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Dear Colleagues,
As you probably know, the European Museum of the Year Award scheme was launched in 1977 by Kenneth Hudson and John Letts under the auspices of the Council of Europe, with the aim of recognising excellence in the European museum scene and to encourage innovative processes in a world which was then still basically focussed on collections rather than on their use for the benefit of society.
It was an adventurous initiative, with the founders generously investing their prestige and their expertise, together with a lot of time and energies for something never experienced before at the European scale. During the following years EMYA and the Council of Europe Museum Prize have been growing mainly thanks to the following formula: a great deal of time and energies offered by the EMYA Trustees, the EMYA Judging Committee members, the EMYA National Correspondents and the EMYA Friends, entirely for free. It is estimated that an EMYA Judging Committee member spends an average of 40 days per year in attending meetings, visiting candidates, writing and reading reports, gathering documentation, contributing to workshops, lectures, publications etc. And all this is done on a volunteer basis, with no other remuneration than the satisfaction of witnessing the development of the organisation and, which is more important, to experience the positive impact derived by museums and the people involved in museums from participation in the EMYA programmes. It is without exaggeration that one can say that EMYA has influenced in a positive manner the lives of a number of museum professionals or has brought into the centre stage small museums with highly innovative contents, which otherwise would probably have been destined to a routine life if not to an obscure destiny, or – last but not least – has attracted the attention of public authorities to initiatives originating in their own countries, but previously almost neglected or not recognised as they deserved.
All this has been done on the basis of a volunteer, common effort and in a spirit of equality.
There is very limited bureaucracy in our organisation and a very short scale of hierarchy, and with the same spirit we have approached the world of our candidates and our partners during the years. Within the EMYA scheme all museums are equal, public and private, small and large, whatever their subject or their nationality they are assessed on the basis of what Kenneth Hudson called ‘The Public Quality’ of a museum.
We would not have been able to come so close to our 30th Anniversary in 2007 without the contribution of all branches of the European Museum Forum (the umbrella organisation for the Awards) family and of a variety of support which has been helping us in travelling, organising our Annual Ceremonies and workshops, printing our publications, etc. EMF has no public permanent funding, no sponsors and does not run any commercial activity, consequently any single penny, or cent, or whatever currency unit you are familiar with, is essential for the life of the scheme.
From 10-13 May 2006 we held our Annual Ceremony in Lisbon. Here, in the presence of our Patron, Her Majesty Queen Fabiola of Belgium, nearly 200 colleagues joined us, participation being not only limited to this year’s candidates, as it is always a precious occasion for an intensive virtual tour of new museums in Europe, not to be missed for anybody really interested in developments taking place in the European museum scene.
On 2-5 May 2007 we shall hold our 30th Ceremony in Spain, at the MARQ, Archaeological Museum of the Province of Alicante, which was the 2004 EMYA winner. We intend to make this event a particularly important occasion for celebrating innovation in museums and to help the cause of European museums with a variety of initiatives. But to achieve these goals we need your help.
To support EMYA is easy and not expensive, with three types of partnership (see overleaf).
We will give special public recognition to our Supporters on the occasion of the Alicante Ceremony, in our publications and throughout the year. The help of our friends is our basic strength. We are sure that you will consider our proposal seriously, as many other institutions have during our long history.
Massimo Negri - EMF Director :: Wim van der Weiden - EMF Chairman
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