Filed under: meetings | Tags: DCMS, England, funding, heritage, ncvo, olympics, OTS, vcs, volarts
On Thursday I was in London for my regular meeting with Heritage Link and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. We were joined by Chris Atkins, Head of Lottery Distribution and Third Sector Policy at DCMS and had a wide ranging discussion about the voluntary cultural sectors. Among many other topics we discussed the progress of the sector coalition on Gift Aid, the Office of the Third Sector’s withdrawal of its Campaigning Fund and Heritage Link’s Cultural Olympiad project, ‘Discovering Places’, which has been awarded £1M from the Olympic Lottery Distributor.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, drama, olympics, training, UK, volarts
I am aware that I have sometimes been guilty of excessive hyperbole in this blog but, on this occasion, I really have to say that our creative planning event last weekend with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford was totally brilliant!
We brought 65 representatives of voluntary arts umbrella bodies to Stratford-upon-Avon for the weekend to work with RSC staff and actors to develop ideas for the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival (one of the major projects within the Cultural Olympiad). As well as the various amateur theatre umbrella bodies we also invited representatives from a range of artforms, including music, dance and poetry, to look at how we might use the festival to encourage greater collaboration between amateur arts groups as well as with the RSC and other professional companies.
There was a fantastic mood and genuine learning in both directions. On Saturday we were in the RSC’s Arden Street rehearsal rooms. RSC Artistic Director, Michael Boyd, gave an opening speech in which he said “the World Shakespeare Festival, at the very least, will be a great project we can all enjoy but, at best, could be quite culture-changing: something very radical is happening in theatre in this country”. He concluded that “the combined forces of professional and amateur theatre provide potentially a massive engine of social cohesion and social intelligence”. I had worried that, after his words of welcome, Michael Boyd might then disappear but he stayed with us all weekend (right to the end) and genuinely listened and learned from the umbrella bodies. He was really excited about what we might do together and has asked for a follow-up meeting with us as soon as possible.
Michael Boyd addressing the RSC/Voluntary Arts creative planning weekend
After Michael’s welcome I talked about the false divide between professional and amateur that developed in the UK in the twentieth century and gave a brief overview of the various parts of the Cultural Olympiad. RSC Associate Director (and Director of the World Shakespeare Festival), Deborah Shaw, then explained the vision for the festival, in which a range of pro-am collaborations will form one of the three main strands.
We spent Saturday morning working in small groups (each with a mixture of RSC staff and amateur organisation representatives) to brainstorm the key elements, messages and legacies of the World Shakespeare Festival. The groups then reported back to a plenary session chaired by Michael Boyd which developed into a wide-ranging discussion about the potential of the festival.
Michael Boyd chairing the first plenary session at the RSC/Voluntary Arts creative planning weekend
On Saturday afternoon we took part in a series of workshops led by RSC staff, including ‘Movement’ with Struan Leslie, Head of Movement at the RSC, ‘Marketing and Press’ with Jo Litt, RSC Marketing Manager; David Collins RSC Head of Marketing and Nada Zakula, RSC Senior Press Officer, ‘Approaches to Shakespeare’s text’ with Lyn Darnley, RSC Head of Text, Voice and Artist Development, ‘Stage Management’ with Nicola Ireland, Stage Management Team for RSC’s Young People’s Hamlet and ‘Editing Shakespeare’s Text’ with RSC Assistant Director Vik Sivalingam. These workshops were excellent: they would have made a good series of TV programmes in themselves.
On Saturday evening we all went to see the new RSC production of ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Courtyard Theatre. It’s a wonderful show (see my review) and it was fascinating to spot aspects of this interpretation which had been explained to us in the afternoon workshops. I was particularly interested in the reaction of some of our non-theatre umbrella bodies, for whom Shakespeare is not particularly familiar and who had never seen an RSC production before, who were completely bowled over by it.
Justin Audibert leading a session at the RSC/Voluntary Arts creative planning weekend
Three of the actors from Twelfth Night gave up their day off on Sunday to come to show us how their rehearsal process works in a session led by Assistant Director, Justin Audibert. And 65 representatives of voluntary arts umbrella bodies got to spend several hours on the stage of the Courtyard Theatre dreaming up visions of what the pro-am part of the World Shakespeare Festival might look like. The RSC staff were brilliant throughout, but the voluntary arts representatives also rose to the challenge and were enthusiastic, creative and innovative. There was an inspirational mood from the start, made more magical when we got to work in the theatre on Sunday.
Struan Leslie leading a session on the stage of the Courtyard Theatre
In chairing the last plenary session I left the final word to Tom Williams – an amateur actor with around 50 years’ experience – who recited “Our revels now are ended” from The Tempest, which finishes “We are such stuff as dreams are made on”. It was a wonderful weekend and promises to be the start of an extremely exciting and productive partnership between Voluntary Arts and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
I was in Peterborough on Wednesday for a meeting of representatives of amateur theatre umbrella bodies to discuss the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival. At the end of October we are taking 100 representatives of voluntary arts umbrella bodies to Stratford-upon-Avon for a creative planning weekend where we will work with staff and actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company to plan the 2012 Festival. This is a fantastic opportunity for the voluntary arts sector to develop a model for working in collaboration with a major professional arts institution. Our meeting this Wednesday helped us to clarify our aims and ambitions for this project and enabled us to start developing some specific ideas about amateur involvement in this aspect of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, DCMS, education, England, Northern Ireland, olympics, OTS, Scotland, UK, vcs, volarts, volunteering
I was in London on Wednesday to take part in the ‘Volunteering and London 2012’ symposium, organised by Volunteering England. This event brought together volunteering agencies and voluntary sector infrastructure organisations from across the UK. We heard from David Huse, Head of Volunteering at LOCOG, about the latest plans for recruiting, training and managing the 70,000 games-time volunteers needed to help run the Olympic and Paralympic Games: the application process for these volunteers (including volunteer performers for the ceremonies) will be launched in summer 2010. We then had a presentation from the Government Olympic Executive about plans for a social legacy marketing plan: the ‘big idea’ is to use London 2012 to inspire participation in volunteering, culture, sport, education and more, across the UK. There will be a campaign to inspire the whole of the country to give time to their local communities. A creative agency has just been appointed and the campaign will be launched in early 2010. We also heard from the Volunteer Development Agency in Northern Ireland, Volunteer Development Scotland and Greater London Volunteering about the progress of their 2012 volunteering initiatives – including the ‘People Making Waves’ programme in Scotland which includes Voluntary Arts Scotland’s ‘Make a Splash’ project. The symposium was followed by a second meeting of the London 2012 Volunteering Legacy Stakeholder Advisory Group where we specifically focussed on the Volunteering England/YouthNet project which is expanding the national volunteering database (do-it.org.uk) to include a wide range of opportunities catalysed by London 2012.
Robin Simpson.
Also on Tuesday I was at the Cabinet Office for my regular update meeting with John Knights at the Office of the Third Sector. Among many topics we discussed plans for the European Year of Volunteering 2011, the Government’s intergenerational volunteering programme, the Access to Volunteering programme and the London 2012 social legacy which seems to be taking shape and should present some exciting opportunities for the voluntary arts sector.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, funding, olympics, research, Scotland, volarts
On Thursday Fiona, David and I were at the Scottish Government offices at Victoria Quay in Edinburgh for our six-monthly tri-partite meeting which brings together officers from the Culture Division of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Arts Council and Voluntary Arts Scotland. It was great to hear in detail about progress towards the establishment of Creative Scotland directly from the civil servant charged with steering the relevant legislation through the Scottish Parliament. Scottish Arts Council is looking at a range of policy issues for Creative Scotland and will launch a major online consultation during October which will be a key opportunity for the voluntary arts sector to try to influence the policy of the new agency. We looked at some initial statistics from the ‘Taking Part’ questions in the Scottish Household Survey which provide information about levels and patterns of arts participation in Scotland. A detailed analysis of this research should be available within the next month. We also met the civil servants responsible for developing the cultural programmes in Scotland relating to both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. And we updated the Scottish Government and the Scottish Arts Council on our two new major projects: ‘Crafting the Arts’ (funded by the Big Lottery Fund) and ‘Make a Splash!’ (funded by the Legacy Trust).
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DIUS, England, olympics, OTS, volarts, volunteering
On Tuesday I was in London to meet Claire Easterman, Fiona Jamieson and Katie Jackson at YouthNet to talk about their project, funded by the Office of the Third Sector, to develop the national volunteering database (‘do-it’) to create a single place to bring together opportunities to participate inspired by 2012. There are three specific areas of focus for the project, one of which is culture and the arts. YouthNet plans to work with membership organisations to develop and advertise volunteering opportunities for people inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I wanted to check whether the project is still to include both formal volunteering opportunities and arts participation: YouthNet is still keen to realise this goal but, because of how the project has been funded, the main focus has to be on formal volunteering. Also, although there are hopes to link to databases in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the project will have to concentrate on opportunities in England. We talked about how to link the YouthNet project to the informal adult learning ‘portal’ being developed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the online aspects of Arts Council England’s forthcoming national campaign on arts participation – all three of which should provide voluntary arts groups with the opportunity to advertise for more members. YouthNet is keen to work with ACE and DBIS and I am optimistic that we will be able to achieve a solution that means voluntary arts groups only have to enter their details once.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DCMS, education, England, olympics, volarts
I was back at DCMS on Tuesday where Reemer and I met Mandy Barrie, Nick Pontefract and Stephen Darke from the arts team. We talked in detail about the Arts Council England Amateur Arts Partnership Development Programme – particularly the actions on ‘regional networking’ and ‘capacity building’ that Voluntary Arts England is leading. We also discussed informal adult learning and progress in relation to several aspects of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills white paper ‘The Learning Revolution’. We updated Mandy, Nick and Steve on the planned launch of the Participation Manifesto and our various initiatives to encourage voluntary arts groups to get involved in the Cultural Olympiad.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I was back in London to attend a meeting of the England Volunteering Development Council. We heard a presentation on the progress of the Modernising Volunteering National Support Service which is looking at employer-supported volunteering, new forms of volunteering, volunteering in faith-based organisations and increasing diversity. Justin Davis-Smith from Volunteering England talked about the work VE has been doing with the TUC to update the guidelines on relations between paid staff and volunteers which date back to 1979: comments are sought by the end of July on the draft new guidelines which are on the Volunteering England website. We had an update on the ‘refresh’ of the Voluntary Sector Compact: the revised Compact will be available from next Monday 20 July for a three month consultation. There was some concern about the implementation of the Department for Work and Pensions volunteering brokerage scheme which aims to place 34,000 long-term unemployed people in volunteering opportunities over the next two years. Saskia Daggett from Volunteering England presented a comprehensive review of the work of the six action groups which were established to follow-up the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering. These action groups have now finished their work and the list of their achievements is very impressive. Finally we heard more details of the YouthNet/Volunteering England 2012 Volunteering Legacy project which aims to build a sustainable electronic volunteering infrastructure.
Robin Simpson.
