Why join our Area Council?
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Why join the Arts Council Area Council?
In 2018, I’d just made a major career changing decision and needed to feel connected to the bigger picture. So, I applied, was interviewed and then invited to join the South East Area Council for Arts Council England.
In some shape or form my career has been supported by grants from the Arts Council since the end of the 1990’s, be that supporting touring contemporary performance, venue-based work, as a leader of a National Portfolio Organisation, or now, as a freelancer.
I joined the Area Council for two reasons. Firstly, to gain insight into how the Arts Council works, in the hope I might be able to support and influence it for the better. Secondly I joined to learn more about culture and the arts in the region in which I live but had mainly engaged with as a punter and not (until fairly recently) connected with deeply through my work.
It’s a voluntary position so I had to think carefully as a freelancer about the time cost versus value benefit. I spoke to some people I knew that had been part of Area Council to check how much time it actually involves (it’s a couple of days a quarter on average) and decided it was the right thing for me, right now.
What happens at the meetings?
Area Council is made up of people from across and beyond the arts and culture sector. They include practitioners of different artforms, museums or libraries, arts administrators and local authority representatives. We meet quarterly and these meetings are also attended by a range of senior Arts Council staff.
Before the pandemic, we met in-person in different locations across the South East with our travel costs paid for. We’ve visited Home Slough, the Historic Dockyard, Chatham and Firstsite Gallery, Colchester, and met some of the passionate people who work and engage in those cultural places. Sometimes, we’d also meet at the Arts Council’s London office and in the past we’ve joined together with the Arts Council’s four other Area Councils and one National Council – most recently in Sheffield. At the moment though we’re meeting online, which is great for saving time but I’m looking forward to being able to visit people and places in-person again.
Each meeting has a different focus. Our online ones are currently lasting around three hours and there’s often a presentation or two from an Arts Council staff member about a specific strategic focus for Council members to comment on. Over the past 18 months the focus has been on the development of the new ten-year strategy Let’s Create, the Arts Council’s emergency response to the pandemic, the creation of National Council’s Disability Advisory Group and Race Advisory Group, and most recently on priority areas for support.
There are a whole bunch of papers to read in advance which normally take me a few hours but contain crucial information for the meeting. As well as our quarterly meetings, we also meet yearly on a one-to-one basis with the Area Director and our Chair, Roni Brown to check in on the efficacy of the meetings and feed in thoughts for their direction and focus. As Chair, Roni (who’s great and very open to ideas) also sits on National Council along with the Chairs of the other Area Councils.
Do we make a difference?
Area Council members working together can absolutely make a difference to how the Arts Council operates. For example, Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse Area and National Council members have worked collaboratively with other Council members and Arts Council colleagues to advance our work on race equality. So far it has made a significant impact, and this is reflected across the Arts Council’s recently published Equality Objectives.
Being part of the Council means that my ‘on the ground’ knowledge is fed directly to the Senior Leadership team. Points and comments made in the meetings are taken seriously and acted upon and people are held to account. Through getting to know the challenges and opportunities that the staff team face, I can share insight and help creative practitioners make good choices about how they approach their work with the Arts Council.
Join us
I’m an advocate for Arts Council England. It’s an essential arts and culture development organisation. The staff work hard and have a sometimes impossible task when working with their range of stakeholders. I try and support artists and creative practitioners in understanding how to work together with the organisation to enable the best kind of support for the work they do.
I’ve been asked recently about the conflict of interest I have as an Area Council member and as someone in receipt of Arts Council funding. In my time as an Area Council member I’ve been both successful and unsuccessful with grant applications and there is a rigorous conflict of interest procedure. Area Council members don’t often get to know that much more or anything earlier than the wider sector, but we sometimes get involved in bigger strategic decisions and occasionally are aware of confidential information. We get the opportunity to build a greater understanding of arts and culture in our region, meet new people working in the arts, impact the strategic direction of the organisation and as a result advocate for it.
To make sure that role and responsibility is being executed as best as possible, we need a diverse and representative group of people on the Council. The people I’ve met are interesting, fun and passionate. It’s possible to make change. If you are thinking of applying for the vacant positions on Area Council, go for it.
