Why did your organisation choose to be part of the cohort?

We wanted to enhance our offer for local families. They sometimes feel that we are not a place for them because we attract a lot of enthusiasts, senior citizens and tourists.

We also wanted our outside space to be more attractive and intuitive. Some visitors pass us by on the way to our partner museum or even think we are a shop linked to our other partner that operates the heritage railway.

What was your organisation’s approach to family provision before the cohort?

Our family provision has been improved over the past four years with the introduction of three ‘stations’ for handling objects, dressing up and colouring. Limited by space, we were struggling to come up with additional ideas to enhance our offer. The management committee and front of house staff were open to new ideas.

What did you achieve as a result of the cohort?

  • Standardised ‘welcome’ for families created with feedback from front of house staff
  • Improved signage including a poster board of images outside the museum showing what is inside
  • ‘Visit Again’ vouchers given to children who visit with their school
  • New trail for Under 5s using coloured teddy bears
  • Expanded dressing up box
  • Improved garden area outside the museum including bunting, bird feeders and herb garden
  • New visual story for the website

We are in the early stages of creating a Youth Forum.

In focus: Communicating with families

We wanted to improve our communication with families to encourage first and repeat visits and to let them know what we offer. Working with our curator, we planned a series of images for a poster board to be sited adjacent to the museum entrance to show what you can see inside. We also added the word ‘museum’ to it as an extra clue!

Additionally, every child and accompanying adult who comes to us with their school receives a ‘Visit Again’ voucher, which allows a one off, free entry visit for up to six people.

We have started to work with our social media and website volunteers to appear more family friendly, moving slightly away from showing solely school visits to more family groups.

Budget

The total budget was £96 (plus VAT).

We managed to keep the budget quite low. Our curator designed our new exterior poster and we only paid for it to be printed.

Everything else has been ‘people hours’ and using everyday resources, such as printing ink and laminating pouches. Our new dressing up items were free – one staff member has grown-up children and she donated old fancy dress clothes for our project.

What was your organisation’s approach to families after the cohort?

The cohort has enabled us to improve our existing offer for families, while also making longer term plans to ensure it remains embedded in our everyday operation. It has also made us start to think in different ways about how we contact families, interact with them and appeal to them. We’ve discussed everything from leaflet drops, advertising and working with the local authority to get leaflets in school book bags. We have also started to plan more events to tie in with school holidays and, more importantly, plan them months in advance (opposed to our usual weeks in advance) to ensure we have enough time to communicate with families – and hopefully attract them to our site.

Top tips

  • Get the whole team on board and make them aware of what is happening and why.
  • Inject a sense of fun into your offer!
  • Don’t be afraid to introduce new ideas alongside your existing offer for other visitor groups.
  • New ideas don’t always mean big budget.
  • Don’t forget that adults like dressing up too!

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