At the beginning of 2023, the major exhibition on which the Trustees had been working on was being evaluated. Issues such as ‘Long Covid’ continued to affect the smooth running of the Friends’ usual full programme of activities and it proved impossible to plan a full programme for the whole year. Several of the projected events had to be rescheduled due to the presenters testing positive for the experiencing health issues, sometimes at the last minute.

Considerable efforts were made to maintain contact with our members and the decision was made to pause the quarterly newsletter was maintained and keep our members up to date by regular e-mails- often weekly and by hard copy mailings to the small number of our members who were not connected to the internet. That this was appreciated is instanced by those receiving postal communication decided on their own initiative to post second class stamps to the membership officer as they were aware of the cost of keeping them up to date with the changing events programme. 

A full programme of events was delivered with face-to-face talks being delivered by an excellent list of speakers, including high profile authors and artists, as well as local historians. The visits programme was expanded, with Wentworth Woodhouse, Gomde Buddhist Monastery and the city centre Sikh Gurdwara being highlights of the programme. The Friends also began a series of practical workshops focussing on Chinese culture. The Highlight of the programme was undoubtedly the 50th Conference of the British Association of Friends of Museums, held in the Mansion House in Doncaster.

Fundraising continued, as did our partnership work with other organisations and planning for future acquisitions and support to the Doncaster museums.
 

Fundraising 

Our annual Christmas raffle was a great success, thanks to the team led by our fundraising officer Helen Stirland and team and raised over £1000. We are very grateful to the organisations and individuals who donated prizes and to our members and their friends who bought tickets.

The Albert Houthuesen Trust, with whom the Trustees had worked closely in conjunction with the exhibition already mentioned, very kindly donated five drawings of cats which meant we were able to repeat the success of the Blind Auction Fundraiser launched last year. All the drawings attracted very impressive bids and were purchased by members of the Friends. Members indicated that they had been attracted by the drawings but more importantly, had wanted to support the work of the Friends in supporting Heritage Doncaster. The auction raised a total of £1410 which was banked the financial year 23-24. January 2024 saw the launch of the next Blind Auction which will feature works by Neil MacGregor, Curator of Fine Art at the Museum, Melanie Bellis RE and David Curtiss ROI RSMA. The Trustees are grateful for their generosity in donating works.

The final 100% funding of membership of the Contemporary Arts Society was paid in 2023 and an agreement for this cost to be made part of core funding of Heritage Doncaster with additional support from The Friends.

The final tranche was approved from the grant allocated by the Tesco ‘Bags of Help Scheme’ in 2018. The final payment was agreed and £1000 paid into the bank in the f financial year.

We are grateful to our members for their subscriptions, and many very helpfully add a donation on which we can claim Gift Aid.
 

Acquisitions

The Friends continued to reserve £1000 towards the purchase of an 18th century Sprotborough estate map.  DMBC had agreed to contribute, and an application to The Pilgrim Trust has been successful.

The Friends were requested by Peter Robinson, Assistant Manager (Human History) to provide matched funding which would enable him to approach a series of Grant Making bodies which would enable a Dark Ages cloak pin to enter the collection. This was agreed and the applications were successful.

The Friends continuing support of membership of the Contemporary Arts Society saw CAS gift a self portrait by the artist Lucy Jones. The Trustees were pleased that this acquisition expands the number of women artists represented in the collection. In addition, since the artist has cerebral palsy, it was good to see disability represented also in the collection.

The Friends commissioned a portrait of Ben Parkinson MBE by David Curtiss ROI RSMA after several generous donations were received from local sources. The portrait was completed just after the end of this financial year and a full report will be included in next year’s report.

Support for Education

The Friends are supporting informal art sessions held in the Gallery most Saturdays throughout the year. They are doing this by funding the purchase of specialist materials , such as watercolour paper and pastel paper for use by participants.

Talks and Events 

The programme of events was wide and varied and ran throughout the year.

Peter Robinson, our archaeology specialist gave a talk on ‘The Norton Hoard’ over 1000 Roman coins whose acquisition was part funded by the Friends, Tim Craven, for many years Head of Fine Art at Southampton Art Gallery gave a talk on ‘War Artists’ and members were invited to the launch of Henry Moore ‘Drawing in the Dark’. The Friends part funded the costs of the launch. We hosted a talk by the author of ‘Drawing in the Dark’ and Neil McGregor organised a series of late-night tours of the exhibition. Members were also invited to the preview of the exhibition of the work of Janet Samson.

Talks included associated with the BAFM Conference included Chris Barron of the Doncaster Grammar School Railway Collection, Professor Joann Fletcher, and Dr Dean Lomax. We welcomed back Peter Robinson who explained the significance of the Fishlake Ring, a medieval ring whose acquisition was part funded by The Friends.

Our members were kindly invited to the launch of the annual exhibition of Doncaster Art Club.

Our visits programme included a behind the scenes visit to Doncaster Archives, Wentworth Woodhouse, Gomde Buddhist Monastery, Sri Guru Kalgithar and the first of two visits to King Asia Food Factory.  

The Christmas social event was well received by members and organised by a team led by the Treasurer, Christine Djezzar. In the early months of 2024, The Friends organised two workshops on Chinese Calligraphy with artist Olivia Pang as well as a talk on German Renaissance architecture, delivered by our Chair.

Infrastructure Developments

We were very pleased to welcome a new trustee Nathan Turnbull at our AGM. Nathan has agreed to work on our digital media presence and design a new website.

Membership 

We are delighted that we have managed to maintain our membership numbers during this year although we have had several members who have passed away.

Partnership Work

 We are a member of the Doncaster Community Advisory Panel, and we continue as very active members of the British Association of the Friends of Museums (BAFM), and our Chair continues as their Vice Chair and has become the editor of the BAFM Journal which is distributed nationally twice a year. Copies of this publication are distributed digitally to our members and hard copies to those who require them.    The 50th BAFM National Conference and AGM was held in Doncaster on 30th September 2023.

Communication

The newsletters have been replaced by regular communication by the Membership Officer by e-mail, supplemented by the hard copies for those members who require them. This is to reflect the large amount of information which needs to be distributed and also to give members the opportunity to indicate their attendance at events so we can manage numbers as a precautionary measure to avoid exceeding the rules associated with room hire.

Our Chair also put regular articles in the Thorne Times and the Tickhill Today and Bawtry Today newsletters to promote our work.

Financial  Review

We are very grateful to our members both for their subscriptions and their very generous donations.  

Our Fundraising Team, led by Helen Stirland, has continued its success in a raffle and blind auction and we very much appreciate their efforts.

Our contributions to Heritage Doncaster this year have continued to respond to requests as well as funds required to deliver our events programme.

We finished the year with a healthy bank balance, but the Trustees are aware of the need to maintain a contingency budget to respond to unexpected calls on our funds.

David Adgar FRSA

Chair The Friends of the Doncaster Museums, Charitable Incorporated Organisation Number 1189117