The Art Newspaper

Rod and Bob are on NTS party list

By The Art Newspaper. From In The Frame
Published online: 09 September 2009

The troubled conservation organisation National Trust for Scotland (NTS) is going through a rough patch as part of a cost-cutting exercise, closing four properties and reducing staff numbers by 65. To add to its woes, embattled chairman Shonaig Macpherson has just announced her resignation (she aims to step down by September 2010) after 21 members tabled a no-confidence vote in the NTS board. But it’s good to see that it’s all guns blazing on the Robert Burns museum front, a £21m NTS project which has been the focus of its recent troubles due to a reported £3.8m shortfall in its funding. For the grand opening in Ayrshire next summer, organisers have invited a plethora of celebrities in­cluding boxer Mu­ham­mad Ali and singers Bob Dylan and Rod Stewart. “Ali is a lifetime member of the Alloway Burns Club and no mean poet himself while Bob Dylan said ‘My Love is Like a Red Red Rose’ is one of the best songs ever written and inspired his early work,” museum director Nat Edwards told local press.