Sir,
Alderman Peck’s apparent call for an $8 entry fee to the QVMAG in today’s Examiner is somewhat bewildering.
He cannot be serious! If he were to give the idea two minutes of thought, and cast his mind back, he must remember the failure of the past excursion into this territory. He was there!
Numbers dropped last time and the income gained was insufficient to cover the collection cost.
Actually the full cost per visitor now is in excess of what has been reported so far and charging an entry fee is more likely to increase this cost rather than reduce it.
Charging for special exhibitions is something else again. However, the exhibition needs to be special and worthy of critical acclaim.
The old and true marketing adage that goes “the best way to kill an ordinary product is to advertise it” is so so true.
And the best way to kill it stone dead is to charge more than the market will stand and that has been proven true over and over.
This is one dimensional inside-the-box thinking that hopefully it will not get a guernsey if anyone really thinks about it.
Ray Norman
Trevallyn
Friday, March 8, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
Letter to the Editor [QVMAG #2]
I note with interest the letter from Ray Norman (2 March 2013) regarding Deputy Mayor Jeremy Ball’s call for increased State Government support for the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.
I think what Ray is alluding to in an elegant and tactful manner is the proposition that you can’t throw money at a moribund horse and expect it to get up and win a race without some other sort of intervention. As a Launceston ratepayer, I have been concerned for some time at the small dividend that the extensive financial input by the State and the continued funding impost on the ratepayers of Launceston is producing.
We, the ratepayers, (not the Launceston City Council) are the owners of a large and complex organisation with a significant complement of ‘professional’ curators that is a continuing and growing financial impost on us. Where are the outcomes? I don’t see evidence of much scholarship emanating from the place and most of the exhibitions seem to have been sourced from other providers. I stand to be corrected and, indeed, I applaud the recent efforts of the Director in mounting a couple of programs for young people that utilise the resources of the institution.
More money is not the answer. The institution cannot limp along as it is. It is time that it was reviewed thoroughly to define its relevance and purpose. It should then be placed under the control of an independent authority or Board of Trustees to be managed according to plan to ensure that it does provide an appropriate dividend to the community. This can never happened while it has a place in the Council administrative hierarchy that places it on an equal footing with drainage and roads and trustees (the councillors) who have the the time to give the institution only scant attention. Indeed, perhaps it is time to turn the institution over to the State and establish it as an arm of TMAG.
Greg Parkinson
Trevallyn
I think what Ray is alluding to in an elegant and tactful manner is the proposition that you can’t throw money at a moribund horse and expect it to get up and win a race without some other sort of intervention. As a Launceston ratepayer, I have been concerned for some time at the small dividend that the extensive financial input by the State and the continued funding impost on the ratepayers of Launceston is producing.
We, the ratepayers, (not the Launceston City Council) are the owners of a large and complex organisation with a significant complement of ‘professional’ curators that is a continuing and growing financial impost on us. Where are the outcomes? I don’t see evidence of much scholarship emanating from the place and most of the exhibitions seem to have been sourced from other providers. I stand to be corrected and, indeed, I applaud the recent efforts of the Director in mounting a couple of programs for young people that utilise the resources of the institution.
More money is not the answer. The institution cannot limp along as it is. It is time that it was reviewed thoroughly to define its relevance and purpose. It should then be placed under the control of an independent authority or Board of Trustees to be managed according to plan to ensure that it does provide an appropriate dividend to the community. This can never happened while it has a place in the Council administrative hierarchy that places it on an equal footing with drainage and roads and trustees (the councillors) who have the the time to give the institution only scant attention. Indeed, perhaps it is time to turn the institution over to the State and establish it as an arm of TMAG.
Greg Parkinson
Trevallyn
Letter to the Editor [QVMAG]
Appeared in the Examiner March 2 2013
Dear Editor,
In today’s Examiner Alderman Ball called for increased State Government support for the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery and it comes at an interesting time.
Nationally, public funding for cultural institutions is under more intense scrutiny than it has been for decades. State governments elsewhere are looking to, and already have, drastically cut that class of funding rather than increased it.
It was once assumed that there was an automatic guarantee of a cultural dividend that cultural funding was bound to deliver.
It is no longer so simple and past rationales no longer seem to cut it against amplified accountability and sustainability requirements.
There may well be a good case for increasing funding to cultural institutions. However, more and more it will need to be backed up by very good evidence of sustainability and service delivery.
Tasmania is progressively more dependent upon cultural tourism. Likewise, when it comes to the funding of, rather government investment in, cultural institutions there will be increased demands for outcome delivery.
What seems to be needed here is some old-fashioned inside-the-box rationalism backed up by some outside-the-box innovation.
Ray Norman
Trevallyn
Dear Editor,
In today’s Examiner Alderman Ball called for increased State Government support for the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery and it comes at an interesting time.
Nationally, public funding for cultural institutions is under more intense scrutiny than it has been for decades. State governments elsewhere are looking to, and already have, drastically cut that class of funding rather than increased it.
It was once assumed that there was an automatic guarantee of a cultural dividend that cultural funding was bound to deliver.
It is no longer so simple and past rationales no longer seem to cut it against amplified accountability and sustainability requirements.
There may well be a good case for increasing funding to cultural institutions. However, more and more it will need to be backed up by very good evidence of sustainability and service delivery.
Tasmania is progressively more dependent upon cultural tourism. Likewise, when it comes to the funding of, rather government investment in, cultural institutions there will be increased demands for outcome delivery.
What seems to be needed here is some old-fashioned inside-the-box rationalism backed up by some outside-the-box innovation.
Ray Norman
Trevallyn
______________________________________
“Alderman wants an increase in funding Feb. 26, 2013, 1 a.m.
LAUNCESTON Deputy Mayor Jeremy Ball wants the state government to contribute an equal financial share to the council for upkeep of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.
He said the government should be asked to pitch in more than its $1.3 million contribution, given the council's annual $4.2 million contribution would drop by $800,000 over the next five years.
Alderman Ball suggested the council lobbied all three political parties for greater financial assistance leading into the next state election.
The funding agreement will end in June 30, 2014.
Alderman Ball said it was unreasonable that Launceston's 28,000 ratepayers had to carry the weight when the whole Northern region benefited from the facility.”
------ End of Forwarded Message
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