Newsletter for December 2004

The Friends of The MacDougall Collection
Dunollie House, Dunollie, Oban, Argyll. PA34 5TT
www.friends-macdougall.co.uk
Honorary Patron: Maureen McLellan

Newsletter December 2004

Welcome to our Winter Newsletter bringing you an update on activities with the MacDougall Collection. Another year has passed so quickly but a huge amount of progress has been made with the documentation of the Collection and the Outreach Programme has again reached a wide audience in both schools and the community.

It is hardly believable that we are now entering the final third year phase of the MacDougall Project and manager Catherine Gillies has prepared the 'Exit Strategy'. This is a requirement for any end of term Project and will ensure sustainability of all aspects, the priority remaining access to The Collection, for the future. Everyone will be glad to hear that this strategy provides a stepping-stone to what we do next given that the fundamental task of documentation has been carried out. Everyone is working hard to fulfil the main aim of establishing a small museum for the Collection in the not too distant future.

So we look forward in 2005 to an exciting year of development for The MacDougall Collection.

Museum for a Week -the MacDougall Collection in the Community…
'Travels with a purpose - on Oban, Collecting and Miss Hope MacDougall.'
In May this year the Friends supported our first exhibition in the Community at the Dunollie Esplanade Church. Thanks go to Rev Andy Campbell for the venue and all his help. Mairi MacFarlane, whose Aunt Jeanie's fish barrow figures in the pictures and archive of the Collection, opened the exhibition. The opening night was a great success with over 100 Friends and guests attending. What was planned to be a Museum for a Week was extended for a second week due to demand. As well as the showcases and excellent themed displays at the back of the Church, the computer was available to show how the documentation system worked and also a video of Miss Hope's Collection as it was originally laid out in Ganavan House. Catherine divided the space into 'rooms'. One was the Victorian traveller to Oban, the second Oban - a small town travelling through time, the third devoted to Miss MacDougall as the traveller with the final room set out as a hands-on zone with part of the book collection as a library, the herring girl's Kist, the computer and video. Although our own demountable cases did not arrive in time, we were given substitutes, which were excellent and contained Victoriana and some Esmee Speakman objects gathered from her foreign travels. (Our own arrived soon after, funded by the Lottery's Awards for All Scheme and the Community Economic Development scheme.) Since the exhibition the cases have been in great demand. Used later in the year at the Corran Halls for the MacDougall Clan Gathering, the public asked if one could stay full-time so one is on display for the foreseeable future with changing exhibitions - The first, Miss MacDougall, the Collector, has been replaced with a seasonal theme of hot water pigs, medicines and woolly jumpers and gloves from around the world.
(The other case went to Campbeltown for a MacDougall Collection exhibition followed by the display of a prestigious silver item being loaned by the National Museums to Argyll and Bute Council's museums service.)
Over 800 people attended our 'Museum for two weeks'. With donations, sales of our new postcards and quizes kindly supplied by Elsa Bell and Betty Paterson, we managed to come through with only a small deficit after the costs of hosting the exhibition Three winners of competitions each received a £10 gift token. Many thanks go to all the Friends who manned the exhibition, those who helped set it up and the businesses which gave items for the displays. Our postcards of artefacts from the Collection were in great demand and it is planned to expand the range and distribute them more generally next year. If anyone would like to buy postcards please contact the Project Office at Dunollie. During the exhibition Frank Walton, who worked closely with Miss MacDougall on her photography, gave a talk to the Camera Club on her camera collection. In addition the Lorn Archaeological and Historical Society under President Margaret Kay, also a Friend, visited for a private tour.

DOCUMENTATION
After the museum for a week the programme got back on track with volunteers returning to their tasks in the workroom. The work of Laura Tish, appointed to help Jackie in August of last year, has contributed enormously to closing the gap between the cataloguing work carried out by the volunteers and the recording of artefacts on the computer ADLIB database. Laura has been a stalwart worker on the Project with great enthusiasm and her 18-month contract ends in February. Laura and her husband are then moving to England - good for her, but unfortunate for us since we will really miss her!
Thanks again go to Jackie for her sterling work both on the Project and running the volunteer team, without which we would not have been able to achieve our current state of progress.

OUTREACH
July coincided with the end of the school term and effectively signalled the end of the two-year programme of project work in schools. In all Catherine carried out 47 school sessions with nine schools in North Argyll and on Mull (Tobermory) taking up the offer of sessions. One of the sessions offered this year was on spinning and weaving and to coincide with this spinning sets were made by the Rimmers at Balliemore Farm on Kerrera. These are now available for sale though the Friends and would make marvellous Christmas presents.
All head teachers were highly enthusiastic about the visits and Catherine has prepared a full report on the education programme a part of the exit strategy for the project. Catherine also carried out several more visits to Kimartin House for spinning sessions in the museum.
Year three will focus on the Heritage in Performance project as outlined in our last newsletter. This will be a single large school theatre-type project taking a local historical theme and working it up into a public performance. It is scheduled for January to March 2005 and schools were invited to bid for the one-off pilot project. Lochnell Primary School at Benderloch was the first out of several schools to respond and planning is now underway. The Friends applied for funding from the Scottish Arts Council to allow storyteller Scot an Sgeulaiche to work as a partner on the project.
Catherine also attended an ABREEF environmental fair in Dunoon for two days and worked with ten schools doing games and activities related to old-fashioned shopping and the home.
The winter talks season is underway with the MacDougall Collection being afforded the honour of being the first event of the new session for two SWRIs. An outcome of the Appin SWRI talk was an invitation to visit residents at the Lynn of Lorn Care Home in Benderloch where six reminiscence sessions have been planned for the run-up to Christmas.

THE MACDOUGALL CLAN GATHERING
Staff and volunteers form the MacDougall Collection Project became involved with helping and meeting Clan MacDougall members at their Clan gathering at Dunollie on 25th August. The video of the Collection ran throughout the reception in the marquee prompting a great deal of interest. Lots of leaflets were handed out and some excellent contacts made with Scottish history-wise Americans. (The Collection subsequently featured heavily in a report on the Gathering produced by the American Society of Clan MacDougall) Catherine and Sona Campbell, chair of the Friends were also present at the celebration presentation and dance for the Gathering at the Corran Halls and one of the new display cases was used in the Foyer containing an exhibition on Miss Hope, the Collector.

OBAN GAMES
For the fourth year the MacDougall Collection had a stand in the Heritage Tent taking the theme of the Victorian and Edwardian Traveller. Sona, Catherine, Laura and Jackie manned the stand and met many MacDougall Clan gatherers as well as other interested members of the public. It was an ideal platform for fund-raising for The Friends and our funds benefited greatly from generous donations and book and postcard sales. The books were Miss MacDougall's newly reprinted 'Kerrera, Mirror of History, Nancy Black's 'From a Hollow on the Hill. History and 'Tales of Lorn & Fortingall Families' The Friends received commission from the publishers House of Lochar and author respectively.

MIRROR OF HISTORY
Miss MacDougall's highly praised account of Kerrera - Mirror of History has been re-printed with an editorial by Catherine Gillies. Copies are available from the MacDougall Collection and commission on each copy will be given to The Friends. The same applies to Nancy Black's book 'From a Hollow on the Hill'. Contact the Project Office at Dunollie. If you're looking for Christmas presents - look no further and you will be helping the Friends as well!

THE MACDOUGALL COLLECTION ON TOUR - ARGYLL AND BUTE 2005
A major new development has been the arrival in September of Lynn Vesco as a new member of staff. Lynn is the project officer for the Touring Exhibition in 2005 core-funded by WHELK Leader+. This is a £38,000 project to build and tour an exhibition and cultural event around Argyll and Bute including the islands, which will give communities access to the Collection. Additional funding came from Argyll and the Isles Enterprise, Carnegie UK Trust, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Friends of the MacDougall Collection. Lynn is now working hard to build and tailor the Tour for next year. Welcome on board!

FORGING LINKS
New links have been forged with Mull Museum. A visit from the Mull members to see our documentation system ADLIB at Dunollie resulted in Catherine returning to Tobermory to give a talk on The Collection. This was received very enthusiastically and given the common interests bodes well for a strong relationship in the future. In addition Irene Mackay, curator at the National Museum for Scotland in Edinburgh and Kay Anderson from Arbroath visited to survey spinning wheels and woollen textiles in the Collection. Such was their expertise the visit resulted in new and valuable information about some of the artefacts they examined. This has now been added to the database. An object of hitherto unknown use turned out to be an Andean llama-herder's sling!
There also continues to be demand for access to The Collection. Some items were sent to 'Here We Are Cairndow' in July for an exhibition. The Project continues to stay in touch with Kilmartin House Museum and the War and Peace museum in Oban.

RISING REPUTATION
The continued request for greater access to The Collection is a clear demonstration of its rising reputation and is in no small measure due to the hard work and unabated enthusiasm for the Project from manager Catherine Gillies. The MacDougall Trust, management committee and the Friends of the MacDougall Collection would all like to record their thanks to her for running the Project so well and making such excellent planning provision for the future.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
This will be held in the small hall at Connel village hall at 6.15pm on 15th December 2004. It is hoped as many Friends as possible will attend and if anyone has any topic they would like discussed please contact the secretary on the number below. Members of staff and volunteers will thereafter go to the Oyster Inn at Connel for a Christmas meal.

Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas and New Year!

Alison Chadwick, Secretary,
Friends of the MacDougall Collection