Steering Groups and Stakeholder Groups

I currently sit on West Midlands Combined Authority Cultural Officers Group, Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP) Digital and Creative Business Group, uxplore Steering Group, Warwick District Council's Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Project Board, and I'm acting Chair for Warwick District Creative Compact.

Compact Fund

Submitted Jan 2023. Detail to follow.

MEND Fund

An open-access capital fund targeted at non-national Accredited museums and local authorities based in England to apply for funding to undertake vital infrastructure and urgent maintenance backlogs which are beyond the scope of day-to-day maintenance budgets.

Working with colleagues art Warwick District Council, we successfully submitted an a multi-million pound bid to Arts Council England's MEND programme to raise much needed funds to fix the Royal Pump Rooms roof.

Culture Development Fund

The fund will unlock local growth and productivity, promote economic and social recovery from the impact of Covid-19, and regenerate communities through capital investment in place-based creative and cultural initiatives.

Working with Warwickshire County Council, Warwick District Council, CWLEP, and Complex Projects Development, I pulled together an expression of interest, which proposed a programme of work to accelerate growth of the Leamington Creative Quarter. The programme comprised of construction of a designer-maker space in a derelict school in a strategically important but underutilised location; A complex of shipping containers for affordable workspace; A fully equipped outdoor events space; Sound proofing of a community theatre; Fit-out of 2 buildings to host an skills development org; A motion capture & tech library in the Town Hall Creative Hub (THCH); Resource investment in a programme of digital skills/enterprise development; Training in use of capital assets (equipment/software); & investment to facilitate start-up of core project.

Culture Recovery Fund

Responding to the coronavirus pandemic, and the unprecedented challenges it brought to culture and creativity across the UK, the government announced a series of measures in March 2020 to help save these sectors, maintaining jobs and keeping businesses afloat, including a £1.57billion fund to tackle the crisis facing our most loved cultural organisations and heritage sites.

Working with Warwick District's Arts Manager, I helped secure £257,000 to support the Royal Spa Centre and Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.

Future High Street Fund (2020-present)

The aim of the Future High Streets Fund is to renew and reshape town centres and high streets in a way that drives growth, improves experience and ensures future sustainability.

I produced a proposal to turn Leamington's Town Hall into a Creative Hub. Following a successful application, I am currently supporting the delivery of this exciting project.

Warwick District Creative Compact (2020- present)

Warwick District creative compact will provide strategic and visible leadership for the cultural and creative industries in the district and deliver the creative framework vision. The compact, made up of 19 local leaders, will work across sectors to make new connections and drive new partnerships. It will link the cultural sector to broader cultural, social, economic aspirations and priorities for the District. It will create opportunities to connect existing projects and strategies and make better use of existing spaces and resources. It will discover new investment opportunities and be focused on delivering the objectives of the creative framework via a clear action plan and deliver tangible outcomes. compact activity will be informed by five strategic themes; Engagement, Voice, Pathfinding, Place making, Innovation. I recruited Members, developed an action plan, chair bi-monthly meetings, and coordinate all workstream activity.

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Warwick District Creative Framework (2020)

Warwick District’s Creative Framework is a five-year strategy that aims to accelerate creative sector growth and maximise its impact across Warwick district through partnership and collaborative working. It provides a collective vision for our creative communities to unite around and outlines how they can shape and influence how the sector is defined in the future. I developed a series of public facing advocacy documents from the strategy, including a 51 page brochure and accompanying promotional film.

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Marketing and Audience Development Strategy (2019)

I wrote a new marketing and audience development strategy for the Royal Spa Centre and Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum. It pulled together knowledge and insight from a range of reports and data sets to provide a clear way forward for the next three years. The strategy was adopted and owned by the Programming and Marketing Team in 2020.

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Creative Learning Strategy (2018-2019)

I co-wrote Warwick Arts Centre's Creative Learning Strategy with the Head of Creative Learning, which ensured that learning featured heavily in family audiences’ engagement experiences, ranging from my award winning Family Days to wrap-around engagement activity that supported performances and exhibitions.

Snapshots (2018)

I developed a series of snapshots of geographical areas within Coventry that displayed low levels of arts engagement (cold spots) to provide colour and texture to masses of existing data held by the organisation - with the aim of informing marketing and programming decisions in preparation for Coventry City of Culture 2021. ‘Snapshots’ were developed by visiting the areas, talking to residents about their perceptions and awareness of the Arts Centre and building up a dossier of intelligence.

Audience Segmentation Model (2015)

I worked with Warwick Arts Centre's Marketing Director to develop and implement a new segmentation model. It was informed by Arts Council England’s (ACE) Audience Finder, National Statistics, local authority data, box office data, and audience evaluation insight. It powered programming and marketing activity and ensured that the Arts Centre achieved and exceeded targets for three years (119% Spring 2019, 106% Autumn 2018, 103% Summer 2018), largely by increasing frequency of attendance with existing bookers and attracting new audiences from target ‘hot spot’ geographical areas

Facebook Families (2015)

The Facebook Families project tested the impact of social media advertising on engaging family audiences across four NPOs in Coventry and Warwickshire, including The Herbert Museum and Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Compton Verney and the RSC. I raised the project funds and managed all project activity.

Consultation and Community Engagement Strategy (2013)

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust commissioned Earthen Lamp to support the redevelopment of New Place, a historically important site that was William Shakespeare's family home for 19 years . I was responsible for audience consultation and the production of a community engagement strategy. See case study on Earthen Lamp's website

Audience Development Strategy (2013)

Appetite was a three-year artistic programme aimed at getting more people in Stoke-on-Trent to experience and be inspired by the arts. It was funded by Arts Council England as part of the Creative People and Places programme. During my time at Earthen Lamp, I wrote the audience development strategy and action plan for the initiative to ensure that the audience aims and objectives outlined in the business plan were translated into audience development activity. See case study on Earthen Lamp's website.

Marketing Campaign (2015)

I Supported Newhampton Arts centre and 12 resident organisations to develop a collaborative marketing campaign to diversify their audiences. The final strategy was informed by a marketing audit, several one-to-one sessions, and a workshop.

Audience Consultation (2013)

Earthen Lamp was awarded an Arts Council England Strategic Touring fund in partnership with Motionhouse. I was responsible for audience consultation session and data collection in target geographical areas, to establish motivations and barriers to engagement. A report of findings informed the organisation audience development and marketing activity.

Warwickshire and Coventry Cultural Alliance (2012-2013

I managed a network of 31 arts and cultural organisations that formed the Warwickshire and Coventry Cultural Alliance. Successes included the planning and delivery of four audience development projects, including a creative apprenticeship programme, fundraising to ensure legacy of the network, and several networking meetings and events.

Audiences Black Country (2011-2012)

The Audience Black Country project supported 11 cultural organisations to be more data driven in their approach to audience development, with a focus on customer relationship management. The programme included a data competency audit, 20 one-to-one support sessions, 8 group workshops and analysis of data from 9 partners. I was responsible for overseeing the project, recruiting and working with 50 arts professionals, and designing and managing bespoke programmes of support for large theatres, heritage attractions and festivals.

Arts Nation West Midlands (2010-2011)

I designed and delivered the Arts Nation West Midlands project, which piloted several new audience engagement techniques across the Black Country - to challenge geographical and social perceptions. Activity included putting art in empty shops to engage families, running tea dances to engage people 60+ years old, and projecting art on to the side of old buildings in traditionally neglected parts of Dudley.

Birmingham Means Everyone (2008)

The project shares the same acronym as the sometimes simplistic and over used term Black and Minority Ethnic (BME), and describes the geographic and social demographic framework that was the focus of this piece of work. This project aimed to support organisations wanting to broaden their audiences to include BME families and households. I delivered a series of creative consultation sessions with local community groups, including the Horn of Africa Women's Group, Vietnamese Community Group, and the ISt Matthew's Church. The intelligence captured from these sessions featured in a report and informed the development of a toolkit for arts organisations, which I also produced.