@LondonMusDev E-update for London’s Museums – 12 October 2020 The government is expected to make an announcement later today (Monday 12 October) about a new three-tier alert system for local lockdowns in England. The system is expected to impose three different tiers of lockdown levels, depending on the number of cases per 100,000 of population. Do keep an eye out for this announcement, which may impact your organisation depending on the alert level for your organisation’s local area. On the 24 September, new Covid-19 measures took effect in England. You can find further information about the new measures on the gov.uk website, and how they will impact your organisation, including updates on face coverings, Test and Trace, and new rules for businesses selling food. It is important that your organisation is fully up to date with these changes and you can find an overview on a number of the new measures below. The NMDC has updated their Good Practice Guidelines to reflect many of the recent changes which have taken place in September, you can find further information about this guidance and the AIM and Museum Development Network’s accompanying checklist below. The situation may change as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the UK, so it is important to keep an eye on the news and the Gov.uk website for the latest information. The government has announced information on the new Job Support Scheme, which will replace the current Furlough Scheme. Unlike the furlough scheme (which ends on 31 October), this is designed to "support only viable jobs" as opposed to jobs that currently exist because the government is continuing to subsidise the wages. Under the scheme, the government will subsidise the pay of employees who are working fewer than normal hours due to lower demand. For the hours employees can't work, the government and the employer will each cover one third of the lost pay. The scheme will run for six months, starting on November 01. You can find more information about the new scheme on the Gov.uk website and below. Arts Council England has announced the recipients of the first round of the Culture Recovery Fund, an investment of £257 million in 1,385 venues, theatres, museums and cultural organisations. We at London Museum Development would like to offer our congratulations to the London museums who were successful in their applications, Brunel Museum, Charles Dickens Museum, Florence Nightingale Museum Trust, Garden Museum, Headstone Manor & Museum, Jewish Museum London, Museum of the Order of St John, Musical Museum, Old Operating Theatre Museum and the Postal Museum. You can find further information on ACE’s website. Meanwhile, we at London Museum Development have announced the recipients of our Museums Re-Opening and Art Fund supported Museums Recovery Grants programmes. Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Brent Museum and Archives, Dr Johnson’s House, Estorick Collection of Modern Art, Florence Nightingale Museum, The Freud Museum and The Society of Antiquaries of London have been awarded Museums Re-Opening Grants. This will help them to ensure that appropriate measures, equipment and training are in place for a safe re-opening. Five museums were successful in applications to the Museums Recovery Grants. The Old Operating Theatre, The Freud Museum, Association of Anaesthetists Heritage Centre, Kingston Museum Service and Bruce Castle Museum will be supported to analyse and assess their current position and to identify priorities for activity to support post Covid recovery through a short, facilitated self-assessment process. Each museum will receive a grant to help them to address priorities identified through the programme. You can find further details about the programmes on our website. Arts Council England’s relaunched National Lottery Project Grants have been designed to help fund independent organisations, creative practitioners and freelancers as quickly as possible. New supplementary guidance for museums can be found on their website. From 5 October until March 2021, NPOs will be eligible to apply to National Lottery Project Grants for activities over £15,000. Further details about the National Lottery Project Grants can be found below. You can also find a recording of the refresher session on Project Grants, delivered by ACE’s Sue Barnard, Senior Relationship Manager and Mirka Kotulicova, Relationship Manager, Museums, on our YouTube channel. The final round of the Art Fund's ‘Respond and Reimagine grants’ closes today. These grants aim to help museums, galleries and cultural organisations respond to immediate challenges connected to the Covid-19 crisis, and offer support to adapt and reimagine ways of working for the future. The Respond and Reimagine grants offer funding from £10,000 to £50,000. The third and final round has a deadline of today, Monday 12 October, at 5:30pm. For further information about these grants, including who can apply and what they will fund, please visit their website. The fifth round of the Weston Loan Programme is now open for applications. The programme provides funding and training for regional museums and galleries to secure important strategic loans from major UK collections. A fund of between £5,000-£25,000 is available. Further information can be found on the Art Fund website. Applications deadline is 6 November 2020. AIM has worked with the national Museum Development Network to produce an accompanying checklist to the museum reopening guidance, published by the National Museum Directors’ Council (NMDC) with support from DCMS and the Museums and Galleries Working Group. You can find the Guidance, and the Checklist, on AIM’s website here. If you would like help or advice with reopening, do contact your MDO. The Government has also clarified how organisations are expected to support the NHS Test and Trace. You can find further information on Test and Trace on the Gov.uk website. We have added a number of new training session recordings to our YouTube channel. These include ‘Creating a digital 360 tour of your museum’, ‘Planning for Alternative Futures’, ‘Making a basic digital interactive’, ‘Video Editing’ and a series of training sessions on using social media. You can also get the code for the ‘Planning for the future of volunteer management’ training session by emailing us directly and letting us know which organisation you work for. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and to click the notification button to be notified of when we release new videos. You can also find a recording of the ‘Planning for Reopening’ session, led by Ben Melham and the Creating a Family Friendly 2 Environment. You can find more information about our upcoming online training sessions below. We will continue to offer one-to-one advice to museums from their local MDO and specialists on Organisational Health, Audiences, Digital Technologies and Collections. You can find the support you need on this page. 1. Sector News: Covid-19 measures; Job Support Scheme; Face coverings in museums; NHS Test and Trace QR Codes; VAT reduction; How have London's museums been doing; All-Parliamentary Group for Museums; Culture Recovery Fund; AIM launches inequalities response and action plan; Major new research into future of central London; Networking event for London Museum and Archive Managers; Dowden letter on contested heritage; V&A and Smithsonian abandon plan to jointly curate gallery; EU Exit; Business interruption claims; Re-Opening and Museums Recovery Grants recipients; Museum Association’s Redundancy Hub; Guidance on reopening museums; Culture at Risk; DCMS Covid-19 bulletin 2. Funding and Funding Support: National Lottery Project Grants; Weston Loan Programme; Weston Culture Fund; Respond and reimagine grants; Small Project Grants; Henry Moore Foundation grants programme; Businesses affected by local lockdowns; Community Infrastructure Levy Neighbourhood Fund; National Lottery Community Fund; ‘Pay it Forward’ platform; Trusts and Foundations for London Museums resource 3. Training, advice and resources: Fundraising for non-Fundraising Professionals; Networking and forming partnerships online; Online Safeguarding; GDPR and Data Protection in a Changed World; Podcasting for museums: what, why, how; Rights Management for a Changed World; Museum and archive programming for a new normal; Impact Reporting for Museum and Archive Managers; Getting your collection online for zilch; Resources for planning for post Covid re-opening; Equality Diversity and Inclusion Resources; Disposals procedures and Accreditation; Space for Learning: Covid Secure guidance; EMBED Reopening Recommendation; Ticketing resource; ACE Resources on Government and Wider Support; ICOM’s safety guidance for museums coming out of lockdown 4. Job Vacancies: Heritage Assistant; The London Museums Group is recruiting a Treasurer 5. Heritage in Lockdown: Free Lunchtime Heritage Tours; When Brands Take A Stand 1. Sector News (to top) Covid-19 measures The government announced new Covid-19 measures, which took effect on Thursday 24 September. You can find further information about the new measures on the gov.uk website, including updates on face coverings, Test and Trace, and new rules 3 for businesses selling food. The NMDC has updated their Good Practice Guidelines to reflect many of the recent changes which have taken place in September, you can find further information about this guidance and the AIM and Museum Development Network’s accompanying checklist below. The government’s expectation is that the new measures announced in recent weeks will need to remain in place until March 2021. However the situation may change as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the UK, so it is important to keep an eye on the news and the Gov.uk website for the latest information. You can find further information about the new measures and updates since 24 September below. Job Support Scheme On the 24 September, the government announced the new Job Support Scheme, which will take the place of the Furlough Scheme when it ends on October 31.