Friends of The MacDougall Collection
Scottish Registered Charity No. SCO 31934 Website www.friends-macdougall.co.uk

A very happy New Year to all Friends and we hope it will be a healthy and prosperous one for everyone.

Work on documenting the MacDougall Collection Project is progressing. The band of willing volunteer help is growing and we have to offer our thanks to those who give up their time during the week to come and help. During the work it has been discovered that there could be many more items not specifically documented in Miss MacDougall's inventories raising the number of items in the whole collection significantly.

With this in mind it has been decided to apply for further funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to increase staffing time on the project. It is proposed to ask for an extension of hours for Jackie Skeldon who is in charge of documentation and to create a new post for a documentation assistant.
Project Manager Catherine Gillies is currently completing the grant application form and progress on this will be reported in the next newsletter.
Meantime, a re-appraisal of the first nine months of the project has shaken down the roles of Catherine and Jackie, and new titles now reflect their more specific jobs.
Catherine is now the Project Manager and Outreach Manager with Jackie being the Collection Manager.

DOCUMENTATION
The Lighting and Schools section of the Collection has now been completed. The Schools section was time-consuming due to the number of books to be cleaned and catalogued - jobs ably carried out by volunteers.

In September Tuula Pardoe, textile conservator with the National Museums of Scotland, came to Oban specifically to look at textile objects in the collection. She gave a reassurance about the condition of the textiles and a great deal of information on packing and storage - the frontline of textile conservation.
Jackie spent some time at this stage getting the stores into readiness for receiving boxes: marking shelves, planning storage, and generally developing a system which will be easily worked.
As part of the work on the stores, Catherine undertook the cleaning and cataloguing of the sewing machines.

From schools, Jackie and her growing team of volunteers moved on to textiles, and particularly Lace. Volunteer Sue Baker is particularly interested in textiles and along with fellow volounteers Elsa Bell and Betty Paterson undertook some research into lace in order to attempt to describe the lace samples accurately - a real problem, as it is such a specialist field. Betty then found, and organised a visit from, a lace specialist in Glasgow shortly before Christmas. Jean Leader gave invaluable help and advice to Jackie and the textile team and it is hoped she will stay in touch.

It was in working through the Lace that the problem of missing entries was revealed. Although only half a dozen pieces were listed in the inventories there turned out to be 100 small pieces of lace catalogued. The continuing situation of missing entries in the inventories has led to major concerns about how large the Collection will eventually prove to be. The original estimate of 3,000 objects is now clearly a gross underestimate.

The purpose of doing Lighting, then Schools and then a Textile group was to enable Jackie and Catherine to assess as wide a range of materials as possible in terms of conservation and conditions of storage. These three sections addressed metal, glass, organic materials, leather, horn, wood, paper and books, ceramic, rubber and various types of textiles.

OUTREACH WORK
The outreach work in schools has been an unqualified success with excellent feedback from the visits. Catherine has a full programme until the summer holidays.
The newly organised stores proved their worth when a request came in from a school wanting an impromptu visit to tie in with a project on Lighting. It was the first test of the ADLIB computer software and storage system, and it was quick and easy to identify, locate and source a wide range of objects from within the store.

The 6-week block scheduled for work with the elderly took place at the end of last year and Catherine and a volunteer went to run a project in Eader Glinn Residential Home in Oban. The project used objects in themes, for example butter making or knitting, to spark reminiscences with a group of residents who were very responsive throughout. The project culminated in a ceilidh with three local musicians, accompanied by a specially made dumpling and home made shortbread - traditional highland Christmas fare.

ANTIQUES ROAD SHOW
The MacDougall Collection had a major boost on November 24th when the Antiques Roadshow was screened and The Collection played a major part in the show - Unfortunately, producers reduced Jackie's role to not so much a walk on part as a 'standing behind Catherine' role, which was a shame.

However it was excellent publicity and did more to raise the profile of the Collection in Oban and elsewhere than anything else could ever have done. It has led to repeated questions about when the Collection will be open to the public.
As Catherine points out this is both frustrating but also useful ammunition for when the Trust moves into a position of applying for funding for displays.

The programme also led to a rash of calls to the local library from far-flung viewers wanting more information about The MacDougall Project, and has prompted a fascinating correspondence with a specialist in pack-saddles who lived in the Midlands. She was delighted when her tentative enquiry about whether we had any material was met with a fat excerpt from Miss MacDougall's inventory about several items. Good for Miss Hope!
But the main interest surrounded the Shetland dresses which were shown on the Roadshow. Shetland Museum was flooded with calls asking if they could get them for display, and the project team is delighted to offer them a loan of the dresses for an exhibition in Summer 2003. Catherine will deliver them by hand in March or April, accompanied by the Chair of the Trust, Sona Campbell.
Other Shetland knitted items will also be taken for assessment and an 'information session' with the experts, and this will be an ideal opportunity to look at Shetland Muesum's new Accessible Store.

STORAGE
Storage conditions are an ever-growing problem - increasing in importance as more is learned about the Collection and its needs. Looking to the future, it is becoming clear that a new, purpose-built store is vital to the future of the Collection.
At a management meeting at the end of last year it was agreed that Catherine should research the sustainability of Accessible Stores elsewhere and work with Les Stewart of the management team to try and draw up a blueprint for the Collection's needs.
It is intended to combine with Oban War and Peace and Argyll and Bute Council, to develop a store which will meet all the conservation needs of Oban for the foreseeable future, enabling the Oban Collection (primarily archaeological) to 'come home' from its current place of storage in Campbeltown. However, the sustainability of such a store, given that the Collection is not a museum with any revenue raising options, is a serious problem.

CHEESE AND WINE AND SLIDE PRESENTATION
A fund-raising evening is to be held on February 28 2003 at 7.30pm in the Studio Theatre in the Corran Halls, Oban. This will take the form of a Cheese and Wine preceded by a slide presentation of some of the Collection given by Catherine Gillies, Project Manager. It is hoped that as many Friends as possible will come along to support the evening ( as well as encouraging their own 'friends' to come along!)
Tickets will be £6 each with Friends £4 per head. There will be soft drinks available for those who do not drink wine as well as the Studio Bar for those who prefer spirits. Tickets can be booked through Oban Music and Books in George Street or by filling in and returning the form at the foot of the page.
This will give a chance for everyone to meet and hear the latest progress on work and we hope it will be an enjoyable social evening.
There will also be a quiz prepared by Elsa Bell and Betty Patterson, two Friends and project volunteers and we are very grateful for all their hard work. These will be £1 each and will contribute to the ongoing fund-raising to help support The MacDougall Collection Project. Quizes can be taken away and posted or handed in later - make sure you take one away with you!
A garden visit is scheduled for the Spring and news of this will be circulated later. Meanwhile if you have any good ideas for fund-raising or any items you would like to include in the next newsletter please send to Alison Chadwick, secretary, The Friends of The MacDougall Collection, Ganavan House, Ganavan, Oban, Argyll. PA34 5TU.