The North West Federation of Museums (NWFED) is really pleased announce that we will be working closely with Museum Development North West (MDNW) to assist in the their Museum Development programme for 2015-18.

As part of MDNW’s wide ranging programme of support for the sector, the NWFED has been asked to take the lead with one part of their Museum Development Plan focusing on the Arts Council’s Goal 4 – leadership and the museum workforce’s diversity and skills. Through the development and delivery of a ‘Support Our Skills (SOS)’ programme for volunteers and staff in museums, we will be able to provide tailor made support for the huge number of volunteers in museums across the North West, whilst opening up the programme to NWFED members and other museum staff.

This year the NWFED will carrying out research to find out what volunteers working in our sector would like a training and development programme to involve and what they would find beneficial to their career development. We will be speaking to volunteers across the region through an online survey, various focus groups, site visits and more to find out what the sector needs.  The new programme will then be launched in April 2016 and will run for two years. At this stage there are no concrete ideas of what the programme will include, as it will be shaped by the conversations we have with people across the region.

If you are a volunteer, or would like volunteers in your museum to be involved and have a say in the development of this programme, then please do get in touch with the NWFED. We will be sharing details of the different ways that you can provide ideas and feedback shortly via our website and newsletter.

This is a very exciting time for NWFED and we look forward to working with MDNW over the coming years.

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Katy Ashton:  Chair of NWFED and Director of the People’s History Museum, Manchester