There
have been lots more going on around the Newcastle situation talked about in my
last post, as I’m sure you’ll be aware. I will admit to rather misplacing my blogging-mojo
after that post, even though more people read it than anything else I’ve
written this year. I also had lots of other stuff to do, and a family
bereavement, so what follows was (nearly all) written and then never got
posted. Here it is. I’ll return to the Toon in the New Year I think. Suffice to
say: ‘a luta continua’.
I’ve been busy recently writing recently
for some other places.
Axis asked me to look back to mark their 21st
birthday. So I did,
thinking back to my first days working professionally in the arts. As this
coincided with Arts Council England publishing more details – I’d say details
but well, the info isn’t that detailed – about how they will meet the
government’s demands for 50% reduction in admin costs, I also shared a slightly
nightmarish vision I’d had of the future. My worry – alongside a concern for
the individuals affected by the cuts, especially my old friends in the North
East office – is that this accelerates the loss of diversity in the funding
ecology, just when we need more. I also draw on my previous career in catering.
You can read the piece here.
I’ve also commented on the ACE
review for a-n news. I draw attention here to the dog that doesn’t bark in
the information put out by ACE so far: decision-making and governance. This was
a major bone of contention [enough with the canine puns – Ed] when ACE took
over the regional arts boards, but seems to be something unmentioned and to be
sorted out in private, which is not really good enough, for me. ACE did tell me
on Twitter that a review of non-executive governance has been commissioned from
David Norgrove whose findings will be considered in the next 6 months. There was
no information about this on ACE’s website, bar a reference in some heavily
redacted minutes from the May National Council meeting, which you may, should
you wish, use as the basis for a writing exercise, until I pointed this out to
them. Which I find, er, interesting. You
can read about (briefly) here.
You can also, more seasonally, see here
what I (and other people) suggested to a-n readers they ought to buy for Xmas.
(My New Year’s Resolution is to stop being sarcy about visual artists by the
way, no need to suggest that.)
Finally, the good folk of Arts Queensland
asked me to reflect on my sense of the adaptive resilience of the arts sector I
saw when I was there, for their voluminous and rich blog. You can read my conclusions
here.
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