Conrad Bodman: My First Year as CEO of The Story Museum

I was delighted to join The Story Museum as Museum Director & CEO on September 26, leaving my role as Head of Cultural Programmes at the British Library, a post I had held for 7 years.

I didn’t need to be sold on the vital work of The Story Museum – ‘to transform young lives through stories’ – and the incredible museum and learning programmes which reach 95k visitors a year, but it was the impressive board-led recruitment process which really sold the role to me. The passion the board members and staff who were involved had for our charity purpose was visceral.

There were a number of achievements during my first 6 months. We delivered the first phase of our roof renewal project and did much of the hard work raising funds for the second phase which is due to start in September. In addition, we delivered 1001 Stories, a new landmark website which showcases the depth and breadth of our collection and was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We also delivered a new display celebrating the 25th anniversary of Malorie Blackman’s novel Noughts and Crosses, developed in collaboration with young people and artists from the Black Excellence Project and Kumba Nia Arts, with support from Malorie and Penguin Random House.

We also received the honour of a special Award, which I received in London with our former CEO and museum founders from the charity Action for Children’s Arts. It was a huge tribute to the work done by staff, trustees and supporters to establish The Story Museum as a leading cultural venue in Oxford and for our work with schools in the community. Despite being a world centre for learning, some suburbs in Oxford still have low levels of literacy which we are committed to improving through our learning programme.

At my first board meeting in September, the board challenged me to write a 3-year strategy which, whilst addressing our financial challenges, would also set our road map for our creative and learning programme, marketing and comms offer and our financial sustainability. I was asked to complete this in 3 months. The finished result has set a clear direction of travel with a refreshed vision, mission and values and raised confidence with our stakeholders who have committed to come with us on this journey.

I have learnt a great deal in my first year: Boards have valuable skills and experience and are only too willing to help; recognise the skills of your senior team and support their ambition; communicate with your wider staff; fundraising first.

The financial pressures on organisations like ours are immense and we are living in a very uncertain world. Our organisation is lucky to have support from ACE which represents 10% of our turnover and we were grateful for the recent increase. Earned and raised income makes up 90% of our turnover which is challenging, but our small fundraising, commercial and marketing teams do an incredible job. The increase in employers’ national insurance and latterly the economic impact of the war in the Middle East and high inflation have created challenges for most families’ discretionary spend.

I had to make some difficult decisions to reduce our expenditure in my first few months in post which has inevitably had an impact on the entire team. Regular communication with the staff team and a clear plan for the future has been essential. Having been through a challenging period it now feels there are some green shoots emerging with a range of new funding partners coming on board.

Having worked in London for most of my career it has been a learning curve getting to know Oxford, its vibrant cultural scene, the role of the Universities and colleges, the social and economic challenges and potential this city has, with levels of literacy well below the national average in some parts. Getting to know our stakeholders, meeting our founding directors, members and current and former trustees, sponsors and supporters has been a real joy. These people and organisations have made an enormous contribution to the development of what is a very young museum which has only been operating for 5 financial years.

Recruitment in Oxford is challenging due to the high cost of accommodation and cost of commuting to the city. My first appointment at the museum was a new Head of Marketing and Communications who I recruited in my second month. Working closely with some of our talented board members, we have managed to deliver a new digital-first Marketing and Communications strategy. Our social media engagement and web traffic has skyrocketed, and we have successfully applied for a Google Ad Grant which benefits our entire ticket sales and commercial offer.

We are developing a range of new projects, both permanent gallery renewal and temporary exhibitions. Our first capital gallery project will be a renewal of Small Worlds, our Early Years gallery. Our new space will deliver on the government’s school readiness agenda centring literacy and oracy at the heart of the gallery and allowing under 5s to have their first experience of reading and live storytelling. Of course, we will need to raise money for this project, but we know the case for dedicated early years provision is strong and I hope supporters will be inspired to help us bring this new gallery to life.

The National Year of Reading has been of such huge benefit to organisations like ours this year – as it has focused our attention, as a society, on the transformative power of reading. It is of course the National Year or Reading every year for us, and we hope funders will continue to support the legacy of this year of celebration through organisations like ours who can continue to deliver in the long-term.

I have learnt a great deal in my first year: Boards have valuable skills and experience and are only too willing to help; recognise the skills of your senior team and support their ambition; communicate with your wider staff; fundraising first. There is so much to be excited about in year 2. On July 18th we launched our new exhibition: ‘Mystery Academy: School for Young Detectives;’ a remarkable journey into crime and detective fiction and co-curated with an incredible group of teenagers. You must come and visit.