Closing Wales' national museums

After the UK Government took the decision to place much more severe restrictions on our lives and work due to Covid-19 – a demonstration of care for our health - we had to close all of Wales’ national museums almost immediately.

In just four days, teams across the organisation implemented the shut-down with extraordinary speed and efficiency. I am so grateful for their united and dedicated response to the extreme challenge we have faced, in what is in effect a national emergency.

I know that for very many of us, including me, closing our museums, leaving our offices and losing our day by day contact with our colleagues and friends has been an emotional and upsetting experience. But we have done it to protect the safety of our staff, our volunteers and our visitors.

We now have protocols in place at each of our museums to meet all the eventualities we can think of, and swift channels of communication to manage operations through the Duty Manager and Duty Director.

Yesterday was the second day where I was Duty Director and Bethan Lewis, Head of St Fagans National Museum of History was Duty Manager.

We worked with a dedicated pool of staff who will be managing the security of our seven national museums, collections, buildings and other public property. Our particular thanks go to them, IT, Finance, HR, Heads of Sites and the staff of other departments who have worked so hard to ensure that the Museum can continue to operate in these very difficult circumstances.

We will also keep in regular contact with all of the Amgueddfa Cymru family as they carry on as best they can to work from home.

We know that communication is harder when we cannot meet each other in person, and only remotely through a computer or a phone. I urge Amgueddfa Cymru staff and others to keep in touch with the people you work with regularly, especially if you have not heard from them for a while.