Advanced Workshop: The Learning Curve

Workshop brochure

“There is only learning…  all the rest is just stamp-collecting”
Museum Trustee, 2017

In contemporary society, the definition of a “museum” is bound up with the search for resilience; whether strategic, cultural, financial or simply in expertise. To achieve true resilience, the museum must become a learning organisation.

Learning organisations are organisations that understand and optimise learning. This is not just from the point of view of audience activities, but also in how leadership teams and directors learn, behave, act, speak and champion causes worth having. If this is embraced, the rewards for the organisation, its governance and its community are transformational.

GEM’s advanced workshop: The Learning Curve has been developed to support the leading professionals of museums and cultural organisations in building resilience through learning and innovating. By exploring what it means to be a learning organisation, discussing the issues surrounding it and planning for the future, you will discover the rewards of embedding learning throughout your workplace.

In this programme we are exploring how the learning agenda can be viewed in the broadest terms so as to drive purpose, decision-making, fundraising, community engagement, social enterprise, recruitment, leadership structures and good practice for the whole organisation.

Our Spring 2020 course on Thursday 11 June 2020 at Museum of Liverpool has now been postponed. We are aiming to reschedule this workshop for Autumn 2020. 

So, is yours a learning organisation? Can you afford not to be?

“It reminded me that change in an organisation is a learning experience – and that much management work can be seen in this way. And that is a good way to view learning.” – Past participant

Who is it for?
The workshop is for anyone in the heritage and cultural sector who is interested in transformational leadership and learning as an organisation. It is best suited to those in leadership positions, like directors, CEOs, trustees and managers.  We encourage attending with a learning officer (or equivalent) from your organisation in order to share insights and pool resources to move forward holistically, following the workshop.

Who runs the workshop?
The workshop has been devised and led by Nick Winterbotham, a former director and chief executive of many prestigious museums, including Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, National Railway Museum, York, and the Museum of East Anglian Life. Nick is now the managing director of Nick Winterbotham & Associates, delivering high quality consultation and training on leadership, heritage learning and team development, amongst other subjects. He says:

“My contention is that we should lead all professional teams so as to enable the museum to take its place in the learning agenda for the whole community – visiting, virtual and even non-visiting.”

Workshop fee?
The fee for GEM members is £145, or £220 for a pair from the same organisation. The fee for non-members is £180, or £270 for a pair from the same organisation. A pair can attend at the member’s discount if one person in the pair is a personal GEM member, or if their organisation has an institutional membership.

This workshop was developed in 2017 in collaboration with AIM with thanks to Arts Council England funding.