Tullie House Trust

Chair of New Shadow Board appointed

(Date of issue: 1 April 2010)

The Chair of a new Shadow Board has been appointed to work with staff and Elected Members of Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery and Carlisle City Council as they explore and negotiate Trust status.

Roger Cooke (67) will be leading the financial, legal and contractual negotiations in setting up a new structure and creating a Shadow Board so that the Museum can progress to a Trust and the transfer of the management and operation of the Museum to an independent Board of Trustees.

The Trust approach would provide long-term benefits for the Museum such as increased access to external funding and a more flexible approach to delivering the Museum’s services whilst the buildings and collections would remain with Carlisle City Council.

Mr Cooke, who is Cumbria based, is currently a trustee for two organisations, the first is the nationally known London Transport Museum and, in Cumbria, a trust which provides adventure holidays for people with special needs, The Lake District Calvert Trust. He has been a non-executive board member on two other charities.

He was a founder member the London Transport Museum’s shadow board, establishing it as a legally independent body with charitable status and currently, he is an independent member and trustee for this board. His current role is chairing the museum’s audit committee.

Mr Cooke has had an international career as a member of, and advisor to the boards and senior management of public, non-profit and private sector organisations in the UK and overseas. He was a partner on the consultancy side PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) from which he retired in 2001.

From 2002 until 2009, he was Managing Director of Oxford Policy Management, a leading international development consultancy that was previously part of the University of Oxford.

A graduate of Oxford University, Mr Cooke has family roots in Cumbria and recently moved from London to live in Cumbria.

About his appointment as the Chair of the new Tullie House Shadow Board, Mr Cooke said:

“Tullie House has a distinguished history and a growing reputation for the quality and interest of its collections. The museum is already well established as a leading visitor attraction in the North West. I am delighted to have been asked to lead the new Shadow Board over what promises to be an exciting period of further opportunity and development for Tullie House, as it seeks to widen its sources of finance and reach out to an ever wider range of audiences.”