Created in Birmingham

I hadn’t realised this was online and picked up on it while skimming the latest from this / inexplicably / styled website from the Arts Council. I’ll let plan b (not that one) explain:

We are making a living portrait of 24 hours in Birmingham with the people who move through its streets, parks, waste grounds and tow paths on foot for the Fierce Festival and the Midlands Art Centre (MAC) See planbperformance.net/?dayinlife.htm for details

A Day in the Life – The Walkers of Birmingham is much more than just a living map, it is a portrait of a city as experienced at ground level. The animation emphasises walking by filtering faster journeys and making these lines more feint

• Roxana Silbert Appointed As The REP’s New Artistic Director
  “The REP has today announced the appointment of Roxana Silbert as the company’s new Artistic Director”
• Summer visual arts exhibitions in the Midlands, 2011 « D’log
  A lovely round-up. Pics and everything
• Birmingham’s thriving independent film-making scene
  Profiles of The Casebook of Eddie Brewer, Tortoise in Love and Turbulence with chats with the folks behind them
• Local TV in Birmingham Survey
  I don’t like how this (really quite poorly thought out) survey is being spammed around, but if you want to throw some thoughts towards some research into the potential of local TV in Brum here’s your chance. It’s being done by some students (not sure where from) in collaboration with Maverick TV
• Health & Efficiency
  “These are our first recordings. They’re free so share the love and spread the word”
• YouTube – Working in partnership: Birmingham City Council, the Arts Council and the MLA
  If you’re up for a blizzard of policy speak and buzzwords then give this video a try. And good luck to you
• Birmingham Loves Photographers – Mr Khan
• Another interview in the series (it’s worth going back and checking the others)

Today’s the day that arts organisations up and down the country will find out whether they’re going to receive funding over the next few years.

In case a bit of background’s useful, over the past few years, the Arts Council funds organisations in two ways – by giving cash on a project-by-project basis (that’s called Grants for the Arts) and through what’s called ‘regular funding’. In the latter you’d be given an amount of money over a period of time.

The regular funding part is changing – as from this time next year, there will be a number of organisations that will be known as National Portfolio Organisations. Today we’re finding out which those will be.

Headline figures:

Nationally, 695 organisations have National Portfolio status (down from around 880 that had regular funding previously). 206 organisations that were regularly funded didn’t make it into the portfolio. 110 organisations that weren’t regularly funded have got in.

In the West Midlands (and according to my rather iffy maths) we’ve gone from 66 regularly funded organisations to 50 National Portfolio Organisations.

National Portfolio Organisations in the West Midlands

As my first boss always told me – always work from first sources. The official Arts Council info is here. Of course, there’s only so much you can tell from a spreadsheet so the following won’t reveal much detail and may be slightly misleading in places (doesn’t take account of mergers or name changes). Still, this what I’ve made of it, and if I’ve made any mistakes, then please let me know (links are to statements put out by the orgs):

Funding increased from current position:

• Ace Dance And Music
• Arena
• Birmingham City University
• Black Country Touring
• Dancefest
• DanceXchange
• Fierce! Festival Limited
• Geese Theatre Company
• Live & Local Ltd
• Punch
• Stan’s Cafe
• Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service

It seems that some of these increases reflect mergers with other organisations, while others (Stan’s Cafe for one) have requested funding for money that would previously have come via applications to Grants For The Arts Awards.

Funding decreased:

• Arts Alive
• Belgrade Theatre
• Big Brum
• Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
• Birmingham Opera Company
• Birmingham Repertory Theatre Limited
• Birmingham Royal Ballet
• C&T
• City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
• Craftspace
• Dance Touring Consortium Limited
• Dash
• Ex Cathedra
• Ikon Gallery Limited
• Ixia
• Ledbury Poetry Festival
• Midlands Arts Centre (MAC)
• Motionhouse Dance Theatre
• Multistory
• New Art Gallery Walsall
• New Vic Theatre
• Pentabus Theatre
• Rhubarb Rhubarb
• Royal Shakespeare Company
• SAMPAD
• Talking Birds Theatre Company Ltd
• The Courtyard Centre for the Arts
• The Drum
• Tindal Street Press
• Warwick Arts Centre
• Welsh National Opera

As a side note, most of the reductions in funding here are relatively small. In a few cases they’re  a little more significant – check the spreadsheet for full info.

New to the portfolio:

• 2 FaCeD DaNcE Company Ltd
• Imagineer Productions
• Meadow Arts
• Nofit State Community Circus
• Performances Birmingham
• Sonia Sabri Dance Company
• Writing West Midlands

Current RFOs that won’t be in the National Portfolio

Please be aware that a lack of inclusion in the National Portfolio doesn’t mean these are just going to shut up shop. There’s also a couple of orgs here (flagged up where they’ve alerted me) who’s funding will come from one of those who are in the portfolio. Of course, some of these might well have not made an application, preferring to stick to project funding.

• Audiences Central
• B Arts
• Bilston Craft Gallery (although they’re part of Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service)
• Black Voices
• Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company
• Chitraleka Dance Company
• Contemporary Glass Society
• Designer Maker West Midlands
• Foursight Theatre
• Hereford Photography Festival
• Ludlow Assembly Rooms
• Made
• Malvern Theatres Trust
• Open Theatre Company
• Rideout (Creative Arts For Rehabilitation)
• Shindig (which is now covered by Live & Local, so they’re fine)
• Sound It Out
• Theatre Absolute
• Vivid
• Writers in Prison Network

Links elsewhere:

• Arts Council England’s official info page
• Statement from DCMS/Jeremy Hunt
• A Google Doc showing all National Portfolio Organisations
• Before the official announcement was made there was plenty coming through on Twitter
• Clare Edwards is looking to gather feedback about Sound It Out “from those who have been involved or been touched by the work of SIO. Even if it doesn’t help their cause it might be useful to gather a bit of feedback for the company in these circumstances”.
• Birmingham Jazz – Joint Birmingham Bid Secures Arts Council Funding
• The British Journal of Photography reports that Rhubarb Rhubarb’s funding won’t quite cover their existing activities. Fundraising and new ways of working required
• D’log’s round-up
• Catherine Edwards has blogged about the status of various writing and theatre organisations
• Katy Raines at Indigo has blogged about the position regarding audience development organisations
• The Guardian have been doing a good rolling news update thing, covering the whole of the country. They’ve been doing some visualisations too.
• The Birmingham Post’s article is here

I’ll keep on updating this post as and when I can. If I’ve made any errors (which isn’t unlikely) then please let me know and I’ll correct them.

This morning I attended a meeting about the BBC Big Screen ‘Live Sites’. The idea was that we’d have an opportunity to discuss with Arts Council and the gathered digital, media and cultural organisations how to use Birmingham’s Big Screen – currently situated in Victoria Square – in the lead up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

The main thrust of conversation was around how the screen can be used to engage people passing by as well as using it as a focal point for streaming live events or supporting live performances.

The first point to note is that the screen won’t simply be used as a big telly. As well as being able to screen video content, the screens are able to be used interactively using custom software and mounted cameras. This interactive content has included games such as cricket and quirkier ideas such as mapping animated masks onto the faces of passers by. Here’s an example:

Hand from Above from Chris O’Shea on Vimeo.

As well as for use locally, content for the screens can be relayed around the other Live Sites in other areas of the country and can even be used for competitive interactive games and events between cities. Several ideas came out of the discussion included:

• highlighting local cultural events with interactive performances
• creating interactive games to be played nationally and internationally
• and making innovative film content to showcase

Of particular note is the focus on dance in this region through the Arts Council’s Cultural Olympiad programme, predominantly the People Dancing strand of activities. This was an area in which creative projects using the screens would be welcomed, and although no direct funding is available from the Live Sites programme, ideas that used them and linked with Cultural Olympiad aims would be of interest.

Other points made included the upcoming dates of note, such as the Olympic torch relays in the region and the possibilities of events occuring during the Cultural Olympiad’s Open Weekend on 22-24 July this year, and how local organisations can get involved and contribute to the events.

So, in general, the big screen will be used for more than just BBC News 24. Let’s hope that our Live Site produces some especially creative content and showcases some of the region’s cultural highlights.

What would you like to see it used it for?

On Wednesday afternoon I went to the Crescent Theatre (not been there in a while) for a briefing from the Arts Council on the new funding arrangements for arts organisations.

Someone from Stan’s Cafe went in the morning and has written up a few thoughts. It’s worth a read as it articulates a few frustrations beautifully. To nick a bit of that write-up:

Now there will no longer be RFOs, every current RFO is being invited to apply for National Portfolio Funding. One advance is that this application process is open to any organisation that qualifies, rather than having to be invited to apply as before. There will certainly be opportunities for some companies to move up from project funding

And that last bit was the reason why a fair few people were in the room.

The session went down reasonably well, given the circumstances. Ros Robins (ACE Regional Director) was sympathetic but direct and didn’t make much attempt to hide the fact that the Arts Council have suffered a blow and are trying to find their feet again.

Here are the slides from her talk:

My notes

I scribbled a few notes and they’re reproduced below, for what they’re worth. Apologies in advance for any omissions or inaccuracies. I’ll try to clarify anything I can.

RFO’s end March 2012
National Portfolio Funding starts April 2012
G4A not changing much now.
Strategic (or managed) funds are changing

Gritted teeth from Ros while outlining the cuts.

Not all bad – some Lottery money coming back in 2013. More info on that nearer the time.

ACE WM reduced their staff from 46 to 27 in the recent restructure. Been asked to halve admin costs again, but will be required to do so in a couple of years time. To achieve this they recognise that they’ll have to wok in collaboration more. There will be a move from doing strategic projects to commissioning others to deliver them.

NPF orgs can’t apply for G4A.

ACE has five 10-year goals:

1. Talent and artistic excellence are thriving and celebrated
2. More people experience and are inspired by the arts
3. The arts are sustainable, resilient and innovative
4. The arts leadership and workforce are diverse and highly skilled
5. Every child and young person has the opportunity to experience the richness of the arts

Four major changes to the funding programme:

• open application process (online)
• fixed term of normally 3 years but flexibility for variable length funding agreements for 2-6 years
• funding agreements with orgs based on clear criteria and shared goals
• funding agreements based around ‘strategic’ and ‘programme’ relationships rather than one size fits all

Eligibility

• UK based with activity mainly taking place in England
• Min £40k funding (would be £20k but due to the level of reporting and evaluations that will be required that wouldn’t be enough)
• Engage people in arts activities/help arts orgs to do their work
• Oustanding track record or outstanding potential
• No profit to be distributed to members/shareholders
• Majority will be delivering a programme of artistic work
• Orgs delivering strategic work will have to demonstrate leadership, will have high expectations placed on them and will not necessarily be large flagship organisations
• Applicants must be incorporated
• Must contribute to at least two of ACE’s goals

Criteria for decision making

Stage 1 – assessing the application:

• Contribution to goals and priorities
• Governance, leadership and engagement
• Financial sustainability of the org

Stage 2 – balancing the portfolio:

• All goals priorities
• Diversity
• Range of artforms
• Dfferent sizes/types of orgs
• Geographical spread

Consortium bids are possible. Might be too soon to coordinate them this first time round, but looking over hte 10 years, so there is time to develop a consortium over the next couple of years and put an application in later on.

Applications

All applications must provide:

• Mission
• Proposed programme of work and how funding would be used
• Management accounts 2010/11
• Planned budget 2011/12
• Outline budget for years after
• Non-RFO’s must provide:
• Most recent financial statements
• Evidence for meeting the criteria (governance, quality, engaging audiences, risks)

Orgs decide how much to apply for.

Timeline

• Nov – open for applics
• Nov – briefing meetings and ongoing conversations
• Jan – deadline for applications 10am on 24 January 2011
• Jan – Relationship Managers start to assess applications
• Feb – moderation
• March – decisions
• April – publish Arts Council Plan 2011/12 to 2014/15

It will be a very competitive process. Have a fallback position in case you don’t get funding. G4A applications may be less competitive in 2012. Think about whether you want the extra responsibility and scrutiny.

You know the deal by now. I witter on about cuts to arts funding and make up for it all with a picture of a bunny at the end. Only this time it’s a video.

Now, the good thing about writing this twelve hours after today’s announcement is that everyone else has summarised, pontificated and moved on. I can just link to what they’ve written. Blogging is ace. Anyway, onward…

Here’s the Arts Council’s announcement. Fair play to them for getting this out in reasonably good time following the spending review.

Audiences Central have summarised things and the Birmingham Post has calculated the cuts the region’s orgs are going to face from April 2011.

To skip through the announcement:

• Most regularly funded organisations will have their funding cut by 6.9% in 2011/2012
• By 2014/15 cuts will have risen to 14.9% in real terms (ie. ignoring inflation)
• Arts and Business and Creativity, Culture and Education will have their public funding halved next year and taken away completely the year after that. That’s very bad news for them
• The Arts Council will have to halve its admin costs
• There’ll be a new system for funding from 2012 onwards (arrangements to be announced 4 November 2010). Everyone will have to reapply – some existing orgs won’t be successful, some new ones will
• The budget for budget for ‘strategic opportunities for artistic work’ such as touring, large events and the Cultural Leadership Programme is being knocked down by 64%

Next year will be a ‘transition year’, hence the lower-than-expected cuts, the stay of execution for A&B and CCE and the Guardian describing arts groups as ‘relieved’. So expect things to get worse. Oh, and don’t forget the local authority funding that’s disappearing.

In A&B’s ‘defence’ Colin Tweedy has released an utterly unimpressive statement quoting an easily-swatted away question in Parliament and referring to the generalised views of unnamed ‘private sector partners’. Go get em, tiger.

Still, it’s not all bad news in the arts. Working at the top at the Royal Opera House can net you £630,000 a year.

Here’s the bunny vid:

The Arts Council have announced a 0.5% cut in the funding given to RFO’s. It’s not as much as people were suggesting it’d be, but the blow is being softened by ACE being told to dig into their reserves.

Here’s a spreadsheet of the organisations in the West Mids and how they’ll be affected.

Figures came via the Guardian Datablog and thanks to Anna Blackaby for linking to that.

Fierce are set to re-launch their Platinum artist development scheme for artists living in the West Midlands. The scheme is funded by Arts Council England West Midlands and seems like an ideal opportunity for artists looking for some feedback and guidance.

Here’s an outline from Fierce:

If you are an artist and want to have some time and space to figure out how to develop your work, make useful and helpful connections that will forward your career and have fun in the process, then PLATINUM was made for you.

If you’re interested in taking part in the Platinum scheme, I’d suggest you contact Indy Hunjan on indy@wearefierce.org. The deadline for submissions is 12pm Friday 5th March 2010.

For more information and an application for, please visit their site here.

• Our vacancies | Arts Council
  Arts Council West Mids are recruiting Relationship Managers for theatre, dance, digital & creative economy, literature and music
• Artist Opportunity: mac-lab
  “mac invites applications from artists in all disciplines to apply for an intensive lab based residency at our new facilities in Birmingham. We want to hear from artists that are interested in working outside of their normal practice or ‘safe’ area. Open to any form of practice – we want applications from musicians, film-makers, visual artists, performers, live artists, photographers, digital media practitioners and anyone working across media”
• Engaging regional audiences – how do we do it? : Capsule Blog
  “We’ve just come back from a Birmingham City Council consultation meeting about the cities ‘Music Industry’. Over the 10 years we’ve been doing Capsule related activity we’ve been invited to a fair few of these things and still very little seems to have moved on”. There’s a good discussion going in the comments, go have a look
• TheBusinessDesk.com
  “Regional Business Information for the West Midlands”. Not very creative or anything, but worth a mention IMHO

Arts Council England has opened a consultation on the priorities for the arts over the coming decade.

They want your views to help form a 10-year strategic framework with long-term goals for each artform and find new ways to help those they fund already. Alan Davey, chief executive of Arts Council England, has this to say:

If we are to succeed in supporting art and artists, creativity and excellence, we must identify the key long-term goals that drive our decision-making, our investment priorities and our relationships with artists and audiences.

This consultation sets out our understanding of the current landscape, celebrates the success of the arts and identifies areas for development over the next ten years.

The consultation closes on 14 April 2010, so if you want your voice to be heard and your input used, you can complete the Arts Council’s questionnaire here. For more information on the process and background to the consultation, take a look at the Arts Council website here.

After contact from a group drawn from Birmingham City Council and Arts Council England, The Music Network has asked 10 open questions to begin to determine an overview of the current state, needs, and potential of the independent music industry in Birmingham.

I’d hope there’d be lot of strong views in this area, so if you’ve got something to say, you’ve got until 24th January to respond. Below are the 10 questions, which are also available in a handy Google survey here.

1. In your view, what is the current state of the region’s “Independent Music Industry?”

2. What do you think are it’s immediate needs with reference to the areas that you are most familiar with?

3. As far as the region’s “Independent Music Industry” is concerned, what do you think shows the greatest potential for the next few years?

4. In recent years, there has been a range of initiatives and projects designed to support the development of music in Birmingham. Can you list 5 projects or initiatives that you think have proved beneficial to the “Independent Music Industry?”

5. Can you list any projects or initiatives that you think have proved “of little use or benefit” to the “Independent Music Industry?”

6. With regard to your answers to questions 4 and 5, do you think Birmingham should continue to pursue the idea of more initiatives and projects designed to support the development of music in Birmingham?

7. If you could make any changes to, or include any new ideas for, any “strategy for supporting the development of music in Birmingham” what would your top priorities be?

8. If you were given the task of evaluating whether a project or initiative had been successful, what would you suggest as the best indicators of success, failure, benefit or disaster for the “Independent Music Industry?”

9. As far as your knowledge or understanding of the region’s “Independent Music Industry” is concerned, what are it’s greatest strengths, and what are it’s greatest weaknesses?

10. If you could do anything to “support the development of music in Birmingham” what would you do and why would you choose to do that?

The Music Network would also like you to send any comments, links, articles or opinions that may be useful toinfo@birminghammusicnetwork.com. Otherwise, they say, “a decision will be made on your behalf without any reference to you, and you may not benefit from any strategy that gets agreed and put into action”.

I hadn’t spotted any announcement, but it seems that Sally Luton, head of Arts Council England WM will be stepping down in June 2010.

From the Express and Star (and spotted by D’Log), and to answer the question posed in the title:

an answer to a parliamentary question from West Bromwich East MP Tom Watson reveals that Ms Luton, who is paid £82,325 a year, will get 18 months salary plus a £91,008.60 lump sum from her pension when she leaves, bringing her one-off departure fee to £211,480.60. She will also get £33,080.37 a year pension for the rest of her life

Last week I went along to Wolverhampton Art Gallery to hear about the Arts Council’s new national campaign for the arts – due to start in April 2010. Here’s the opening presentation that was delivered by Julie Eaglen, Arts Council WM’s Audience Development Officer.

The standout point from the presentation for me is this bit:

… despite the significant efforts of arts organisations and the Arts Council to broaden audiences – and there has been, and is, some really excellent work going on – our statistics show that there has been no significant shift in the profile of people who engage with the arts over the past three years.

This means that we can’t simply continue doing more of the same; it’s not working. We need a new approach

You can read the presentation to see how this is to be achieved (and from the tone of language used, it has to be achieved), but in a nutshell there’ll be:

• a programme of arts engagement activity
• a large-scale broadcast, media and marketing campaign
• targeting of an identified group of 12.8 million people who currently have some interest in the arts but have expressed an inclination/desire to do or see more
• a new national arts web portal

Locally, the programme is being coordinated by Audiences Central. Each region has been asked to pick a hot-spot to focus their activity on and in the West Mids it’ll be the Black Country. It’s hoped that the rest of the region will benefit from a ‘halo effect’ from this activity and from the national media campaign.

On this last point, the idea is to develop a brand and kitemark that venues, promoters, organisations, etc will want to apply to their work in the same way that many food producers have voluntarily taken up the 5-a-day brand.

Success will be measured via the national Taking Part survey and the Active Peoples survey (for local authorities that use an indicator called NI11 – hopefully that’ll mean something to someone).

I’m not sure what the budget for the national campaign is but, after much talk of ‘limited resources’, it transpired that the amount of cash available for the West Mids (and therefore the Black Country) is £200,000 over two years. Consequently there was much talk about partnership working and the reliance on organisations finding a benefit in piggybacking on the national campaign.

In the meantime, the Arts Council have set up a website at Hello Art where you can find out a little more and sign up for future updates. It’d be also be worth following Audiences Central for updates about the West Mids focus.

Finally (and because someone asked me to keep count):

• Mentions of The Big Picture – 7
• Mentions of the 5-a-day campaign – 7

As Chris alluded to in the 2000th post I’m lurking in the background of Created in Birmingham at the moment. If there was an office it’d have “Special Projects” stenciled on the door, but there isn’t and it really just involved Chris and I sitting on the sofa figuring out things to do that can either generate an income for CiB or raise the profile of CiB. Or both. We’re also looking at ways to use Created in Birmingham as a name to do interesting things. One of the first things I want to do is see if it can send a bunch of people to Germany.

Transmediale is an arts/digital/activist festival that takes place in Berlin in February. Information is pretty scant on the website, which is a shame, but from what I can gather it was started by a bunch of troublemakers and rebellious sorts in Berlin, evolving out of the post-Cold War cultural scene. Or something. At the very least it’s a gathering of a load of people who are doing interesting things with art, technology and society that would probably blow our Brummie minds.

The Arts Council have sent artists over there before and have expressed an interest in helping some Interwebby people go this year to have their horizons broadened, to make connections and to bring interesting and exciting ideas back to the West Mids. I’ve got a couple of people in mind but we need 8 names in total. And due to the unique way funding applications operate we need to know ASAP.

You have to be free during the first week of February (2nd to 7th) and able to travel to Berlin. Flight, accommodation and entrance to the festival will be covered – you need to pay for food and local travel.

The decision on who goes is mine. It’s be nice to have a fair and transparent decision making process but frankly we don’t have time so I’m going for the Interesting quotient. That doesn’t necessarily mean the someone who’s done loads of interesting things will go – I’m more likely to chose someone with potential who needs a conceptual kick up the arse.

Specifically I’m after people who are doing interesting things using media with the aim of shaking up or understanding society better. This could be a website, a zine or simply a curiosity. The model I’m using here is my trip to SXSWi in 2008. Before I went I had loads of ideas but no idea if they were realistic. In Austin I met loads of people who were actually doing the things I’d been thinking about which gave me the confidence to actually do some of them on my return. I’d like to take people who are in that position.

Please note that this is not a done deal. The application still has to go through the Arts Council’s processes. But in order to do that it needs names on it.

If you’re interested drop an email to peteashton@gmail.com with a couple of paragraphs on what you’re doing, where your mind is at and what you might get out of such a trip. Don’t worry if you don’t know – just give me a sense of where you’re coming from. I’m particularly interested in hearing from people I don’t know and people who haven’t been on these sorts of funded trips before. Oh, and people who don’t consider themselves Artists. But artists I know who’ve been funded trips are also welcome.

If you can let me know by Thursday morning that’d be great.

• Best Believe – Inclusion Inspires
  “a free conference delivered by MusicLeader West Midlands, Youth Music and Symphony Hall on Monday 16th November”
• Loaf Needs YOU! :: Loaf Online
  Tom wants to ‘kickstart a social movement around local food in Birmingham’. Get in touch with him if that sounds like fun
• Ego Theatre and ITV Fixers
  “Leminc has collaborated with ITV Fixers on a unique journey to find nothing but the very BEST of birmingham’s raw, artistic talent. (Actors, Dancers, Singers, Poets, Rappers, Entertainers and any other innnovative production) in order to create a powerful, innovative Musical Theatre with purpose”. At the Library Theatre, 7 Nov
• Game Central / Previous Meetings
  Minutes from the first meeting of the new get-together for West Mids games people
• The criteria for Arts Council England regular funding | Arts Council
  “We have a strategy for the arts which underpins our decisions about funding for individual organisations. This document aims to describe the framework we use in making these decisions”
• Outside IN commissioning leading disabled artists – Audiences Central
  “Outside IN is commissioning new work from three of the UK’s leading Disabled Artists for inclusion in three mainstream galleries in the West Midlands and Welsh Borders from 2010 to 2011″
• Robin Valk – UB40: Live, Loud and Local
  Andrew Dubber interviews Robin Valk
• shona mcquillan
  Artist Shona McQuillan has revamped her site and now has some prints for purchasing
• Birmingham’s Alexandra Theatre sold to ATG in £90m deal
  The Ambassador Theatre Group have bought the Alex from Live Nation (along with 15 other venues around the country). No great changes planned, according interviews with folks involved, other than to reduce the amount of time it stands idle – currently around 16 weeks a year