How an entirely self-funded small rural museum with a global fanbase thrives in the challenging cultural environment.
Joining host Tom Dawson are:
Lizzie Dunford, Director, Jane Austen's House Museum
Susan Rayner, Head of Commercial & Visitor Experience, Jane Austen's House Museum
Director Lizzie Dunford and Head of Commercial & Visitor Experience Susan Rayner share how Jane Austen’s House, a small but world-famous museum in rural Hampshire, thrives as a self-funded organisation. They discuss the impact of the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, their strategy for running at a surplus, and how retail is used not just for income but as a marker of visitor engagement. With a supportive team culture, creative programming, and a global fanbase, the museum delivers once-in-a-lifetime experiences for visitors while planning strategically for a sustainable future.
There are important lessons and helpful advice here for cultural and heritage venues of all sizes who would also love to grab opportunities with positivity and an innovative outlook.
Tom Dawson: [00:00:00] Hello, I'm Tom Dawson and welcome to the Arts and Culture Podcast from the Association for Cultural Enterprises, the go-to podcast for thought leadership in the cultural sector. In this episode, Jane Austen's House Museum in the picturesque village of Charlton in Hampshire, speaking with Director Lizzie Dunford and head of commercial and visitor experience, Susan Rainer.
We discussed how the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth has shaped their programming and boosted visitor numbers, what it takes to run an entirely self-funded museum with just a few staff, and the unique challenges and rewards of attracting visitors in a rural location. From caring for the home of a beloved literary celebrity to welcoming fans from around the globe, we asked the question.
Is it really is as wonderful working there as it sounds.
Well, thank you so much. Really lovely to talk to you, especially during the, the super [00:01:00] busy summer period. For those people who have not been to Jane Austen's House Museum before, what would they see if they turned up today on a lovely sunny English summers day. What would they find?
Susan Raynor: I think a lot of them are actually quite surprised about what they find because we don't tend to use the word museum so much.
Our title is Jane Austen's house. That is really what it is. It's Jane Austen's home and when they come in, they are walking in to a building that feels like Jane could have just left five minutes ago. The way. Our interpretation manager and the, the whole collections team interpret the house as if the ladies have just left to go to a ball.
So there's a dress draped over the bed. There's bonnets laying on the arms of chairs. Books are laid open as if they've just got up and left them. So it's a really. Calming and beautiful space and everybody always goes in there [00:02:00] and says how calming it is and people are actually quite moved. I think it really.
Really hits their soul. And it's not unusual for us to have a visitor, in all honesty, emotionally overwhelmed by being there. And that is something really, really special for us that we are able to allow people to have that experience. Often it's a once in a lifetime experience. Of course, you know, a lot of our visitors may never come again.
The most special thing about being here actually is that we're able to give that. Unbelievably immersive experience to our visitors.
Tom Dawson: I mean, it's quite incredible hearing you talk about it in that language. I mean, that's incredibly powerful that you can kind of bring out those feelings and emotions in people.
That sort of strikes me as what culture and cultural venues can do, which no else can quite match. In a world where competition for our attention is more intense than ever before, what's it actually like to work? In a place like on a day to day kind of Lizzie and Susie, is there a typical day in terms of running a house museum [00:03:00] like that?
Lizzie Dunford: There's no typical day. We do have really beautiful housekeeping routine that we do. You know, we, we open the shutters and that's one of my favourite things to do. The house is full of these beautiful, quite heavy shutters and opening those up and letting the light into the rooms, it's joyous. It's a really beautiful thing to do, but it is a really special place and there is a real sense.
Of responsibility with it. That comes with that Joy. Austen's work, Austen's house. It really matters to people actually. It's something that you don't necessarily see from outside of this world, but when people talk about Austen, they often, they move their hands to towards themselves. They move their hands towards their heart.
This is something, this is a body of work that is deeply embedded. In people's sense of themselves and sense of wellbeing, and there are really strong connections with that and have been almost since, you know, these works are published. This isn't something new. This isn't like a 20th first century phenomenon.
So you have this mixture of the immense [00:04:00] privilege of getting to work in a house that is incredibly beautiful. Our gardens are not huge, but stunning. We have this phenomenal collection. It's a place that is. Almost unparalleled in its significance to English literature and culture. But then it's also is this place where people wanna be.
It is a home. It is about opening the doors to let just people who want to be here and want to be part of it, who want to be in the story in, and that sense of how much it matters. So it's a mixture of. Immense privilege, joy, and uh, responsibility.
Tom Dawson: I noticed you mentioned that you know, for some people this is a once in a lifetime trip.
In terms of your visitors, what's the kind of mix? Is it domestic visitors, local Jane Austen is world famous? Is international component quite important?
Lizzie Dunford: It's huge. Yeah. So actually relatively few of our visitors are within the county, so it breaks about 14 to 15% of our visitors come from within. We're in the county of Hampshire come from within Hampshire, [00:05:00] 58% are within the wider country where the UK and the rest are overseas.
Mm-hmm. And that varies throughout the year. Mm-hmm. So that's more towards January. By the time you get to this time of year, we are recording this in August. Our center you overseas visitors is much higher. It's a big economic impact and big draw for the local area.
Tom Dawson: And are you seeing any sort of changes in trends there in terms of, you know, people from different parts of the world in the last few years?
'cause you know, in the city venues are seeing sort of some changes. What about you?
Susan Raynor: I think we are seeing some changes. I think we're actually getting visitors from more destinations mm-hmm. Than we ever have before. I think we are seeing visitors from countries that perhaps we had never seen before. That goes also with Jane Austen's society groups that are popping up all over the world.
Mm-hmm. I mean, we all know the one, Jane Austen Society is the original here in the uk. The Jazz. Jane Austen, society of North America is massive. There's a huge one down in Australia, New Zealand, but we're also seeing [00:06:00] groups bringing visitors over from, I think Afghanistan. Yeah, yeah. We've had Brazil. Yeah, some Mexico.
Lizzie Dunford: All through Spain. Yeah. Italy. But yeah, all across the world there's Jane Austen Societies in India and Pakistan. So we do see, have one from Istanbul. Yes. Istanbul. So we have a really. Global audience. So I think we are seeing more and more so,
Susan Raynor: I mean, Jane Austen's work has been very much more in the public eye with a lot of new dramatizations and documentaries.
And then of course that was before we hit the two 50 year, which has set it on another level again. But I think certainly since 2000 in the naughties and the tens. We've definitely seen more Jane Austen society fan groups, even let's say pop up in a lot more remote countries. Yeah. Than what we've certainly had in the last 50 years.
Tom Dawson: I was watching the recent Barbie film the other night, and there's, if you've seen it, 'cause a girl has got a bit in it where she sort of actually [00:07:00] shows a bit of the kinda classic BBC nineties Pride and Prejudice series. I just love that it's, it's so permeated to the culture that it kind of appears in these places.
So both unexpectedly and completely expectedly in the sense that it's had such an influence on creators.
Lizzie Dunford: Austen is absolutely permeated through public and popular culture. It often can be perceived as, oh, this is something that's. Quite niche, or it's something that looks back to the Regency, or we're talking about historical fiction here, but it's not, it is such a contemporary relevance.
You see, there are so many memes, there are so many references to her work. When people are trying to explain what's going on in the world, they still look back to Austen. She's everywhere. This is where it comes from. It all comes from here. This is, this is the start of it all. So that is why we're seeing this audience as she, her influence permeates ever more widely, definitely than everyone.
Mm-hmm. You know, people come back to the source.
Tom Dawson: And I can't believe we've been talking for this long without mentioning it's the 250th anniversary of of Jane Austen's birth this year. Just a small thing. How has that impacted your [00:08:00] programming in your visitors this year? 'cause it's massive.
Susan Raynor: Well, we started planning and programming in 2020.
21. 20, yeah. 2021. I mean, we've been having sort of like monthly, two 50 meetings internally, I think for about the last 18 months, haven't we? Yeah. Yeah. It has had a huge significance on our program, and obviously the whole team has worked tremendously hard to put together a full program of events, not just of events, but also the interpretation of the house.
Mm-hmm. Everybody has worked really, really hard. On projects that perhaps wouldn't have got done this quickly if we hadn't have been thinking about 2 50, 2 50, 2 50. So, you know, they've worked incredibly hard to get special exhibitions completed and up and running, specifically referring to our Art of Writing, which is this gorgeous, new, permanent exhibition that we have that opened in October last year.
And it was no mean feat to get that. No, it wasn't. Our head of interpretations and events, Sophie, she has done an absolutely beautiful job on that, and it's there [00:09:00] now permanently and in such perfect timing. We've not only been over the last few years working out what works for us, what doesn't work for us, and not just in the museum, but.
In retail so that we can think about income generation. We've been thinking about everything, trialing everything. Let's get it right so that we know what we're doing in 2025. Yeah, so I think it's had a huge effect on us with regards to our future planning, but it's also been incredibly exciting, challenging for the whole team, and obviously still is.
We're only halfway through the year, but it's such a fantastic opportunity to be in the museum when this is happening because. It will never happen again in certainly in our working careers.
Lizzie Dunford: no, it's never gonna happen again. We're not gonna get such an important year. So I think, again, going back to that word, responsibility, it was a responsibility for us to get it right.
Susan Raynor: Which I think we have. I'm really pleased that Good. Halfway through halfway. So far, far so good.
Lizzie Dunford: We didn't wanna come into the [00:10:00] year with a whole load of untested events, which is what, you know what? Our biggest selling event this year was a whole day. We do a Dressup day. It's around the anniversary of Austen's birth and we started developing that event in 2021.
Mm. The first song was in 2021, and we've grown it, and similarly, in January, 2021, we did our first Pride and Prejudice day. That was all virtual. We couldn't do it online, but, oh, so we've basically, a lot of the key events that we've done this year, this is actually the sixth time we've done them, and over those times we, that's right.
Fifth anyway, we're not math, it's, it's write ourselves. We don't have to do math, so we've been really working towards it, so we didn't. In the middle of this year that would matter. So much to people launch things that were uncertain and that's kind of to help with our own team's. Resilience. Yes. To help with the resiliency of the events and all these different things to work towards it.
So it has, it's been really deeply. Considered and tested in advance. Mm, definitely.
Tom Dawson: It's really interesting hearing you [00:11:00] talk about it as part of a long-term strategy. Thinking about your business plans and strategically running an organization like yours. With that, a very considered decision that this was almost a catalyst.
Sounds like what you're saying. Is that right?
Lizzie Dunford: Yeah, very much so. This year, 2025 marks the end of pretty much 16 years of Austen anniversaries. So 2009 was when she moved into the house. Then there was the publication of all the novels. 2017 was the 200th anniversary of her death. We've had the house's 70th birthday.
The house is 75th birthday, and then we've got this, and then there isn't really anything. The next one is. The hundredth anniversary of opening the museum, which is in 2049, and then we've got Austen's 300th anniversary of her birthday. You know, it goes on. This is a last. Chance for a while to really hang something off and we very, very, very much, having watched those graph of anniversaries over the past 16 years, very much wanted to see this and view this as a platform.[00:12:00]
We know our TO numbers will drop down next year. We know that. We are aware of that. That's okay. That's really okay. It is great to have everybody. That's okay. But we wanted it to still be a platform. This is a basis from which we make sure you know what a great opportunity to test your programming. What a great opportunity to build the profile of the museum and test it and work out what is so it, and also financial, that data, financial platform to support us going forward.
So yeah, it very much has been strategic goal to deliver this to the best of our ability and to maximize the potentials for the organization with the view that this has got to support us, enhance us, whatever for probably the next decade. Also, we are setting out a stall here for our museum, our Austen, who it is that we represent within our section of cultural heritage.
So to get that right and to have that platform and to have that visibility like almost never before. Mm-hmm. We had to get it as right, as right as [00:13:00] possible.
Tom Dawson: You talk Lizzie there about the kind of financial foundations and things. I mean, that's almost the big question at the moment, isn't it? I mean, we know it, it, it's really hard in arts culture, heritage organizations.
It's a tough landscape at the moment in terms of. How are you funded and your business model? What does that look like at the moment?
Lizzie Dunford: For Jane Austen's house, we are entirely self-funded. We are entirely funded by self-generated income through admissions and through retail, as well as through donations.
We have, on average, around 40,000 visitors a year. This year it will be more, and our average admission spend per head is around 12 pounds and our average retail. Doing gross on net.
Susan Raynor: Oh, you should do net. We should do net.
Lizzie Dunford: Our average, our average net retail spend per head is around 10 pounds, so we have an average spend per head of 22 pounds per visitor, plus donations, plus gift aid.
Over 40,000 visitors a year. So we have been able by [00:14:00] investing, and Susie needs to have some spotlight to talk about her retail vision. Susie is an absolute visionary when it comes to buying products. She is a true curator. I find when you go to pub menus and they talk about things, curator, it makes me itch, but Susie does.
Genuinely within a museum context, curate our retail offer so that it's something that absolutely sits within the visit. It is linked that emotional response. And we also at the house see our retail spend be ahead as part of our KPIs, not just for income generation, but also as a marker of emotional engagement.
Yeah. Because if people have loved their visit, they want to take part of it home for them. So we don't just look at it as a financial income. It's far. More than that. It's linked to marketing. It's linked to a building of community. It's linked to all these different things, and for it to be high is something we're really, really proud of.
But we do, at the moment, we run at a surplus. We are self-funded and we run at a surplus, which means we can continue to invest, which is incredibly exciting and I'm aware, a very [00:15:00] privileged position to be in. But I would also underpin that it. Comes from the skills of an incredibly talented, dedicated team and the support of a brilliant board.
So it is partly Austen, Jane partly looks out for us. She's there. She's there. But it is also a phenomenal team that put a lot in that enables us to achieve a lot as well, which I know lots of other museums, but we do. So it is a, it is a mixture of luck and skill and providence in the basis of Jane Austen.
Susan Raynor: Lizzie's just sort of hit the nail on the head there and because everybody in our team is exceptional at their job. And I think that is key to that spend per head because it's not just about when they walk through the gate or walk into the shop and does someone meet and greet them with a smile. It's not just about that.
It's about when they engage with us on social media, when they first make that inquiry, when they first Google us and look at our website. Go to buy a ticket and it's the whole visitor journey. And I think it's [00:16:00] very easy to think about that visitor journey as being when someone steps over your threshold to when they leave your threshold.
And it isn't about that. And I'm not saying that we get that perfect. We don't. No, I think we are fully aware. Lots of areas that improve that we can improve on that to improve.
Lizzie Dunford: Yeah, definitely.
Susan Raynor: Having said that, we are aware of it and I think it's very important that you are aware of that entire experience.
It's not just when they're talking to your staff. Or buying the ticket or actually walking around the house. It's that entire visitor journey. Yeah. Which makes all the difference to all that spend per head. All those good reviews on Trip Advisor, that is what makes the difference is the whole experience.
And I think that's often forgotten.
Lizzie Dunford: And that retail KPI is a marker of, or that spend ahead, it's like a marker of how much people wanna buy in. Yeah. To being a part of what you are.
Lizzie Dunford: So it is something we've worked really hard on it and it has increased a [00:17:00] lot over recent years, but it means we can fix our roofs, it means we can do investments.
So it is, and we at the moment, we have no external funding beyond some amazing actually that we do have some amazing. Grants and small donors that have given us some fabulous money. So we get some money from Jane Austen, society of North America. The Textile Society very generously gave us some money to restore a piece of needle work by Austen, but those are kind of small, like grant funded projects.
We have no regular, we are not an NPO. We don't at the moment have any kind of multi-year funded projects. In some ways, that's also amazing 'cause it means that everyone that comes, you know, we can say to them, this goes directly to it. You are a part of this. So our fundraising tag is be a part of the story.
Mm-hmm. You know, it's able, amazing to say, when you meet people and like, well, you know what you, you know that guidebook. That helps us do this, that helps us do that. We're able to make that story really clear.
Tom Dawson: This episode is brought to you by King and McGaw, trusted by the world's leading cultural institutions for over 40 years. From the National Gallery to [00:18:00] MoMA, they craft beautifully bespoke art products, all designed and handmade in Sussex. Their work brings art to life in museum shops and homes worldwide.
For more than 13 years, King & McGaw have partnered with Penguin books to transform their iconic color-coded covers into beautiful framed art, including Jane Austen's pride and prejudice. Visit Kingandmcgaw.com to discover the famous tri band designs ready to bring a touch of literary charm to your walls in terms of some of the things that you would like to see yourself investing or, or maybe do better, what are those areas that you focus on there?
Susan Raynor: I think there's definitely more we can do with our visitor engagement. That's often a missed opportunity and something that I think we can definitely improve on.
Yeah, and it's certainly in our not too distant sites to make investment in time and different [00:19:00] platforms, for example, that we need to facilitate that improvement. And I think. Certainly off the, the back of this year, we've managed to engage and get relationships with all these new visitors, with all these new Jane Austen fans.
And we're very much aware of the fact that we mustn't forget them. We've engaged with them, they've come to see us, they've, we've found that sense of, haven't
Lizzie Dunford: they, and we need to
Susan Raynor: continue to engage with them and keep them interested and get 'em to come back to future events next year. And I think there's lots of things we can do.
This year we're focusing on the anniversary, of course. But there's lots of things that certainly Lizzie has ideas for, to engage with creative writing. For example, example, VIP experiences, special experiences. 'cause this is a place that people dream of coming to. You know, we do have the odd proposal, Jane Austen fans, and they have very good fiances.
Who understand that being proposed to in Jane Austen's garden or house may be quite special. That sort of [00:20:00] thing is something that we can build on in the future, and that engagement, that EIP experience and certainly celebrating. Art, not just writing, but celebrating art in general. 'cause obviously that's what Jane was.
She was an artist.
Lizzie Dunford: Yeah.
Susan Raynor: As was her sister. As her sister Cassandra. Yeah. They were a very artistic family, actually. Lots of writers. Lots of artists.
Susan Raynor: And so I think that's something also that we want to really build on in the future. Promoting that
Lizzie Dunford: the house was such an important place of inspiration and creativity for Austen.
We want that to continue. Mm. We don't want it to just stop in 18, 17 and then, and then that's it. Now it's like it's set an aspect, it's a dead place. We don't want that. We want it to be a site of living creativity and some of that is gonna be digital. I mean, COVID was absolutely, I know this is almost awful to say, but COVID was actually phenomenal for us because we had to do an amazing digital pivot.
We started from November, 2020 doing guided. Online tours of our virtual tour, which we did through Zoom and we still do them today. You know, we do online talks. We do [00:21:00] every year a big birthday party for Jane birthday on the sick, which has people from all over the world, and we've only really just scratched the surface of what that.
Digital community could look like and whether it's Substack, whether it's Patron, whether it's way, probably will be substack, I think where it's a way of giving people that space to think and write and share their experiences. I think that's one of the most rewarding aspects of working with others is that I find is like the way that people build friendships.
They build communities. We do a monthly. Online book club going through Austen's numbers every year, and it's Fanta and there are people that come to every single one. Yeah, they're separated by thousands of miles, but they're shared. And none of them in the UK or very few of them in, you know, the people that some of them are, but they're building these connections and that for us is really important.
It's about belonging. It's belonging and community, and how do we continue to have. And this is where it comes back to responsibility. Yeah. You know, that site, that cult center aspect of it, and how do we continue to foster that? So there's digital, there is then [00:22:00] physical. How do we enable physical spaces to enable that creation?
So those are all things we're probably gonna be exploring over the next 18 months to three years to see how we put those in.
Susan Raynor: I think we're just scratching the surface. Yeah, we are.
Tom Dawson: And that kind of emotive connection you've been talking about along it comes across so strongly it's, it's so lovely to hear.
I just wanna kind of go back to talking about the retail strategy. Susie, if we can, thinking about how you might engage overseas visitors. In terms of what you put together in terms of your retail offering, are you very much basing it on bespoke, heavy, very much Jane Austen focused, very much focused on place and the writing.
How do you approach that?
Susan Raynor: Yeah, I think obviously it's as a, I don't like to use the word small, but with regards to physically small. Physically small. Physically small, but mighty and mighty and pal. Yes. Um, so we can't. It's not possible for us to do every item bespoke, exclusive. We do try to do that as much as possible, but some things we buy in [00:23:00] from regular suppliers and that's fine.
What I try to do is when I'm thinking about bespoke ranges or new ranges, I think about. The experiences that people are having in the house. And actually I was just talking to the team. I definitely involve the team. I do not do this by myself because they are the ones speaking to the visitors every day.
I literally sit and I said, oh guys, I've had this idea. What do you think? And if they don't think much of it, they'll tell me. But also from maybe a basic idea, we then get a really big. Good idea just by having those discussions and you know, do the people ask you for this and or have they ever mentioned this?
And one of the things that we're coming up with at the moment I wanted to do, we found a lovely artist, haven't we? Mm-hmm. That does Beautiful recipes onto China. Really beautiful. Yeah. And so I want to work with her next year. And from that single idea. My team said, oh, we want to do Cassandra's Pantry.
And so they want to turn our entire [00:24:00] food gift section into Cassandra's Pantry. So now I'm redeveloping labels for all my food products next year to make them all in into Cassandra's Pantry. That's
Lizzie Dunford: very point. So like even, so we use supplier for this PU that many, many other listeners will also be using, but we have rebranded every single product to be linked.
To the novels. So it's Mr. Bennett's Humbugs, Mr. Darcy's strawberry Champagne chutney. So it could just be strawberry, but we haven't, we've got, so everything is where we can, it is linked back to that pulling experience. So the new food range will be linked to the recipes that we know were made in the house.
Susan Raynor: It's just pulling in the stories from the house into the product. And even actually our bestselling bespoke range is, we call it our character range, and it is just that it has Jane Austen characters in like cartoon form running along the bottom of the notebook or the TAL or whatever it may be. The young chap, the artist, fantastic young man who did the [00:25:00] artwork for me is the same artist who did the artwork for our virtual tour.
Yeah. So I'm even pulling in that connection there. It was great working with him because he actually didn't really know anything about Jane Austen. The way I worked with him is I said, right, I want miss the Darcy, Elizabeth Bennett, blah, blah, blah. And I basically described the characters to him. And so the artwork that he's done is, it's not been influenced by Colin Fir as Mr.
Darcy. Like you often see. It's just purely from that character description that I've given him. And so I really love that. Yeah, I think that's fantastic.
Lizzie Dunford: It's a great range. It's beautiful.
Susan Raynor: um, that it's got that unbiased artistic vision of these characters. I think that's really great and like, anyway, it's our best selling product range.
We've had it for a. Couple of years. Couple of years. Yeah.
Lizzie Dunford: How many, how many key product ranges have we got?
Susan Raynor: We've got character, um, so we do character range, we do a quote range. 'cause some of Jane's quotes are quite witty.
Lizzie Dunford: Dun, there's in quite a chic style though, aren't they? They're very, they're very modern.
Susan Raynor: Well, they've [00:26:00] been, we call it the rainbow quote range only because it pulls in every color from our brand identity. We have five very bright colours in our brand identity, and each of those colours have been pulled from pieces in the collection. For example, we have a, a red orange color. Which is inspired by a red military jacket.
We have a green that is taken from the green in the historical wallpaper in the dining room. Even then I'm pulling in elements of the house into a quote range. Those are two of our best ranges. Yeah, I mean there's a few small ones. Obviously some souvenirs with pictures of the house 'cause you have to do that and pens and pencils and things.
But even those have all got the brand identity coming through the colours. Not just the logo, but the colours as well. So we try to keep it fluent throughout. That that is repetitive and yeah,
Lizzie Dunford: books aside, it's what, 60 to 70% is bespoke, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. Our range.
Tom Dawson: Okay. And you, you talked cheesy about kind of asking, God forbid, asking your colleagues for their [00:27:00] opinion, which is always dangerous.
Lizzie Dunford: You can't not hear, you can't. No. No. Would not go well.
Tom Dawson: And you've talked about, you know, having a really. Clearly a really strong team there at the house. I mean, we just wanna talk about staffing for a little bit. I mean, how are you finding it difficult or, or relatively kinda smooth to kind of retain staff or hire staff at the moment?
Being a relatively rural location, how is that going?
Susan Raynor: I think both Lizzie and I are very, very, very proud. Of the staffing and working environment. The culture that we have here at Jane Austen's house is so positive. I think our, other than seasonal temporary staff, I think our last staff member left a few years ago, four years ago.
I'm really proud of that because, I mean, Lizzie's worked in different heritage sites before. I have myself. It's not always a very positive culture. And and that's true of any workplace, isn't it? It's not always a positive culture, whereas I think here it is a very [00:28:00] inclusive culture and that me saying that I talk to my team about everything, I absolutely do.
She really, really do. Yeah. I ask them their opinion. They're not afraid to tell me. 'cause I, I say to them, tell me if it's rubbish, tell me it's rubbish. I don't want to keep buying rubbish. I might bring something in. And sometimes that they will say to me, what the heck have you bought that for? And I'll always go, give it a chance.
Give it a chance. If it doesn't work, I'll be the first to cull it and get rid of it. You know, engaging with everybody. We obviously, like anybody does, we have regular team meetings, and it's a case of engaging with every staff member, and I don't think anybody's afraid. Absolutely. To give their opinion, to give their true opinion, to say, Hey guys, this really didn't work.
Or Do you realize how long that went? Or, or something, you know. But then also we celebrate when we've done it really well. And Lizzie's brilliant at acknowledging people's achievements, you know? And I think that in itself, [00:29:00] again, I think with a manager, is not always something that you get. You don't always get a manager saying in front of the whole team, Hey.
Do you realize how good, you know Susie did there, that that was really amazing. Well done. So just having that acknowledgement and knowing that you are noticed, and I certainly do that with my team as well.
Lizzie Dunford: Everyone does it to each other actually as well. We all do it, don't we? It feels like a very supportive workplace, and that encourages the ideas.
I know there are times when I'm tired and everyone will tell me to go home, and that feels really nice. And I think it is that they're like, just, just just leave. And I don't think it's 'cause they will want me to go home. It does feel supportive and with that, there is that opportunity to have that collaboration, have the ideas.
I mean, we have really regular meetings and it's exactly as Susie says, you have these sparks. You have these sparks that will start with one person, a start of idea that by the time it's gone through, you know, there are 20 of us, there are 20 of us that work here. That's the entire team finance. Front of house visitor experience, collections, marketing, seasonal, that's everyone.
There's 20 of [00:30:00] us, which is such a good size team for our site. I mean, I know it's somewhere bigger, it just wouldn't work at all. But it means that those ideas can go through everybody. They can have these things and by the end, they're just phenomenal. And we end up having these huge, also these huge ideas that then through this kind of very collaborative work process, get pruned down to something that is manageable that we can actually do.
July, 2020, when we knew we were gonna reopen, we hadn't. Seen each other as a team. For months, loads of people had been furloughed. The people that hadn't met, 'cause we had a few changes and we had, on the lawn, we had this amazing meeting where everybody had their own picnic blanket. We were like these isolated islands.
We completely, I got sunburned that day, didn't I? Yeah, we were completely self isolated. But from that discussion, that first time that everybody was able to get together and we sat and we went. Right. We kind of got this bank canvas. What do we wanna do? What is the museum? We've got four weeks until we have to open this museum.
What do we wanna do? There are stuff that we delivered in October last year, but that came from that first [00:31:00] getting together and sharing these ideas and all these ways, and that's how we've worked as much as we can. You know, there are some times where there are just things you just have to do. You know, we are still, we are a charity.
We are a business. There are some things that, you know. We can't do in some things that we have to do. Mm-hmm. But it is just great. I think everybody is great.
Susan Raynor: Yeah. I mean, I just, I can't say enough. It's just a very supportive culture that we have within the team, and I think that's a little bit down to every single member of the team and not just a little bit, it's very much down to every single member.
It's a conscious decision of the team. We do all look out for it.
Lizzie Dunford: There's also a sense of collective responsibility. Yeah, yeah. With it, with the house as well, which I think really matters. Hopefully not in a way that there's more pressure on them than there should be, but there is a sense of responsibility.
People feel this is part of them, that they belong, and so they look after the house, they look after each other. They feel a sense of, in the best possible way. Ownership. Yes, I hope. And we [00:32:00] recently had small structural failure in this one building, and we had a member of staff that we were wanting to offer a longer term contract to.
She was thinking about it over the weekend and she came back and said, after this, I want to be here. I want to be part of this because I've got a sense of how much it matters. And for me, that was one of the best things I have ever special ever heard. It was really special that a moment that could have gone so differently was what actually someone's like, yeah, no, I wanna stay, I wanna be part of this.
Tom Dawson: And it's so lovely to hear that. I think we've got a really good sense of how you work and your kind of your culture there. If you are thinking about what's on the horizon, what are the challenging things coming up that you are concerned about? And I suppose my follow up question to that would be what is there at a regional and national level?
Governments or support bodies could be doing to help you as a house museum in the where you are and the size you are?
Susan Raynor: I wouldn't say I'm concerned about anything specifically, I [00:33:00] would say I'm more excited to take the opportunities given to us this year. And see how we can build on those and see how we can grow.
And we've touched on that already. Yeah. Engaging more with these visitors that we've had this year and given different opportunities, a different audience again, more, you know, artists to come in and sit in this environment and be able to create art. So I think I'm excited. About the opportunities that we've got coming up rather than nervous.
I mean, obviously Lizzie said, of course we're not gonna have as many visitors next year. You know? I mean, no we won't. It is a one-off and we are completely prepared for that and in a way quite looking forward to it. It'll be different in a very, sort of, shouldn't say that kind of way. We know that there is so much more we can do.
Mm-hmm. There is so much we know that we are not. Doing to the best that we could do it. It's a different challenge, but it is not something I'm concerned about.
Lizzie Dunford: Being [00:34:00] independent means that some of those changes that might be coming up to those large scale funding bodies means we are not as vulnerable to those as some organizations might be.
You know, that the NPO going in later, that won't really affect us in that same way, but it does impact us all. To an extent, I think certainly difficult to access funding for core structural conservation work is always a challenge. Even when you are able to generate surpluses, there are still things that go beyond what you can generate and when it is so difficult.
We've restored our roofs here between 2021 and 2024. The vast percentage of that was self-funded. We did get two grants. We got one from Hamster County Council and we got one from the Historic Houses Foundation, but. That was less than 30% of that cost. The rest of it was self-funded because there was no funding for us to fix our roofs, and we were very lucky in a position where we could sort that out.
We had amazing, well, we sold the roof, we sold some of the roof tiles, and that helped raise some money. So [00:35:00] definitely recommend that for anybody who's got a historic roof that they need to do. Sell the tiles. That was a great fundraiser. But I think we're also in Hampshire, we are looking at local government reform and devolution, uh, which will be interesting to see how that has an impact.
One of our major challenges here is public transport. It's local accommodation. There are buses, but they're not great. That's a real challenge for us. Also, the wider education sector, and literally we see that we're in a, we're a real crisis for literacy in this country with young children reading and even adults.
Reading 2026 is gonna be the year of literature, but one year isn't gonna fix an intergenerational crisis in reading and literacy. So that's both an opportunity for us. Mm. People do study Austen at school, but none of the team did. The team, all here came through adaptation, so that is still valid, but it's still about that access to reading and things.
So there is something wider about how literacy, how culture is actually valued and engaged with. At kind of strategic national [00:36:00] level. It's something that's very much part of our sense of nationhood this literary legacy. But what does that mean in practical terms for individuals? So there are a few things like that.
But yeah, the local government reform would be interesting and it's impact. Yeah, we just need more buses really. More buses would be great. More buses. More buses would be more buses would be brilliant. Coming out to the village and that would, that would make a big. Difference. Yeah, it would. Yeah. Uber has now come to Hampshire, so that is also is also helpful for our visitors.
Tom Dawson: It's so lovely. Sometimes I talk to people and I have to really tease out the innovative stuff, but it's just work out of you two. It's lovely and I get a real sense of joy in our conversation today, and that really comes across so strongly. It's so lovely to hear. What is the best bits of your job? I love that image of you opening the shutters at the beginning of the day and letting the light flood in, sort of washing over the bonnets, carelessly tossed on chairs.
What are the highlights of your roles?
Susan Raynor: It's difficult to pick one thing I have to say, but. With regards to what I actually do, I think my favorite thing is the [00:37:00] product development. Mm. I just love that. I love picking up a little idea and creating it. I did a China range last year and we were desperately, oh, everything I did for this China range, it just was not working and I was thinking, this isn't gonna happen, this isn't gonna happen.
So I ended up drawing the house myself and doing the artwork for the China myself. I said to the rep who was the company that we had to develop it, I said to him, I'm not really sure this is gonna be any good, so just tell me if it looks rubbish. You know? Yeah. I have to say I, I probably enjoy that element the most, but with regards to what's the most special?
I have to confess that when I'm opening up the house and closing the house, people laugh at me. But when I go into Jane's bedroom, I always say, good morning. And I always say goodnight. And if I forget, I have walked back up the stairs, open the bedroom door and said, I'm sorry ladies. I [00:38:00] forgot to say goodnight.
Goodnight. And then I go out. I will not not do it, no. So I think that being in the house by yourself
Lizzie Dunford: I think for me. I think it is seeing the amazing things that come out of the house. It's the house continuing to create extraordinary things. It's watching and supporting and enabling this amazing team to like continual achieve.
Of course, SU program is amazing. You know, this is, this is, I have, I have 20 people like this that go, oh, I wanna make something. Oh, I'll just draw it. And then it becomes a best selling product. Like that's amazing. You know, to be in this combination of a place that. It's so beautiful. It's so storied and I think for many of us it's like this strange overlap between career and obsession.
Yes, it's a very fun line. It's working as hard as I can. To ensure that for everybody comes, whether it's staff, whether it's volunteers, it's visitors, that it feels like home. Mm-hmm. And even when it's a workplace, it feels like homes. It, it really [00:39:00] matters. It really matters. Yeah.
Tom Dawson: That's lovely. That's absolutely wonderful.
And I think that's the perfect point to wrap up. I think, Suzie, Lizzie, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. And we can only really end by, we've gotta finish off by saying goodbye to Jane, haven't we? Surely So we'll say goodbye, Jane. Yeah, absolutely. Bye Jane. Thank you, Jane. Bye Jane.
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