Cultural Playing Field

On Thursday I was at Community Matters in London for a meeting about the new ‘Leadership & Governance’ National Support Service. This programme – funded by Capacitybuilders as one of the replacements for the old ChangeUp national Hubs – is a partnership between NCVO, acevo and the Community Sector Coalition. The meeting I attended was an opportunity for Coalition members to help to plan the parts of the programme which will be delivered by the CSC. The emphasis for the programme (as for the all the national support services) is to help ‘Support Providers’ (including local infrastructure organisations and national membership bodies such as voluntary arts umbrella organisations) to deliver capacity-building to local front-line organisations. In the case of the Leadership & Governance support service there will be a particular focus on small community groups – including voluntary arts groups. The old Governance Hub was very helpful to VAN and enabled us to deliver a programme of governance support to voluntary arts umbrella bodies. It looks like there should be even more potential to improve leadership and governance in local voluntary arts groups through the new national support service.

On Tuesday I was at the British Film Institute in London to attend the National Council for Drama Training Conference. It was good to hear about the development of the NCDT’s new strategic plan - particularly as the key element of the plan is going to be about widening participation. NCDT Director, Hilary Strong, is keen to encourage more young people from diverse communities into drama training. The conference included sessions on colour-blind casting and the new media landscape which led to some fascinating - and heated - discussions. It was interesting to hear the suggestion (and some emerging evidence) that, even in the world of online video, quality will out: despite the ease with which anyone can create and distribute drama, after the initial novelty wears off what will survive and flourish will be that which is well written, acted and directed.