NRM

The latest edition of Heritage Railway informs us that the NRM asks all visitors to make a voluntary donation of £3 upon entry to the museum. Surely, visitors should be asked for donations when they are about to leave the museum at the end of their visit, with no specific amount mentioned. Thoughts please.
Following on from this, a few pages further in, we are informed that the new director and the head of collections have been on a visit to Japan, paid for by the NRM. You couldn't write a script for that could you!!
Another NRM own goal.

 

What are they supposed to do, sit at York and never venture out?

 

There are no other high quality museums in Western Europe?!

 

I was thinking more of the irony of the two stories together.

 

Do we know the purpose of the visit to Japan? There is a Japanese exhibit in the NRM don't forget. Easy to criticise when the facts aren't known.

 

Re suggested donation on entry: what's wrong with that? If you visit any other attraction that charges a real entry fee, you do so on entry, not exit. The fact that, having visited, it may have proved not to be the value for money you hoped is a risk you take. So why should an attraction charging a voluntary, rather than compulsory, entry charge be any different? As for asking for a suggested amount: why not? If you visited Alton Towers, it would be an actual amount, not suggested, and if you didn't pay, you wouldn't get in at all...

Re business trip to Japan: what's wrong with that? If it was a legitimate reason for visiting, then all well and good. The NRM is a multi-million pound business. Would you expect the staff of any other such business to sit on an ivory tower and never venture out? I bet the boss of Disneyland frequently visits other theme parks, if only in the interests of competitor research. No one seems to complain about that.

Is the subtext of your question that you somehow think, just because the NRM is a public body, somehow it should be able to function in a completely different way to a private body?

Tom

 

How much public money does the boss of Disneyland spend every year?

 

The NRM will no doubt have a budget for overseas visits. How that money is spent within that budget is up to those who control that budget. If they hadn't gone to Japan, I suspect they would have gone somewhere else.

 

I seem to have opened up a can of worms here. On the one hand, we have staff at the museum asking visitors to make a donation to the museum voluntarily and on the other hand, senior staff jetting half way around the world. It is the irony of the situation that I am on about. Did I make any complaint when Steve Davies was going to the USA and Canada to set up the deal for the A4's, no I did not.

 

It is part of human nature to see such trips as being 'jollys' and generally unnecessary, especially if you are not part of it. It is all part of being in business, though, whether it is a museum or a multi-national organisation. As long as the reasons are valid and the expenses not extreme, then it is surely acceptable.

Not sure about the donations, though. It will depend very largely on how they are solicited. If it is put across as more of a voluntary entry fee that you are almost embarrassed into paying, I would disagree with it. If visitors are given an envelope on arrival with a polite request that they might like to give a donation (amount unspecified) on leaving, then that is OK. There is choice and no-one is standing there waiting to accept it and suggesting that, if you don't, you are being a miser.

 

As someone who does that trip fairly regularly I can assue you that there is not much jolly in going to Japan. You sit for 12-16 hours in an aluminium tube, cramped up with vitually no chance to stretch your legs, or you take connecting flights with breaks in 'wonderful places' (Paris CDG, Delhi or Moscow for example, no chance to visit anything, just to sit and wait).
When you get there you are dog tired, out of sync. and then have to have meetings and be on top of your game. You don't sleep when you should do and you can't sleep when you want to. Finally after a few days it gets better and you begin to be more effective. Then it is time to come back and you repeat the process back in Europe. Personally I can not sleep on planes so I am absolutely whacked for a period of time.

My life travelling is: Home, airport, plane, taxi, hotel, meeting, hotel, taxi, plane, home. Perhaps I've missed out where the jolly part is in all of this because after 20+ years of doing it I still can't find it. 20 years ago I could be on a plane and catch up with work and get something done, now as soon as I get off one plane the phone rings and mails arrive all wanting immediate answers.

At 25 the first long distance trip was an adventure, at 25 1/2 the adventure had worn off, at nearly 50 I am looking forward to it ending...

 

I'm not overly bothered about someone swanning off on a jolly to Japan. My main concern is the way £1000s of public money has been thrown away paying for two A4s to be brought back to the UK for cosmetic restoration for little, if any, benefit. A better investment would have been for the NRM to buy a copy of Photoshop for anyone really wanting photos of 5 x A4s together.
As if that isn't bad enough, an even worse waste of public money is the way a certain A3 has been restored. With several false starts a questions still hovering over the final likely cost and the final repair quality. The NRM needs to explain itself.

 

To be honest, i don't think the NRM does have to explain itself.

Bringing home the A4's (albeit temporarily) is a marvelous achievement. Sprucing them up and fixing their abused parts from being knuckle shunted can only be for good. When they do go back across the pond, they can again be ambassadors for British engineering. Not only that but they will look beautiful (Dwight) already does. Having all six lined up will be the sight of a lifetime, no more can so many streaks be lined up reminiscent of top shed.

On the A3 front, how long it takes is irrelevant, what matters is that its future is certain and at some point it will be running again, doing what she does best. Stretching her legs on mainline rail tours and pottering about being admired by many on heritage lines and by the main line line-side. As long as she is being worked on and will run again, who cares how much it costs, ill happily pay my taxes if it means NRM can carry on its wonderful and priceless work.

 

That's irrelevant. Whether you are a shareholder of Disney or a taxpayer of this country, you basically only want to know: (1) was the desired outcome from the trip of one that was in the best interests of the organisation and (2) was making the trip the most effective way to achieve that outcome. If in this specific case the answer to both questions was yes, then what's the problem?

I sometimes think people are guilty of wanting to have their cake and eat it. In other words, we clamour for public organisations to be run with modern business efficiency. But then we cavil when those organisations undertake some practice (or, heaven forfend, try to pay a salary) that would be entirely unremarkable if done by a private organisation.

Tom

 

In the same issue of Heritage Railway the NRM are looking for a somebody to sponsor the rest of the cost of bringing the A4’s over of £98000 ,now they have not got the money to finish Scotsman they had an appeal for £35000 to cosmetically restore Winston Churchill but can find money to go to Japan . Surely the priorities are in this country.

 

Different projects, different pots of money. There is not one big bucket.

 

That's only correct if you assume that public money spent by governments and institutions that they support is the same as private money spent by your local business or your friendly multinational. I don't think it's the same thing. Private money is only accountable to shareholders which could be a very small group of people while public money is accountable to a much wider group of people - the taxpayer.

Trying to say that a private company spending money on improving trade links to Japan to increase their profit is the same as a musuem funded by the taxpayer going to Japan to improve the cultural and historical value of their musuem (by learning from others) is not an equal comparison. Public money has to be accountable - what private companies do is there business provided it's within the law (!).

 

Before and not hoping to open a can of worms but the NRM isn't the only 'free' museum that asks for donations. In the current cutbacks all of the main free museums are having funding cut to a lesser or greater degree. Quite often I do get asked by visitors about donations and I'll more than happily show people where they can donate.

An easy way at Manchester to assist is if you are taking the car to go shopping use the pay and display at the museum. Similar cost to elsewhere but the funds go back into supporting the museum.

Duncan

 

Before everyone has a go at NRM..

why not have a look at the museum, I was there only a month back..

http://railways.national-preservati...tage-railways-tramways/38070-steam-tokyo.html

now I was in Japan courtesy of work, therefore an "evil" bank paid for my visit... But it was my weekend.

so if the head of the NRM shouldnt go "on business".. I shouldn't either ?
in that case why should anyone except Japanese go ?... Then why have a museum promoting international tourism at all ?..
On that note I assume it makes the NRM welcome to British only ?


come on... International cooperation benefits us all... If that means getting people to meet.. Do it. (Indeed try doing business in Japan without showing face).

 

There'll be six anyway but a greater piece of drivel has probably not been posted on Nat Pres before. In the meantime I will thank the gods that you aren't in charge of NRM policy and as a result I and many, many people will be able to rejoice at seeing six of Sir Nigel Gresley's masterpieces together again.