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.
On Tuesday afternoon I was at the Community Media Association in Sheffield for the first meeting of the CMA Arts Project Steering Group. CMA Arts Co-ordinator, Tamar Millen, updated us on her progress to date and we discussed her first draft of the new CMA Arts Strategy. I agreed to set up a meeting for Tamar with a range of voluntary arts umbrella bodies to start to discuss how voluntary arts groups and community media organisations might collaborate.
Robin Simpson.
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.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, Europe, localauthorities, research, UK, volarts
Last week I was in South Korea to speak at the World Culture Clubs Forum conference. Seongnam City is a new city with a population of 1 million people on the outskirts of Seoul. The Seongnam Cultural Foundation has been working to make Seongnam a ‘cultural city’ by developing a voluntary arts network organised by amateur or citizen-led art groups (culture clubs). These groups are involved in both making policy and delivering policy, and are helping to establish the new identity of the city. The Department of Arts & Cultural Management at Kyunghee Cyber University in Seoul has been studying the development of this voluntary arts network and the World Culture Clubs Forum conference was a platform to discuss the results of their research and to compare this with other models of amateur arts practice from around the world. I was one of five guest speakers, along with representatives of the European Network of Cultural Centres, the International Council for Cultural Centres, the National Cultural Festival in Shizuoka, Japan, and the Mid-America Arts Alliance. The conference delegates came from across South Korea and included politicians, local government officers and civil servants from the Ministry of Culture. I was amazed and delighted to discover that almost everyone at the conference was familiar with ‘Our Creative Talent’ – the study of the voluntary and amateur arts in England commissioned by DCMS and Arts Council England in 2008. I was even more surprised when someone approached me after my presentation to say he had recognised my voice from the podcast of a speech I had given to a NALGAO seminar in Bristol in 2007!
World Culture Clubs Forum conference
It was a fascinating conference and we identified lots of ways in which our organisations might be able to work together. There was some discussion about the idea of developing a Global Network for the Voluntary Arts, though we agreed not to rush into anything.
World Culture Clubs Forum speakers
Korea is a fascinating place: everything seems very modern – on our way to the conference we drove through the ‘old town’ which dates from 1990! But there is more greenery than I expected – lots of trees and lush green grass. The Han river which runs through Seoul is huge – much wider than the Thames. But in terms of buildings it’s just masses of skyscrapers and neon signs. Everyone is exceptionally polite and helpful: I’m very glad I read the bit in my guide book about the reverence which is attached to the exchanging of business cards and brought a big supply with me. Everyone you meet in any vaguely business-related context hands you a business card and expects you to hold it in both hands and study it carefully for at least a minute before carefully filing it away. And still, a week later, I am finding myself naturally bowing to everyone!
Korean meal
We had several enormous meals in traditional Korean restaurants – very hot and spicy food, sitting cross-legged on cushions at low tables. We attended the opening of an exhibition of amateur art works – including a performance by a local amateur guitar group – and an opera gala concert featuring two Korean singers who are now regular performers at La Scala, Milan.
It was wonderful to have the chance to meet up with Debbie Brooks who left VAN at the beginning of this year to take up a job in Seoul teaching English as a foreign language. She is really enjoying teaching and is considering whether to sign up for another year in South Korea.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, DCMS, education, England, olympics, OTS, UK, volunteering
Finally on Wednesday I took part in a preliminary meeting of the 2012 Olympics Volunteering Inspiration and Legacy Stakeholders Advisory Group at the Cabinet Office. This is to become the formal stakeholder advisory group for the government’s 2012 legacy programmes. We heard from David Brooker, Director of Legacy at the Government Olympic Executive, who is responsible for all aspects of the legacy the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are intended to generate. The Government’s 2012 Legacy Action Plan was published in June 2008 and covers the legacy for East London, the legacy for sport, the economic legacy and the social legacy. David spoke to us specifically about the social legacy programmes, focussing particularly on the planned campaign to inspire participation and the plan to increase levels of volunteering. These will involve a major social legacy marketing campaign linked to a mechanism for directing people to opportunities to participate in sport, health, education, the environment and culture across the UK. Claire Easterman from YouthNet explained the YouthNet/Volunteering England project, funded by the Office of the Third Sector, which will develop the national volunteering database (‘do-it’) to create a single place to bring together all the opportunities to participate which are inspired by 2012. I still have concerns about the lack of connection between this project and both 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. But I am pleased to be part of this new stakeholder advisory group and hope to be able to ensure that the voluntary arts sector takes advantage of the various opportunities presented by the 2012 legacy programmes.
Robin Simpson.
I then met Louise de Winter of the National Campaign for the Arts for our regular catch-up meeting. We discussed the emerging implications for voluntary arts groups of the new immigration and visas system. We also examined the new Arts Council England staffing structure and what the changes might mean in relation to ACE’s work on arts participation and the voluntary arts.
Robin Simpson.
I was back in London on Tuesday for my regular meeting with Sophie Chapman at the Office of the Third Sector. It’s all change at the Cabinet Office with Tessa Jowell taking over from Liam Byrne and Angela Smith becoming the new Minister of State for the Third Sector. We discussed progress on the 2012 Volunteering Legacy: three new posts are being created at Volunteering England, a project manager will be based at YouthNet to oversee development of the new online Participation Portal and the Office of the Third Sector is working with the Government Olympic Executive on the development of a national marketing campaign about volunteering and participation.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DCMS, manifesto, politics, UK, volarts
On Monday I was at Tate Britain in London for the National Campaign for the Arts conference: ‘Future Britain: Arts leading the way’. The focus of the day was to launch the NCA Arts Manifesto for the next general election. Looking back at the previous NCA Arts Manifesto, where the voluntary arts featured as a separate section towards the end of the document, shows how far we have come in persuading the rest of the arts sector that we are all part of a single eco-system. The new NCA Arts Manifesto integrates the voluntary arts throughout – realising the greater strength we have together rather than apart. Another indication of this change in attitude was the fact that the final panel session at Monday’s conference featured the Culture Minister Barbara Follett, the Conservative Shadow Minister Ed Vaizey, the Chief Executive of Arts Council England Alan Davey, NCA Director Louise de Winter and me. I am very grateful to the NCA for recognising the significance and importance of the voluntary arts so publicly. And it was very exciting to be introduced by Joan Bakewell and followed by Melvyn Bragg, who formally launched the arts manifesto with an inspiring call to arms. Barbara Follett spoke about the Treasury as the ‘elephant in the room’ and stressed the need for quantification, citing ‘Our Creative Talent’ – the 2008 DCMS/ACE research into the voluntary and amateur arts in England. She said “the arts have an enormous contribution to make to wellbeing and happiness.” Ed Vaizey saw huge opportunities in the voluntary sector. He said there are lots of arts charities but was worried that they are not working together. NCA President Lord Bragg closed the conference by saying “the creative industries is an idea whose time has come … the spearhead of our economy is now the creative industries: the arts are the leading brand in this country”.
Robin Simpson.
