You Talked, We Listened….now let’s go again!
2025-26 Membership and Training Needs Survey
The NI Museums Council is committed to supporting the museum sector in Northern Ireland and working for the benefit of their members. This survey focuses on your experiences as an individual member or as part of the team of an organisational member during 2025-26.
Your answers will help them to review what they have done and plan how they can go forward in the coming years to continue to serve the NI museums sector.
You can complete the 2025-26 Survey Online or fill in a Word document Members and Training survey 2025-26 and return to info@nimc.co.uk
Deadline to complete: 30th January 2026
What You Told Them Last Time
Last year they asked you to pick your top three priorities for NIMC to work on, these were:
- Advocacy. (82%)
- Community Engagement. (57%)
- Collections Management Support.(47%)
Additional requests:
- You want to hear what other museums are doing.
- You want to visit other museums.
- Cross border opportunities.
- You want them to visit you.
They asked what training you would like to receive next, the most common responses were:
- Children’s engagement and education based training.
- Collections Management.
- Collections Care and Storage.
- Autism Awareness
- Grants and Funding
- Event Management
- More in person sessions to allow for networking.
What We Did
Advocacy:
NIMC used the data you provided in Museum Trends to campaign for over £120,000 in grants to support NI museums from the Department for Communities (DfC). They have also met with DfC officials to advocate on your behalf for the new Museums Policy and Programme for Government.
They also now represent you through Rep and Stakeholder positions within the Group for Education in Museums, the Museums Association, the Art Fund ‘Going Places’ Advisory Panel and our Director, Heather McGuicken, has been elected to sit on the IMA Board to represent the interests of NI museums.
Community Engagement
- Provided online and in person events looking at engaging with children, education and outreach.
- Provided an in person study trip focused on LGBTQ+ inclusion in interpretation.
- Funded two launch events for Our Museum book projects.
- Collaborated with Scouts NI to roll out the Challenge Award across NI museums.
Collections Management Support
- Provided online and in person training events focused on collections.
- Provided free webinars on MDS, digital sustainability and threats to collections.
- Provided grant programmes aimed at current collections and collecting for the future.
Training:
- Partnered with Kids in Museums to provide webinar on Creating a Family Friendly Museums on a budget
- Partnered with IMA to deliver the Education and Outreach Forum in Dublin.
- Partnered with ICON NI and ICRI to host Heritage Emergencies Study Day at Hillsborough Castle with case studies and practical advice.
- Digital and Museums webinar.
- Early Years and Museums webinar featuring research and case studies from across UK, including the Mini Wonders project from NI.
- Study trip Hillsborough Castle exploring LGBTQ+ histories and background to the Hillsborough Castle LGBTQ+ Tour.
- Balancing Preservation and Access webinar looking at identifying threats to collections featuring case studies from UK, including NI.
- Introduction to Hazards in Collections training in Belfast including an exploration of the NI War Memorial stores.
- Funding webinar featuring presentations on cross border funding.
- Partnership with IMA to provide reduced fees to IMA Autumn Symposium for NIMC members.
- Collections Trust training focused on Location and Movement Control, Acquisitions, Accessioning and Object Entry.
- Intangible Cultural Heritage project webinar.
- Martyn’s Law training covering events.
- NIMC Museum Forum featuring case studies from NI museums and a new delegate networking session.
Things they are still working on:
- Advocacy – they continue to meet officials and will use the information you provide us to say what the sector needs.
- Communication – last year some survey responses asked for things that they already provide indicating that communication was the real problem. They continue to explore how we communicate our opportunities the work they do.
- Visits – you may have been visited by their Director or Development Officer this year but they are keen to see more of you and the work that you are doing! Please reach out to them with any new events, programmes or queries you may have.
- Reaching all members of the organisation – last year they received no surveys from staff within front of house, operations, marketing, security, conservation or volunteering meaning they are missing vital voices from the sector and cannot meet their needs. They continue to investigate how we can address this.
