SPECIAL SHOPS
Opposite: High quality children’s gifts refer back to the museum’s collections Clockwise from above: the stylish new shop space; mementoes of the insect displays; we would love one of these in our Christmas stocking!
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ell, the voice of the people has been well and truly heard in 2016, has it not? Brexit, Trump and now – calm down, it’s an uncontroversial one – the brand new, and rather wonderful gift shop at RAMM. “More and more of the public were saying ‘Where’s the shop, where’s the shop?’” recalls manager Rachel Hone. Because, for a long time, there wasn’t one. Back in the noughties, prior to closing for its four-year face lift, RAMM did house a retail outlet – a concession run by Judith Durham of Toot Garook across the road. But by the time the museum re-opened in 2011, the received wisdom within the industry was that museum gift shops were commercial loss-makers. “Various museums were guiding us and said ‘Don’t do it!’,” explains Rachel. So, apart from a couple of tables bearing catalogues and a few children’s toys, at the Garden Reception entrance, that was it – to the public’s vocal disappointment. “But time’s moved on,” says Rachel of the museum’s decision to give it a go, “and a lot of museums are now running very successful
SHOPPING
quality gift shops.” When Exeter City Council voted in favour of a new RAMM shop last year, “we took advice from the person who set up the very successful shop in Leeds Museum and she helped put our shop together.” Just eight weeks into the job – she used to work for Dartmoor National Park’s retail arm – Rachel is rightly proud of the shop’s stock, much of it curated (in the true sense of the word) by the “very creative eye” of the museum’s head of conservation, Alison Hopper Bishop. w
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