Highlights of the Annual Report - The Ashmolean Museum

Chairman’s Foreword / 5
further behind the scenes the curators continued their very active
programmes of research and university teaching. All this reflects particularly
well on the Museum’s staff.
A consequence of implementing the Ashmolean Plan will be a strengthening
of the Museum’s finances. Recent investment in such activities as Education
and Fundraising has caused it to incur small deficits. Plans are in hand to
raise funds in order to ensure the Ashmolean operates in surplus.
For some time Oxford University has wanted its museums to be more
outward-looking. Its approval of the Plan was one reflection of this. Another
was the decision to replace the previous Board of Visitors, mostly comprising
internal appointments, with a new Board of external as well as internal
Visitors, under an external Chairman. The new Board began work in
February and has rapidly got into its stride. An important reason for this is
the high calibre of the management team led by the Director, Christopher
Brown.
An application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for funds for the Ashmolean
Plan was made in June and the answer is expected in January. Success would
put the Museum on a path to a future of which its founder Elias Ashmole
could be proud.
Nicholas Barber
Chairman
Heritage and Identity
Workshop, July 2003
A group of young people on a
week’s residency with the Oxford
University Access scheme spent
the afternoon at the Ashmolean.
The young people made their
own small books focusing on a
particular object in the Museum
that inspired them.