QVMAG REVEIW REPORT

CITY of LAUNCESTON REPORT: QVMAG REVIEW CLICK HERE

QVMAG REVIEW 

The report makes seven recommendations following a relatively brief period of review. In essence the report acknowledges a need for change. Nonetheless, within it, and its recommendations, there is a great deal invested in the status quo. 

Moreover, despite an implied and longstanding acknowledgement for a need to change, the telegraphed ‘change’ runs the risk of further embedding the institution in the City of Launceston’s operational paradigm – and potentially counterproductively. 

For instance, any alternative to the ‘Cost Centre Paradigm’ the institution currently operates within doesn’t seem to have been given much attention. It seems to offer little in the way of preparation for the kinds of operational and entrepreneurial change that the 'musingplaces' it is projected that it should network with are currently embracing and facing, and are bound to continue to face. 

The ‘change investment’ seems to be in the kinds of operational growth that has led to the QVMAG’s current precarious sustainability. That is projected growth with the need to fund it via increased imposts on the current funding sources.

However, with that said the report does open the door that might well enable the kind of change that would allow the QVMAG to become a 21st C institution able to take its place within a national, potentially international, network of musingplaces. 

The news that Hobart's MONA is now acknowledged as the 10th most significant international ‘museum and tourism destinations’, and that ahead of MoMA New York and Tate Modern London must give encouragement to the proposition that a reimagined QVMAG can actually deliver on both its promise and potential. 

As a reinforcement to that proposition it is worth noting that a Sydney based ‘arts entrepreneur’ is about to outspend David Walsh’s spend on MONA and invest $32 million operation in a Sydney. Indeed, it is one step closer to being built with the City of Sydney set to approve the $32 million gallery and performance space in Chippendale. Read-more here:  

Taken in their totality the QVMAG recommendations do not seem to offer a trigger for implementation in the near or immediate future. To overcome this there would seem to be two options towards progressing the kinds of change flagged in the report, and that the QVMAG needs to embrace, in order to deliver on its promise and potential. 

Alternative 1:  Immediately appoint a multi member Commission or Commissioner with the authority to: 

1. Review the QVMAG’s Strategic Plan and determine an interim Strategic Plan and a ‘Business Plan’ for the immediate term;
2. Review and determine the QVMAG's operational budget and funding structure;
3. Review and determine QVMAG policy sets in the context contemporaneous imperatives in the field; 
4. Copt a network expert ‘citizen’ advisors towards achieving the above and other tasks determined by Council; 
5. Review and determine the QVMAG’s operational model and administrative structure relative to funding sources and opportunities; 
6. Establish network links with the governing bodies of other musingplace and research institutions in the Tamar/Esk region,Tasmania, nationally and where appropriate internationally; 
7. Facilitate the instigation of a QVMAG Reform Conference that draws upon the QVMAG's Community of Ownership and Interest in the widest context;
8. Generally establish the foundations for a reinvigorated institution that is able to change and meet the social, cultural and economic changes facing kindred institutions in future decades; and
9. That is provided with administrative and secretarial support from within the QVMAG. 

Alternative 2: Council, on an interim basis, immediately meet at least monthly as QVMAG Trustees in the way it does when meets as a “Planning Authority” to: 

1. Review the QVMAG’s Strategic Plan and determine an interim Strategic Plan and a ‘Business Plan’ for the immediate term;
2. Review and determine the QVMAG's operational budget and funding structure; 
3. Copt a network 'expert citizen’ advisors towards achieving the above and other tasks determined by Council operating as QVMAG Trustees; 
4. Review and determine the QVMAG’s operational model relative to funding opportunities; and 
5. Proactively fulfil the required policy determination function until a new QVMAG governance paradigm is settled upon in consultation with funding agencies in concert with the institution’s Community of Ownership and Interest.