Conflicting comms and corporate jargon can miss the point and confuse the people who really care
I didn’t realise the National Motor Museum and the Beaulieu Estate were anything other than the same thing, and that was fine. In fact, I imagine that was part of the idea when the estate-owning Montagu family established a museum trust in 1972 to be responsible for the car collection housed there.
This week we’ve learned they’re not one and the same. Beaulieu doesn’t own the National Motor Museum – at least not everything in it. Does that matter? To us it doesn’t, but clearly it does to them. They each got their own thoughts, those aren’t the same and hence now it matters to us too.
As our story (below) shows, clearly they weren’t getting on very well during negotiations about what to do when the trust’s lease ends in 2030.
Beaulieu exclusive: Funding feud behind National Motor Museum exit
It was the trust that broke that news, by releasing a statement saying it was looking for a new home. It was sufficiently vague on the Beaulieu front, though, deliberately or otherwise, that a ‘clarification’ statement from the estate followed, to say that it still owns plenty of the collection itself and that whatever happens to the vehicles and objects the trust removes, motoring events and displays will stay in the New Forest as part of the estate’s remit.
What a pickle. Ultimately, though, also what a shame that a lack of clear communications has led to people thinking that Beaulieu will cease to be as a motoring destination or that the museum is going to close. It smacks of parties looking rather too inwardly, without really realising that beyond their daily world people aren’t aware of – and usually don’t care about – what’s going on at their detailed level.
The trust, for example, led with this: “This marks the next stage in the Trust’s long-term strategy to secure the future of the National Motor Museum. This strategy is focused on reimagining and reinvigorating the Museum, engaging with new generations of motoring enthusiasts and diverse communities, while developing and preserving the Designated collection for generations to come.”
What does that mean, exactly? Any idea? Why won’t organisations speak more clearly?
I understand that this might seem like a trivial complaint when the future of more than 250 important cars – and, more concerningly, 1.9 million archive items that aren’t exactly profitable to have to look after – need to find a new home. But it isn’t trivial when you see the number of below-the-line comments and reactions from people who now think there will be no cars at Beaulieu or that the whole collection is going to go under.
And those are the people interested enough to notice. Beyond those are the people who will look no further than the headlines but who, when thinking about having a day out in a year or more’s time, might vaguely remember something about that car museum not being there any more and just decide to go somewhere else.
It’s tiresome to have to decipher vague-speak, yet so many organisations use it. Last week my gas supplier wrote to tell me that “over recent months, we’ve used a Market Volatility Surcharge to help manage uncertainty in global energy markets. While markets remain unpredictable, gas costs are beginning to stabilise, although at a higher level than previously. We’re therefore simplifying your pricing by resetting your base cylinder prices and reducing the Market Volatility Surcharge to £0.00.”
I had no idea what that meant. The ‘£0.00’ bit sounded good. It took them going into another paragraph before they told me the thing that I suspected in the first instance, which is that my gas cylinder prices are going up. It would actually have been kinder, mates, and I’d have felt more charitably towards you, if you had just admitted that in clear English at the start.
Anyway, while my natural thought is that the National Motor Museum should be at Beaulieu, I don’t know if there’s anything inherently bad about either side finding they disagree (presumably about money, because when isn’t it?). But there doesn’t have to be a moral victor in every argument, and it might not be so bad to just admit as much and say that at some point there will be two car museums.
That could ultimately work out just fine for both parties and museum-goers. Shame, then, that this unspoken acrimony will linger in the memory for more time than a bit of plain-speaking clarity would have.
