We had our six-monthly meeting with the HLF in Birmingham today to update them on our progress across the whole
project. Between the 5 of us (Richard, Cate, Shaun, Rachel and I), we managed
to keep talking for 3 hours! I’m not sure they were very impressed with that,
but they were certainly impressed with all the work done to date, all the
connections we’ve made and the overall progress of the project.
Summing up to the HLF about what I’ve been doing, I said it
feels like I’ve been planting lots of seeds and they’ll get watered and fed,
and we’ll start to see them growing over the coming months. Not everything will
come to full fruition I shouldn’t imagine, but we’ll no doubt be doing some more planting in the new year.
I realise that what I’m trying to get away from is the concept
of straightforward presentation, by which I mean putting things on display for
visitors to just view, which tends to be the traditional approach for NT
properties, museums and galleries. This different approach is already in
evidence at Croome, albeit in a limited way – in the room with the 80s bar –
but the scope for wider implementation is very broad.
