At a Glance | September 2026
Executive
Closed the inaugural Victorian Sector Census, with over 300 responses representing more than 450 sites across all 79 LGAs. A full report will be co-authored with the Public Galleries Association of Victoria, incorporating findings from their Benchmarking Survey.
Contacted Ministers and Shadow Ministers across the Creative Industries, Education, Health, Mental Health, First Peoples, and Carers and Volunteers portfolios, requesting an opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing our sector and share the evidence emerging from our inaugural Victorian Sector Census and recent AMaGA Victoria reports.
Launched the Executive Summary Report for our 2026 Forum, Speaking Plainly: Honest Conversations for a Sector in Transition.
Represented AMaGA Victoria on the Indigo Shire Council Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee, welcoming Isa Menzies to the team; as well as on the Arts Industry Council of Victoria.
Met with Liahn Nortjé, Deputy CEO and Executive Director of Commercial & Operations at ACMI, to discuss AMaGA Victoria’s work as an ACMI X resident; and shared sector insights with ACMI team members to help inform their upcoming program development.
Contributed to the continued development of the 2026 AMaGA Awards as a member of the AMaGA Awards Sub-Committee.
Held several calls with regionally based sector members to discuss the challenges facing their organisations and better understand local needs.
Met with representatives of Museums Victoria’s First Peoples Research and Collections Department to discuss ongoing partnership work.
Accreditation
Reaccreditation site visits to Yackandandah & District Historical Society and Wangaratta Historical Society.
Peer Reviewers for site visits: Megan Hall, Collections Manager, Golden Dragon Museum; and Amelia Marra, Training and Operations Coordinator, Victorian Collections
Selected goals discussed included: collections storage, museum housing and tenure, collection database migration, oral history development and adherence to collections policies.
Visited the Fire Services Museum, Burke Museum (Beechworth) and Trafalgar Holden Museum to view current exhibitions and discuss future organisational plans with staff and volunteers.
Held catch up meetings with organisations working through the Key Document Scheme.
Worked with Mitraja, AMaGA Victoria’s Project Officer Intern to prepare for upcoming reaccreditation site visits to Warnambool, Port Fairy and East Melbourne.
Victorian Collections
Delivered two workshops - Getting Started with VC at Warrnambool Library & Cultural Hub and Digitisation Fundamentals held online – with attendees participating from across Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Mortlake, Camperdown, Portland, metropolitan Melbourne, Murchison, and Seymour regions.
Travelled to meet with VC Users in the Mornington Peninsula and Warrandyte regions, and met online with VC Users in Gippsland, to provide support for organisations currently preparing for data migration to the VC CMS.
Our contributing organisations used the VC CMS to catalogue 2,852 items in September.
Internship
Participated in the GLAM-Show Tour to Ballarat, visiting the Ballarat Masonic Centre, the Australian Quilt and Textile Collection, and facilitating a listening session at the Eureka Centre alongside the Ballarat Aviation Museum and the Ballarat Mechanics’ Institute.
Gained valuable insight into the on-the-ground challenges faced by various collecting organisations and the different ways they advocate for and champion cultural heritage issues.
Observations reinforced the importance of site visits in informing and strengthening AMaGA Victoria’s advocacy work for the sector’s diverse needs.
Also contributed to the Sector Census data input and related outreach activities.
Programs and Professional Development
Visited Ballarat as part of our GLAM Show, with behind-the-scenes tours of the Ballarat Freemasons Centre (thanks, Samantha!) and the Australian Quilt & Textile Collection. A big thank you to the Eureka Centre for hosting our listening session, and to everyone who joined us for a chat and shared their experiences and insights.
Delivered Who’s Next? Succession Planning for the Sector, presented by Michelle in partnership with freelance consultant Andrew Hiskens. Two years in the planning, we’re pleased to now make this valuable program available as a digital resource for the sector.
Commenced planning for the AMaGA Victoria End of Year Event, to be held in early December (date coming soon) at the beautiful Geelong Carousel, in the heart of the waterfront precinct. The event is being held in partnership with our friends at the Geelong Wool Museum, and we hope our city colleagues will join us for the train trip to Geelong. Tickets will be on sale soon.
Commenced work on the 2027 Professional Development calendar, drawing on the valuable Census data you have shared with us. We’re working through your feedback to ensure the program responds to as many of your needs and requests as possible. The 2027 calendar will be released in January 2027.
Organised a successful weekend training on-demand workshop for seven members of the local Salvadoran community. The training was delivered by museum consultant Maxine Holden and supported by RMIT University. The workshop covered collection care and cataloguing, with a particular focus on caring for photographs.