The Association of Independent Museums (AIM) has launched a new series of free online guides to support Trustees and Boards of UK museums and heritage sites. Created as part of the AIM Hallmarks Programme funded by Arts Council England, this new suite of downloadable PDF guides offers practical advice and top tips covering key aspects of good governance.
“AIM understands that good governance is at the heart of successful museums, so we have responded to member requests to produce further high quality, practical guidance for Trustees and boards that is free to use and easy to download with the rest of our Hallmarks resources on our website,” said Emma Chaplin, the Director of AIM.
The new guides are the result of work that AIM has carried out with Trustees and Boards through the Hallmarks programme over the last three years. “These guides capture some of the good practice that we’ve shared through our expert seminars for trustees, and tackle some of the questions that we know boards find most challenging,” said Helen Wilkinson, the Assistant Director of AIM.
The new guides have been written for AIM by museum sector experts to ensure the most up to date and comprehensive information in each area. The guides are:
More Effective Meetings: engaging trustees and building a strong team
Running an open recruitment process
An introduction to museums for new trustees
Trustees can also benefit from the new AIM guide called Successful away days for boards of museums and heritage organisations which has been created to complement the recently published AIM Preparing to Prosper publication. This guide offers a toolkit for running a successful away day so that museums can have the kind of discussions that can help them move forwards as an organisation.
AIM has also updated its Success Guide called Successful Governance in Independent Museums to reflect recent developments in governance.
Other guides in this new series will be released soon covering auditing board processes and documentation and also how to review your governing document and legal structure. These will be available online at www.aim-museums.co.uk.
Trustees from museums and heritage sites can also sign up for free to receive the AIM Trustee newsletters containing hints, tips and the latest governance news by emailing: