Agenda For A Meeting Of The Council

Vacancy for a Director The Attingham Summer School

The Attingham Trust is seeking to appoint a new Director in August 2016 to prepare for the Attingham Summer School 2017. The candidate will succeed Dr Andrew Moore who has held the position since 2011.

Background

Founded in 1952, The Attingham Trust is a registered educational charitable trust set up to study historic houses and their collections. Its courses – up to five per annum - have enjoyed outstanding success and are highly regarded by museums, universities and historic preservation societies throughout the world. The Attingham Summer School is the longest running of the three main residential courses which include The Attingham Study Programme and Royal Collection Studies (www.attinghamtrust.org).

The Summer School is held each July and runs for 18 days in three different regions in the UK. It allows unrivalled opportunities to examine the architectural and social history of approximately 25 country houses with their gardens and landscape settings; to study the historic interiors and fine and decorative art collections; and to stimulate debate on all matters that relate to their care, presentation and conservation.

48 members from all over the world attend the residential course, many of them supported by scholarships funded by The Attingham Trust, The American Friends of Attingham and other institutions and charitable foundations. In recent years scholars have come from the USA, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Croatia, China, Russia, Turkey, India, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand. Their professional backgrounds range from curatorship and conservation to teaching, research, development, marketing and management in the heritage sectors.

Job Description

The Director of the Summer School is a part-time position. Ideally the candidate

Registered as an Educational Charitable Trust No 262819 www.attinghamtrust.org

should have an established freelance portfolio or an academic position that allows additional time for independent consultancy work. The preferred candidate should have a developed interest in the British country house, from the point of view of architecture, paintings or the decorative arts. He /she should enjoy teaching at post- graduate level and have the ability to lead an international group of museum curators, architects, conservators and other professionals from the heritage sector who attend the annual programme. They should also have the ability to help recruit applicants for the course and have the necessary social skills, stamina, efficiency, and sense of humour in carrying out what is a demanding but very rewarding task.

The director works as part of a team with a co-director and administrator in planning the course throughout the year and attending the full programme in July. The job involves devising the programme, selecting properties to be studied, engaging relevant tutors and lecturers to bring additional expertise, and preparing all relevant supporting academic material. Further back-up is given by the Attingham executive committee, trustees and advisory council.

The Director of the Summer School is employed on a consultancy basis. The hours are flexible and not easy to calculate as some parts of the year are busier than others. As a rough guideline, the time involved averages out at around 1.5 days a week. Time allocation will be discussed further at interview when the annual fee will be confirmed.

To apply, please e-mail a CV and covering letter to Rita Grudzień, [email protected] by 18th March 2016. Interviews will take place in London after Easter. If you would like to discuss the position on the phone, please contact either Annabel Westman (Attingham Trust executive director) or Elizabeth Jamieson (Summer School co-director) ([email protected] / [email protected])

The successful candidate will be expected to spend a number of days attending the 2016 Summer School which will be held from 30th June – 17th July in Sussex, Derbyshire and Yorkshire.

Registered as an Educational Charitable Trust No 262819 www.attinghamtrust.org