Founding charter

What we promised at the start, and still keep.

When the society was founded in 2016, its founders wrote down the principles it would live by — not as decoration, but as a charter the society could be held to by its members. A decade on, those principles still govern everything we do, and we publish them here so any member or prospective member can read exactly what we have committed to and judge us against it. A society that asks people to belong owes them this kind of plainness.

The principles

Four commitments, written to be kept.

The charter is short on purpose. Four principles, each one a promise we can be held to, and each one still shaping the society's decisions today.

The society belongs to its members

Members elect the committee that governs the society and vote on its direction at the annual meeting. The society is run for its members, accountable to its members, and answerable to no owner or outside interest. Your membership is a stake, not a subscription to someone else's enterprise.

The money serves the purpose

No part of a subscription goes to private profit. Members' money supports the museums, funds the events, and runs the small staff — and the split is published, as it is on the about page, so members can see where their money goes. We account for it because it is members' money.

We support museums, we are not them

The society exists to support a network of independent museums, not to absorb or speak for them. We say plainly, everywhere, that we are a separate society and not the museums or a government body. The museums keep their independence; we channel members' support to them.

Open to as many as possible

A cultural society only the wealthy can join is a failure of nerve. We price membership to be within reach, keep events low-cost or free for members, and resist every pressure to become an exclusive club. Heritage belongs to everyone, and so should the society around it.

Why write it down

A promise you can hold us to.

Plenty of organisations have values on a wall that mean nothing in practice. The reason this charter matters is that it is enforceable by the people it is written for: members elect the committee, the committee holds the staff to the charter, and any member can raise it at the annual meeting if they feel the society has drifted from it. It is not marketing language; it is a contract of sorts between the society and its members, and it has genuinely shaped hard decisions — including turning down growth and money that would have compromised the fourth principle in particular.

We publish it openly, rather than burying it in a constitution no one reads, because a prospective member deserves to know what they are joining before they join, and an existing member deserves an easy way to check we are keeping our word. If you ever feel we have fallen short of any of these four commitments, the contact page reaches the people who can answer for it, and the annual meeting is yours to raise it at. That accountability is the whole point of being a society rather than a business.

The founding charter document of the society

Charter questions

About the charter.

Can the charter be changed?

Only by the members, at the annual meeting, by a clear majority. The staff and committee cannot quietly rewrite it; it belongs to the membership, which is exactly what makes it worth anything.

How do I hold the society to it?

Raise it with the member-care team through the contact page, and at the annual meeting where members vote. The committee you elect is there to hold the society to the charter on your behalf.

Where can I see how money is spent?

The split of where subscriptions go is published on the about page, and the full accounts are reviewed by the elected committee and presented to members at the annual meeting.