Minutes of WORKLAB General Meeting, Lenin Museum, Tampere, Finland, 13.8.2010
In attendance - Peter Ludvigsen (DK) Chair, Nick Mansfield (UK) Secretary
Present - Morten Almstrup (DK), Rowan Brown (UK), Juergen Boenig (D), Henning Grelle (DK), Achim Dresler (D), Rita Muller (D), Holger Gorr (D), Aimo Minkkinen (Fi), Kalle Kallio (Fi), Torsten Nilsson (S), Gunhild Luras (No), Dagmar Kift (D), Reiner Watermann (D), Julie Boddy (USA), Udo Wiesinger (A), Massimo Negri (NL)
- No apologies for absence were received.
- The Minutes of the last meeting on 1.11.08 were approved as a correct record of the meeting.
- Matters Arising - No matters were arising. 18 people were present including 7 guests and potential members. After introductions, Peter Ludvigsen outlined WORKLAB’s aims and objectives.
- ICOM Application - Udo Wiesinger outlined WORKLAB’s current application to establish a new international committee affiliated to ICOM for museums of labour, work and social history. The draft rules as devised by Udo Wiesinger for WORKLABS, as previously circularised, (and available on the WORKLAB web site) were adopted without discussion and the progress of application outlined. It is hoped that it will be considered at ICOM’s conference in China at the end of 2010. It was agreed that yearly meetings of the General Meeting would be held in line with ICOM rules.
- Tampere conference and publication – Peter Ludvigsen announced that a meeting had taken place at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, on 23.2.2010, with the conference sub-committee (Peter Ludvigsen, Udo Wiesinger, Nick Mansfield and Kalle Kallio) and Dr Emma Waterton, of Keele University (UK) deputy editor of the International Journal of Heritage Studies. It was agreed that WORKLAB should submit up to twelve papers from the Tampere conference for a special issue of the journal on the general theme of the interpretation of workers’ history, with a specific core around the UNESCO proposal for monuments from the workers’ movements. The sub- committee would be inviting submissions after the conference, these papers would be subject to peer review and edited by Dr Waterton.
- Future Projects – Dagmar Kift outlined plans for a conference entitled The Future of Industrial Culture, to be held in Dortmund at the LWL Industrial Museum, towards the end of September 2011. The themes are likely to be Restoration, Education, New approaches for Social History and Workers’ biographies and a call for papers would be made at the end of 2010. After some discussion - based around the success of the joint Tampere project with ICOHTEC and TICCIH - it was unanimously agreed that Dagmar Kift’s suggestion that WORKLAB joins the partnership for this conference, be adopted. It was agreed that WORKLAB organises a strand. Dagmar Kift was thanked for her proposal.
Some discussion also took place on the possibility of some WORKLAB activity around the International Year of Co-operation in 2012. Henning Grelle and Juergen Boenig agreed to liaise on this issue. DK also floated a possible future project on Industrial and Workers’ Art. - Possible future funding bids – Nothing specific was raised at the meeting, but all members were asked to keep an eye on possible calls for proposals and inform Nick Mansfield if anything was likely to interest WORKLAB. Kalle Kallio outlined an idea for a possible joint exhibition about European towns known as ‘The Manchester of [name of country]’, but said that this was at an early stage, and although discussions were taking place with potential partners, no bids were yet planned
- Elections of the WORKLAB board – Peter Ludvigsen announced his intention to step down from the board. All present thanked him warmly for his years of devoted service to WORKLAB and expressed the view that it was mainly through his efforts that the organisation had got off the ground. He proposed Kalle Kallio as the new chair and this was unanimously passed. Udo Wiesinger was elected as vice chair, Nick Mansfield was re-elected as Secretary and Morten Almstrup was elected Treasurer. The following others were elected to the board: Dagmar Kift, Torsten Nilsson and Jose Gameiro (in absentia).
- Any other business - Peter Ludvigsen thanked Kalle Kallio and all his colleagues for their hard work and warm hospitality in making the Tampere conference such a great success. All joined in this sentiment. The Lenin Museum in Tampere were thanked for kindly hosting the meeting and for an informative tour of the galleries. Massimo Negri asked if he could address the meeting on behalf of the European Museum Academy. This was agreed and he outlined the current programme of the European Museum of the Year award and future plans.
- Date of next meeting - It was agreed that a General meeting be next held at the Dortmund conference in September 2011, the date to be announced.
ICOM application for WORKLABS
