Good Afternoon all!
So here I am with another afternoon salutation. It will be a quick one today as I was in the office at 8am this morning picking up on the other part of my job! The CEO bit.
Most theatres these days seem to have an Artistic Director/CEO. Budgets being tighter than ever I guess it is par for the course. In many ways the two roles are interwoven and there is a natural synergy here. However they are also quite different skills sets.
I had no idea of any of this when I co-founded Arc with Clifford Oliver over 25 years ago. It was a steep learning curve, which began with us enrolling on a business enterprise scheme. This enabled us to move off the dole of £40.00 a week and into our business legitimately. What lengths that government went to to bring unemployment numbers down!
Despite my retrospective cynicism it was a good thing for us in getting Arc up and running. It was probably good also that we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into - or maybe we wouldn't have gone there. Its one of the greatest things about being young, you really don't know what you don't know. Mind you that still applies to me today.Maybe that's why I love learning so much.
I certainly didn't know what I didn't know on the panto. And in fact however clear I am about where I want to go, the artist part of me never does really until the final thing has emerged. I just always know what isn't working as this forces me to see it differently, from another perspective. It forces me to try all sorts of things. I also know when it does work and I am a stickler for that.
Anyway, I learnt how to market, do invoices,PAYE and tax returns. To budget and write proposals, to put in funding applications to the Arts Council and anywhere else I could send them. To build relationships with commercial and public sector partners and so on and so on! And that's pretty much what I continue to do in the CEO part of my job.
I have to lead on our strategic development, understand how economics, politics and trends have an impact on our business. And to remember that it is a business, although when I am in rehearsal in never feels like it. Apart from the peck of the Jiminey Cricket on my shoulder every so often.
I am fortunate to have a great Board of Management of eight hugely committed people from a wide variety of backgrounds who support us and pick up some of the inevitable stress that comes with making an arts organisation pay.
Like any other business we have mouths to feed and in this period of so named 'austerity' we are invited to step up even further to the plate and to come up with new ideas. In my experience its often adversity that is the best friend of creativity. It pushes us to consistently think differently, to be brave as we have no alternative and to encourage others to join us in the search for something better.
I am fortunate to have a wealth of such creative and analytical people around me.
I said this would be a quick one. I just stopped off for a moment whilst in the middle of putting together a strategy paper for the next 12 -36 months! Its about being clear about vision and mission and then getting on and scoping it out. Its fun doing the gathering and now the writing starts.
My next blog will give a bit of my own personal story and how it came to be that I was ever in a space in which I determined to start a company/business. Given what I know now would I still do it.......? Most certainly yes!
So here I am with another afternoon salutation. It will be a quick one today as I was in the office at 8am this morning picking up on the other part of my job! The CEO bit.
Most theatres these days seem to have an Artistic Director/CEO. Budgets being tighter than ever I guess it is par for the course. In many ways the two roles are interwoven and there is a natural synergy here. However they are also quite different skills sets.
I had no idea of any of this when I co-founded Arc with Clifford Oliver over 25 years ago. It was a steep learning curve, which began with us enrolling on a business enterprise scheme. This enabled us to move off the dole of £40.00 a week and into our business legitimately. What lengths that government went to to bring unemployment numbers down!
Despite my retrospective cynicism it was a good thing for us in getting Arc up and running. It was probably good also that we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into - or maybe we wouldn't have gone there. Its one of the greatest things about being young, you really don't know what you don't know. Mind you that still applies to me today.Maybe that's why I love learning so much.
I certainly didn't know what I didn't know on the panto. And in fact however clear I am about where I want to go, the artist part of me never does really until the final thing has emerged. I just always know what isn't working as this forces me to see it differently, from another perspective. It forces me to try all sorts of things. I also know when it does work and I am a stickler for that.
Anyway, I learnt how to market, do invoices,PAYE and tax returns. To budget and write proposals, to put in funding applications to the Arts Council and anywhere else I could send them. To build relationships with commercial and public sector partners and so on and so on! And that's pretty much what I continue to do in the CEO part of my job.
I have to lead on our strategic development, understand how economics, politics and trends have an impact on our business. And to remember that it is a business, although when I am in rehearsal in never feels like it. Apart from the peck of the Jiminey Cricket on my shoulder every so often.
I am fortunate to have a great Board of Management of eight hugely committed people from a wide variety of backgrounds who support us and pick up some of the inevitable stress that comes with making an arts organisation pay.
Like any other business we have mouths to feed and in this period of so named 'austerity' we are invited to step up even further to the plate and to come up with new ideas. In my experience its often adversity that is the best friend of creativity. It pushes us to consistently think differently, to be brave as we have no alternative and to encourage others to join us in the search for something better.
I am fortunate to have a wealth of such creative and analytical people around me.
I said this would be a quick one. I just stopped off for a moment whilst in the middle of putting together a strategy paper for the next 12 -36 months! Its about being clear about vision and mission and then getting on and scoping it out. Its fun doing the gathering and now the writing starts.
My next blog will give a bit of my own personal story and how it came to be that I was ever in a space in which I determined to start a company/business. Given what I know now would I still do it.......? Most certainly yes!
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