Touring Exhibitions Group

The Touring Exhibitions Group (TEG) is a professional membership association in the United Kingdom. Its members are mainly staff in museums, galleries and other public sector organisations who are involved in the exchange of exhibitions, whether as organisers or venues, or both. It was set up in 1985, following the closure of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Circulation Department. TEG itself does not organise exhibitions or administer tours, but helps its members to do so.

The Touring Exhibitions Group was set up to be a membership body that would embrace the smallest venues as well as the largest providers of exhibitions. In the U.K., touring has always been dominated by exhibitions of modern and contemporary art so, to introduce more balance, TEG’s approach from the outset was deliberately multi-disciplinary, embracing archaeology, social history, science and technology, etc. as well as the arts and crafts. To regulate how an association would function with a membership across this range of scale and variety of disciplines, its founding members drew up a constitution which was formally adopted on 18 February 1985 and which, with relatively few amendments, still defines how the organisation is run. In large part this continuity is because TEG has not attracted regular support from grant-aid sources and has consequently not been deflected by the priorities and pressures of these organisations. For the same reason, it has not built up a full-time staff who might have taken the organisation in directions away from the interests of the membership as a whole. Like other professional associations that are affiliated to the Museums Association, it draws its diversity of expertise, its authority, its policies and its funding directly from its members.

Members pay an annual subscription, which contributes to the organisation’s running costs. There are two categories of membership: an ordinary one (currently with an annual subscription of £45) for anyone in the public sector involved in exhibitions; and a corporate category (currently with an annual subscription of £120) for commercial companies which provide services to public exhibitions (the Touring Exhibitions Group does not concern itself with commercial or trade exhibitions). Every paid-up member is entitled to vote in an annual ballot, which elects an Executive Committee for the following year. Not all members of this Committee have to stand for election each year, because the Officers (chair, treasurer, etc.) are elected for two years at a time. Those who do not become officers are entitled to serve three years, so the structure allows for both continuity and renewal.

The Committee meets four times a year and comprises around 12 elected members, plus people co-opted for needs not provided through the ballot, and observers from public agencies with an interest in touring. TEG has no premises of its own, so its various postal addresses are the addresses of members of the secretariat, and it meets in different venues, relying on the generosity of members who provide space for free. It will also visit organisations which are not members, especially if it wishes to have first-hand knowledge of a new building or a new organisation in the market.

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