation more or less as
a brand new museum, similar to other situations where the bequest of a
collection spurs the formation of a new museum.  See if you can get them
to study "Starting Right", which probably many of us have recommended to
start up museums. That might force them to look at all the basics, get
real about the financial situation, and, hopefully, get more realistic
about prospects in general.  The situation clearly needs some really
hard headed assessment and planning.  Did they have good community
support before that can be resurrected? And if not, how will it be
different this time around?  Will the better location really make a lot
of difference?  In my experience, people will come to a good museum,
even if the location isn't optimal, but if it isn't a good museum,
having a better location won't help much.)

There are pros and cons to moving into not-so-great space.  (I guess the
other questions has to be why in the world would you pay so much for
inadequate space. What else is out there for the same money??) Seems to
me it might be better in the long run to wait for space that is
appropriate rather than try to move again later.  On the other hand, it
may be deemed critical to remain in the public eye no matter how
marginal the location, to keep public interest alive. But, that is a
situation that only has a short life span. If too long in the inadequate
space, support will inevitably dwindle.

Seems like there are just a lot of hard questions that need to be
addressed before they can really make a good decision. How, exactly will
they address the lacks in this facility, and are there innovative and
realistic solutions to the problems.  If it lacks storage, where will
you store collections? If it lacks office or work space, where will
those functions happen?  (I currently work with a museum that has an
active changing exhibit schedule but NO exhibit prep space, so they have
to close down 2 or 3 times a year and use the gallery space for
preparation of the new exhibits.)  Or, can the space be reallocated
inside this building with partitions to provide for needed functions? If
not, they should keep looking. Or, if the city wants to rent it badly
enough, maybe they'd pay for needed renovations to make it suitable.

Also maybe you could ask the director to chart out the financials
projected for 5 years, with as realistic projections as possible for
income & expenses, and see how realistic this really is.

good luck

Lucy Sperlin



Chris Pike wrote:
>
> The situation is that the museum was in a bad location originally, then
> kicked out by the local govt body renting the space and now is suddenly
> being offered a new space by the city govt for a high price ($10,000
> CDN/year)after two years of trying to field it to other organizations.
> Seems to me to a cash-grab by the city more than anything else including
> legitimate support.
>
> The building was a former town hall than a dance-hall than a library and
> now empty.  It is just one big hall with the only benefit being it's a
> protected historical building (and no room to expand due to neighbours on
> both sides. I'm frustrated because the Board Director seems to be pushing
> it despite the evidence.
>
> Again more advice is appreciated (what to do and how to deal with the
> director).
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).