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

We have come a long way since our last newsletter and we are happy to report that the process of documenting the MacDougall Collection has started.

The Management Committee for The MacDougall Project placed advertisements for the two part-time posts at the start of the year in local newspapers and on the internet. We received 32 applications, some from abroad and some with excellent qualifications and museum experience. It was a difficult task to decide on a short-list of seven for interview. A number of the applicants were highly qualified in some aspect of conservation eg. Metals and wood and some had first class outreach skills. The management committee has kept all such applications on file in case there is opportunity in the future to use such skills.

After two days of interviewing and consultation the committee decided to appoint Catherine Gillies as the Collection Manager and Jacqueline Skeldon as the Assistant Collection Manager.

Many friends will be familiar with Catherine, who was a Trustee of The MacDougall Trust and has now resigned to work with the project. She has been a stalwart worker towards realising the aims of the Trust and was pivotal in securing the funding for the MacDougall Project. Catherine brings a broad range of management and outreach skills to the post. Jacqueline Skeldon is from St Andrews and has worked in the museum there and holds various other museum experience. She is currently in the process of moving to Oban.

To keep everyone up to date with how things are progressing, the following is an update from Catherine.

'We can all still barely believe that the MacDougall Collection is finally on its way, with everything in the store, money for the project safely in the bag, and with two part-time members of staff!

First and foremost, introductions are required. I am Catherine Gillies, and have been appointed Collection Manager. I have been involved with the Collection for several years on a voluntary basis, and was a Trustee until this job made it necessary to resign. My particular responsibility will be to guide the project, and develop and undertake the bulk of the outreach work.

My "assistant" is Jacqueline Skeldon from St Andrews, who is only nominally an assistant as she brings a thoroughly useful package of museum qualifications with her, to say nothing of museum experience, and will be hopefully allowing me to assist her as she develops the documentation programme.

One of our first tasks has been simply to talk. Those who know me may say that I capable of a great deal of this, but it has been necessary to introduce Jackie to the whole story of the Collection, and to discuss the best way of taking the re-organisation of the artefacts forward.

I say re-organisation, because now that we have inspected the stores (which are more or less centralised with everything out of temporary storage in the town), the mammoth effort put in by Trustees and volunteers in packing it after Miss MacDougall's death is even more impressive than ever. Despite the apparent chaos at the time, and despite different people working on their own corners, a system was followed. It is not out of place to once again thank you for giving us a huge pile of boxes which are still roughly in theme, all well packed, and - touch wood - in reasonable condition.

In amongst all the talking, we have chosen a documentation software package which we believe will set the Collection up in the most professional and user-friendly way possible. ADLIB was recently selected by the National Museum of Scotland as their new system, at the same time as being pounced on by a number of other significant centres - Dundee and Orkney to name but two. We will be the first users in Argyll and Bute, and will be using the budget package, which is still very extensive, called ADLIB BASIS. Jackie left glorious May sunshine here to travel to cloudy Swindon in Wiltshire for two days of head-down training at the ADLIB headquarters, and will tell you all about it in the next newsletter - or look on the website.

In Jackie's absence (and she is a shadowy figure at the moment, between training and flitting to a new flat in Oban), I am developing courses for schools, making contact with a view to booking schools for next year, and beginning to discuss an outreach programme for the elderly with providers of their care; Eadar Glynn has already put down a marker.

On Jackie's return we will go full swing into a three month pilot project on documentation. Choosing one or two themes - for example lighting, we will accession the items as if for real, as a means of trying out the software programme. We aim to get through 375 objects over that time, digitally photographing each one, and getting them installed on the computer in such a way that we can search and find from all sorts of angles. At the end of the three months, a documentation expert is probably going to come and inspect our efforts, and no doubt tweak where necessary. This pilot project will tell us several things - how long the process takes, so that we can set realistic targets; how many people may be needed to complete the Collection, so that we can begin to develop a volunteer programme; and most complicated of all, how best to work through the Collection - can it be done in themes without leaving gaps, or will it have to be a random process? That is definitely our biggest challenge.

However often dread sets in as we survey boxes marked "heavy / ironwork" perched above our heads (neither of which reaches above 5' 1"), we are very excited by the challenge. Even though Jackie has only just met the Collection, and us, she is as excited as we are to be getting this all moving at long last. There is already a sense of momentum. We have had our first visit - a handful of Rockfield School pupils with some artefacts as part of their 125th anniversary celebrations. We are brimming with ideas for getting the Collection into the community, and hope to be able to buy a really good demountable display case to take artefacts out safely and securely.

Busy - yes, but always happy to put the kettle on for visitors and give people a glimpse of the task in hand. Friends of the MacDougall Collection will be especially welcome - do come and see us, but be sure to book first as our hours are extremely flexible (that means erratic). Our phone number is 01631 570550. So that is the story so far - much to do, and the wonderful luxury of a three year project to do it in. Exciting times for the MacDougall Collection.'

Volunteers to fund-raise Once some of the artefacts are 'themed' into displays, we will be calling on volunteers as part of our on-going fund-raising programme. More details will follow later in the year as the pilot project comes to fruition.

Meantime, anyone wishing further information or Friends leaflets, should telephone Alison Chadwick on 01631 565213. Our website is also continually being updated and can be accessed on www.friends-macdougall.co.uk