The Museums Association. To some it is a rock, a beacon, a standard-bearer for all museums, the original and best of the national professional associations. To others it is capricious, obscure and, to the technologists among us, just a bit weird. So which is it? And why should we all love the MA?

I have been giving this a lot of thought recently for two reasons. The first is the visit of the Pope. The second is a tweet from Mike Ellis soliciting peoples’ views on the MA and its direction.

Many people have vented their frustration about the MA at me over the years – which is why I became the Affiliated Institutions Councillor of the MA in 2008, and which is why I have always sought to drive change and development (not always, admittedly, in the most diplomatic way!).

But the closer I have come to the MA, the more I have come to recognise that, now more than ever, we need it, with all its quirks and yes, even failings. Which brings me on to the Pope.

If you’ll forgive the pun, the Pope and his visit are something of a mixed blessing. He galvanises devotion and opposition with more or less equal ferocity and in many ways both his supporters and his detractors have a point.

On the positive side, you could argue that the Church throughout history has been a force for good, a source of succour and comfort, of protection for the weak and sanction over the strong and wilful. It has coalesced opinion and marshalled support and resources to the point at which it can have the same kind of impact as a nation-state. Critically, it is an organisation that is designed around the very principle of the long-now, of the protection of a long-standing principle even at the expense of popular support at times when that principle happens to be out of fashion.

On the less positive side, the business of administering the Chuch can be obscure, shrouded in centuries-old ritual and rigid heirarchies which serve to keep the masses at arms-length from its operation. Its purposes, driven as they may be by a higher principle, can sometimes appear destructive, even distasteful and its own internal moral compass can, as highlighted by recent events, bring it into sharp contrast with common morality and humanity. At worst, these issues can give it a disproportionately significant influence with a disproportionately diminished accountability.

And yes, so it is with the MA. The MA exists primarily to defend a very fundamental principle – that museums have a valid and important contribution to make to a healthy, harmonious and productive society and that the people who work in them deserve due recognition for their devotion to this principle. The MA is similarly a long-now organisation – defending this principle consistently and doggedly in spite of the winds of politics, fashion or professional temperament.

And defend the principle it does – throughout the history of the MA, it has remained remarkably true to the centrality of this message. And yet this same adherence is what can sometimes come out as intransigence and inflexibility.

From my perspective, one of the chief areas in which the MA has been oddly silent or slightly out of tune is in the Digital Agenda. Very little of their work touches on this, which to those of us for whom technology in museums is a preoccupation, makes it seem oddly anachronistic. And yet, in the same sense as the Church defending the principle of ‘goodness’ in the face of the modern secular world, if you refract this position through the lens of the MA’s internal value system, it is far from proved that the digital agenda represents a fundamental revolution in the working lives of the majority of their members.

This is jarring, as I say, to those for whom the Digital Revolution is a part of our daily work in museums. But if you think about it – they have a point. Although I would hope we can change the situation, for a majority of people working in museums technology is not a core part of their work, and the whole fervent rhetoric about it is, if anything, slightly offputting.

As I have noted in previous posts, part of the dismantling of the current infrastructure of museums, archives and libraries is, doubtless, intended to soften the sector up for the coming cuts in Local Authority expenditure on cultural services. Like it or not, part of modern politics (actually, ancient politics too) is about using the infrastructure of funding to control dissent. Although some cuts may be necessary, even positive, the sector’s ability to stop the heritage baby being sluiced out with the bathwater is curtailed by the fact that most of us depend financially to a greater or lesser extent on the very people we are seeking to influence.

Which is why the independence of the Museums Association is going to be one of the sector’s most important assets in the next 12-24 months. The MA alone (with the support of the Collections Trust, AIM and similarly constituted bodies) has the political influence, critical mass and solidity to offer a credible critical defense against cuts and a constructive enabler for future regrowth.

In the firmament of cultural politics, we are in a period of transition. The MLA has been given an opportunity to design how the world will look after its departure, and hence it remains incredibly infuential right up to the last.

The MA has an opportunity to manifest a unified voice for the whole of the sector and to galvanise both sector organisations and members around a common campaign for a better future. Which it is why it is doubly, triply, infinitely unfortunate that these two organisations are locked into a disagreement about the future development of Renaissance – particularly given that both are right (Renaissance must be defended, but not at the expense of being able to design a brighter political and social future for museums and to inspire politicians to support it).

Because collectively, like it or not, the MA, MLA and NMDC are museums, in the sense that in the eyes of the Treasury, DCMS, the media and the public, they are the voice which speaks on behalf of all of us. If we are to offer a genuine, effective defence on behalf of the 53,000-odd people who work and volunteer in a museum, then we depend on these titanic siblings organising themselves around a clear, confident and common message.

Which brings me to my final point. Like the Church, the MA is fundamentally democratic. Even if they sometimes give the appearance of an oligarchy, both are profoundly susceptible to people voting with their feet. The MA only has a mandate in the sense that its members subscribe to it. There is only a conference so long as people register for it. Sometimes, supporting the MA is an article of faith. Sometimes that faith is repaid. Sometimes, it seems to be off pursuing some tangential agenda of its own. What it is always doing, however, is fighting for museums. And that is why we should all love the MA.