Issue - meetings

To receive the annual report from Pallant House Gallery and assess performance in line with the monitoring framework.

The Committee considered this report circulated with the agenda.

Mrs Peyman was joined by Mr Simon Martin who presented the report and provided a summary of the year. 

Mr Martin expressed thanks to Mrs Pam Dignum, the Council’s previous representative on the Pallant House Gallery Board of Trustees and was delighted to have Mrs Apel as the Council’s new appointee. 

He outlined Pallant House Gallery’s annual report.  In particular he explained how children and young people were encouraged to visit the gallery and the range of incentives in place to encourage everyone to visit.  With regard to the art on view, the Gallery was trying to be more diverse in the types of paintings on display.  A number of the paintings were loaned out to other organisations in this Country and to other countries, which was a great advert for the Gallery.   With regard to financial governance, the 2018-2019 accounts were currently being audited. 

Mrs Peyman added that as part of the monitoring framework an annual report was reported to this Committee.  The Gallery’s funding was spilt into two tranches, being released on 1 April and 1 October each year, but was first subject to confirmation that the Arts Council England funding was in place.  Confirmation had been received that it was in place until 2022.  Paragraph 4.1 set out the activities and the required measurements to be achieved under the monitoring framework.   Mrs Peyman confirmed that having reviewed the monitoring framework she had no concerns with the performance of Pallant House Gallery, and advised that all the requirements appeared to be covered clearly in the report.

Members asked the following questions of Mr Martin:

-     We have heard some of the initiatives in place to attract young people.  Are there other initiatives in place for other age ranges?: Mr Martin advised that visitor numbers for older people were very good.  The initiatives for young people were in place as the Gallery struggled to attract this age group, as they were working, had less free time and a wide range of different choices of what to do with the spare time they did have.  It had been noticed that a key way to attract this age range was programming.  The contemporary artist Nick Goss had held his first museum exhibition at the Gallery, which had attracted younger people, largely through social media.  The post-impressionist Harold Gillman had attracted a different audience.  Having both these exhibitions at the Gallery at the same time had created a cross fertilisation as their exhibitions were, therefore, seen by both the young and old, creating a cross fertilisation.  The evening yoga was an opportunity to attract people who would not normally visit.   The ‘summer lates’ evenings were created to attract young people who often did not want formal learning experiences but were looking for different types of experiences.  The Gallery was also attracting younger families to take part in creative activities with their children.

-     How was the Gallery embracing new  ...  view the full minutes text for item 284