Convenor: Stella Duffy
Summary
- How do we know where "best" to vote tactically?
The BBC website has useful information, including a list of "battleground" constituencies for each party:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/default.stm
- Paralysed politics
- How sad that we're defensive voting
- One of the problems in arts funding is not enough confidence to stop funding people when they're shit
- Constitutional reform- can we get a written constitution??
- Steven Whinnery- the fox/eggs analogy (Steven compared the parties to foxes- labour will grab the chickens in it's mouth, but will fill up with regret, and will drop the mauled chickens again. If the Tories get in, then there will be no chickens- no eggs under the Tories!)
- Change the architecture of the debating chambers- use the semi-circle instead
- More young people live in varied places, not one place, so it is harder to get involved in local politics
- Write to your MP
- Tories who wouldn't vote Tory <= war?? (someone's Tory parents (retired military) don't want to vote Conservative because of their stance on the war)
- Democracy is not sophisticated (deep democracy might be)
- Jenn: at leat the top issues aren't "gay marriage" and "abortion", at least it's the economy and immigration
- The arts are being discussed differently by political parties
- Labour have put it on the agenda (and has that created arts with agenda?)
- Arts has benefitted, fundamentally changed funding (untrue stuff from Jeremy Hunt on arts funding!)
While it seemed that we were coming from a disillusioned/hopeless perspective to start, we were glad we were having this discussion, it did feel great to be talking about it, and we were reminded by Rebecca that plenty of arts orgs/theatres etc ARE putting on stuff about the election/politics, we're not alone in our desire for a better, more engaged world - or a better, more engaged arts! (And I especially liked the range of ages in this discussion!)
Friday, 9 April 2010
What kind of work is being done? How can we get ACE to tell us (collect statistics)
Convenor: David James
Summary:
1- The Tories want to push the "American" system of corporate sponsorship/patronage. How do we ensure that this is a partner (Vs a replacement) for Government funding?
2- MPs (from any party) DO want to know how/what is being funded in their patch (ACE, LA, Corporate etc). Who will tell them?
These can be used to lobby for further support- or point out areas of weakness
3- Many parliamentary 'groups' (football, beer, to cite obvious cases) are corporately funded. How can we appeal to parliamentarians to get them more actively involved and passionate about the arts?
Summary:
1- The Tories want to push the "American" system of corporate sponsorship/patronage. How do we ensure that this is a partner (Vs a replacement) for Government funding?
2- MPs (from any party) DO want to know how/what is being funded in their patch (ACE, LA, Corporate etc). Who will tell them?
These can be used to lobby for further support- or point out areas of weakness
3- Many parliamentary 'groups' (football, beer, to cite obvious cases) are corporately funded. How can we appeal to parliamentarians to get them more actively involved and passionate about the arts?
Friday, 19 March 2010
Do you think the performing arts matter in this election?
In this key pre election moment this is an invitation to come together at Toynbee Studios, London E1 6AB on the 6th of April at 7:30pm to discuss and engage with the important issues raised by this question.
Dear All,
Through a series of annual and monthly events called ‘Devoted and Disgruntled’ (or D&D), hosted by Improbable, a large network of people from the performing arts have been building a diverse and ever-expanding community. From the annual gathering this January, attended by several hundred people, has come a new groundswell of energy and discussion around the issues that will be important in a general election debate and beyond.
As a direct result of this, and of the activities of associated organisations such as Jericho House, in the past few weeks there have been discussions online and in various newspapers about the commitment of each party to the arts. These have led, for example, to Ed Vaizey, Tory spokesman for the arts, committing to the maintenance of funding to the arts; to the Lib Dems making a matching commitment; and to The Culture Show on the 4th of March, in which each party was quizzed on their arts policies by Alan Yentob.
From the last D&D meeting at the start of this month emerged the desire to widen this debate to include politicians, audiences and other stakeholders, to engage with these questions in a way that involves genuine and constructive debate.
This then is an invitation from this community to join in these discussions in a style where everybody will be able both to listen and to have their voice heard. The evening will run using Open Space technology which gives anyone the chance to propose a starting point for discussion, then take part in one of these conversations or flit between them all.
If any of these questions concern you, come along:
Do artists care about politics?
Do politicians care about the arts?
What do performing artists and politicians have in common?
As a politician, would you like the opportunity to listen and be listened to? To meet the community who cares about these issues?
As an artist, what would make a difference and win your vote?
As an audience member, what would win your vote? What are your concerns?
What will it be like to be involved in the performing arts after this election?
How can the cultural Olympiad actually leave the culture enriched?
What matters to you most about the future of the performing arts in this country?
It would in particular be terrific if policymakers and prospective ministers were to attend and to participate in a genuinely grassroots exchange of perspectives in an environment not dominated by the usual ‘us and them’ structure of staged panel debates.
We would, in short, love YOU to come and discuss and engage with these vital issues!
Hope to see you there,
Phelim McDermott and Improbable
Jonathan Holmes and Jericho House
DETAILS:
If you cannot attend but would like to be kept in touch email office at improbable.co.uk
The evening runs using Open Space technology which gives anyone the chance to propose a starting point for discussion, then take part in one of these conversations, flit between them all, or head to the bar.
This event is free! No need to book, just turn up on the night, but an RSVP is nice.
Artsadmin at Toynbee Studios: 28 Commercial Street | London | E1 6AB.
Map at: http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/contacts/ For further information or to discuss access requirements get in touch with Lucy at lucy at improbable.co.uk or at the office on 0207 240 4556. Hope to see you there.
Dear All,
Through a series of annual and monthly events called ‘Devoted and Disgruntled’ (or D&D), hosted by Improbable, a large network of people from the performing arts have been building a diverse and ever-expanding community. From the annual gathering this January, attended by several hundred people, has come a new groundswell of energy and discussion around the issues that will be important in a general election debate and beyond.
As a direct result of this, and of the activities of associated organisations such as Jericho House, in the past few weeks there have been discussions online and in various newspapers about the commitment of each party to the arts. These have led, for example, to Ed Vaizey, Tory spokesman for the arts, committing to the maintenance of funding to the arts; to the Lib Dems making a matching commitment; and to The Culture Show on the 4th of March, in which each party was quizzed on their arts policies by Alan Yentob.
From the last D&D meeting at the start of this month emerged the desire to widen this debate to include politicians, audiences and other stakeholders, to engage with these questions in a way that involves genuine and constructive debate.
This then is an invitation from this community to join in these discussions in a style where everybody will be able both to listen and to have their voice heard. The evening will run using Open Space technology which gives anyone the chance to propose a starting point for discussion, then take part in one of these conversations or flit between them all.
If any of these questions concern you, come along:
Do artists care about politics?
Do politicians care about the arts?
What do performing artists and politicians have in common?
As a politician, would you like the opportunity to listen and be listened to? To meet the community who cares about these issues?
As an artist, what would make a difference and win your vote?
As an audience member, what would win your vote? What are your concerns?
What will it be like to be involved in the performing arts after this election?
How can the cultural Olympiad actually leave the culture enriched?
What matters to you most about the future of the performing arts in this country?
It would in particular be terrific if policymakers and prospective ministers were to attend and to participate in a genuinely grassroots exchange of perspectives in an environment not dominated by the usual ‘us and them’ structure of staged panel debates.
We would, in short, love YOU to come and discuss and engage with these vital issues!
Hope to see you there,
Phelim McDermott and Improbable
Jonathan Holmes and Jericho House
DETAILS:
If you cannot attend but would like to be kept in touch email office at improbable.co.uk
The evening runs using Open Space technology which gives anyone the chance to propose a starting point for discussion, then take part in one of these conversations, flit between them all, or head to the bar.
This event is free! No need to book, just turn up on the night, but an RSVP is nice.
Artsadmin at Toynbee Studios: 28 Commercial Street | London | E1 6AB.
Map at: http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/contacts/ For further information or to discuss access requirements get in touch with Lucy at lucy at improbable.co.uk or at the office on 0207 240 4556. Hope to see you there.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
112 Speaking Doubt to power: How could theatre play a greater role in policymaking?
Convenor:Joe Hallgarten, who carrying out some research you can read about on his blog - http://armslengthstate.blogspot.com/2010/01/speaking-doubt-to-power.html
Participants: A small and perfectly formed group of 10-15 A-list D and D-ers, most of whom stayed for most of the session.
Summary of discussion:
Apologies for this random collection of points – I was too busy listening and talking to make good notes!
• Title of session reminded one participant of the solo piece Nagging Doubt
• Artists as civic leaders – if you want public money, should you be expected to engage in the public realm
• Need for a broker between artists and policymakers
• Reminded of the book ‘the gift’
• Would need to ‘timetable’ arts experiences into the policymaking process
• Examples include Blackwatch being seen by the Scottish parliament, civil servants (mainly from DCMS) often coming ‘informally’ to see Barbican shows
• Performing Arts Lab (PAL) may offer a possible model – Susan Benn
• EU parliament has used theatre in this way
• Example of a minister (in an unnamed country) who, having seen Death of a Salesman, ‘went home and changed his country’s pension policy’.
• Matarasso – rural and community spaces
• Theatre needs to be ‘as simple as possible, no simpler’
• What about film? Why is The Wire having so much influence? Or is it?
• Theatre as collective experience
• Forum Theatre
• Kinnock etc influenced by Absence of War
• Maybe we should influence policy MAs etc – how do these emerging policy wonks engage in the arts?
• www.haringwoods.com
• Creating doubt needs space
• Policymaking used to scenario planning/modelling. Arts and theatre could play a role in this – even around dystopias, since scenarios don’t have to be realistic to be useful
• BAC – Coney Show and Home Sweet Home
• Concept of Timenos – From Senate
Participants: A small and perfectly formed group of 10-15 A-list D and D-ers, most of whom stayed for most of the session.
Summary of discussion:
Apologies for this random collection of points – I was too busy listening and talking to make good notes!
• Title of session reminded one participant of the solo piece Nagging Doubt
• Artists as civic leaders – if you want public money, should you be expected to engage in the public realm
• Need for a broker between artists and policymakers
• Reminded of the book ‘the gift’
• Would need to ‘timetable’ arts experiences into the policymaking process
• Examples include Blackwatch being seen by the Scottish parliament, civil servants (mainly from DCMS) often coming ‘informally’ to see Barbican shows
• Performing Arts Lab (PAL) may offer a possible model – Susan Benn
• EU parliament has used theatre in this way
• Example of a minister (in an unnamed country) who, having seen Death of a Salesman, ‘went home and changed his country’s pension policy’.
• Matarasso – rural and community spaces
• Theatre needs to be ‘as simple as possible, no simpler’
• What about film? Why is The Wire having so much influence? Or is it?
• Theatre as collective experience
• Forum Theatre
• Kinnock etc influenced by Absence of War
• Maybe we should influence policy MAs etc – how do these emerging policy wonks engage in the arts?
• www.haringwoods.com
• Creating doubt needs space
• Policymaking used to scenario planning/modelling. Arts and theatre could play a role in this – even around dystopias, since scenarios don’t have to be realistic to be useful
• BAC – Coney Show and Home Sweet Home
• Concept of Timenos – From Senate
111 Keeping the space open online
Jen Toksvig gathered email addresses and used that list of people to set up the DandD E-List, which is now up and running. Members of the Ning have also been invited to join it. If you’re not on the list but want to be, you can email Jen via devotedanddisgruntled at gmail.com or you can contact Improbable in any one of the online ways, and you’ll be added.
(Note that the E-List is not the same thing as being on the Improbable mailing list. The E-List is for discussions about theatre via email.)
(Note that the E-List is not the same thing as being on the Improbable mailing list. The E-List is for discussions about theatre via email.)
110 A crafty sign
Jenifer Toksvig and Stuart Targett gathered by the coffee place and decided to sew a new sign for the stage in fabric hung from hemp line so it’s easy to store and put up. Other people expressed an interest, including Sophia Simensky who is going to knit a lovely butterfly, and Sharon Seager, who is going to knit a lovely bumblebee.
Anyone who would like to join in is welcome to contact Jen Toksvig on never at acompletelossforwords.com so we can make a plan. You can also find me on ravelry.com as Toksvig.
Anyone could create a butterfly or bumblebee in any media, or join in on the big sign, or make a sign for one of the four principles and the law. Wording is thus:
Whoever comes is the right people
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
Whenever it starts is the right time
When it's over, it's over
And you could either write ‘The Law Of Two Feet’ or make two feet!
Anyone who would like to join in is welcome to contact Jen Toksvig on never at acompletelossforwords.com so we can make a plan. You can also find me on ravelry.com as Toksvig.
Anyone could create a butterfly or bumblebee in any media, or join in on the big sign, or make a sign for one of the four principles and the law. Wording is thus:
Whoever comes is the right people
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
Whenever it starts is the right time
When it's over, it's over
And you could either write ‘The Law Of Two Feet’ or make two feet!
109 Does it matter to us who’s in the next government?
Convener: Tassos Stevens
Participants: included… Jonathan Holmes, Jon Spooner, David Betz-Heinemann, Mark Moreau, Chris Goode, Lyndsey Jackson, Greg McLaren, Jonny Liron, and many others I don’t have
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
The headlines…
It doesn’t matter to us with respect to the likely funding landscape which party is in power. The Tories will cut funding to the arts, Labour will have the rhetoric but very likely that provision will be eroded. We end up in the same place.
If we want to challenge this, then we need to lobby and campaign effectively to make the argument for the value of the arts in our society. Very practical thinking ensued.
Jonathan Holmes has taken the lead and mailed the following around, which summarises beautifully where we’re at; mail him on jonathan at jerichohouse.org.uk if you want to get involved.
[I’ll write up additional notes from the session and post at http://bit.ly/dd5artvalue]
This is by way of a follow-up to the discussion at D & D on Sunday about the importance of the general election result to the arts.
We concluded that, whichever party forms the next government, the likely impact on arts funding will be negative, and the only partisan difference will be the rhetoric and processes accompanying the inevitable cuts. In fact, it's probable that the next governmental spending review will have a devastating outcome for all in the arts unless we act very quickly.
It follows that the time to do something about this is now, when there's a chance of influencing election manifestos and campaign pledges, rather than after the fact, when the task will be so much harder. It's easier to influence a decision in the process of being thought through than it is to reverse one already made.
Several examples of successful lobbying campaigns were discussed on Sunday, such as the campaign to save BAC, the climate change lobby, Joanna Lumley and the Gurkhas and so forth. Each of these has elements from which we can learn, and most importantly they all demonstrate that something CAN be done, if we want it to be. If we do nothing now then we'll have no right to complain when everything goes pear-shaped in a few years' time.
An immediate action we agreed upon was the creation of a document in which all the arguments for the value of the arts - economic, social, philosophical, political - were gathered together in one place. This would then form the basis of a campaign manifesto which would sit at the core of all our activities.
I offered to compile this document to set the ball rolling, but it's a lot of work and I'd appreciate your help - if there are any nuggets of evidence you can supply to demonstrate the value of the arts, please pass them over. It's really important that such nuggets be facts or statistics, NOT anecdotes or dearly held personal beliefs; the campaign has to be as empirical and non-ideological as possible.
As to the next step, it was suggested that the best way of organising this might be a kind of cellular structure, with everyone doing what they could in their own way and connecting via a set of principles and methods, rather than setting up a formal organisation. But it seems that this would still need a kind of a steering group to co-ordinate certain activities. So maybe the best next step would be to arrange a particular D & D session at the Actors' Centre to talk all this through?
Finally, to gauge ongoing support for starting such a campaign, could I ask you all to reply to this email, indicating how involved you're able to be? One line will do, and all levels of involvement, from the tiny to the considerable, are appreciated. And if no-one responds, I won't rush around writing the arts value document... Equally, if there are people you know who want to be involved, please pass their emails over and I'll add them to this initial list; perhaps someone else could then take over from me in administering the group...?!
I know from conversations elsewhere that there's a significant groundswell of support for this sort of campaign throughout the arts world; let's not let the opportunity pass by!
Thanks everyone, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
a blog on the topic has been started here: http://valuethearts.wordpress.com/
Participants: included… Jonathan Holmes, Jon Spooner, David Betz-Heinemann, Mark Moreau, Chris Goode, Lyndsey Jackson, Greg McLaren, Jonny Liron, and many others I don’t have
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
The headlines…
It doesn’t matter to us with respect to the likely funding landscape which party is in power. The Tories will cut funding to the arts, Labour will have the rhetoric but very likely that provision will be eroded. We end up in the same place.
If we want to challenge this, then we need to lobby and campaign effectively to make the argument for the value of the arts in our society. Very practical thinking ensued.
Jonathan Holmes has taken the lead and mailed the following around, which summarises beautifully where we’re at; mail him on jonathan at jerichohouse.org.uk if you want to get involved.
[I’ll write up additional notes from the session and post at http://bit.ly/dd5artvalue]
This is by way of a follow-up to the discussion at D & D on Sunday about the importance of the general election result to the arts.
We concluded that, whichever party forms the next government, the likely impact on arts funding will be negative, and the only partisan difference will be the rhetoric and processes accompanying the inevitable cuts. In fact, it's probable that the next governmental spending review will have a devastating outcome for all in the arts unless we act very quickly.
It follows that the time to do something about this is now, when there's a chance of influencing election manifestos and campaign pledges, rather than after the fact, when the task will be so much harder. It's easier to influence a decision in the process of being thought through than it is to reverse one already made.
Several examples of successful lobbying campaigns were discussed on Sunday, such as the campaign to save BAC, the climate change lobby, Joanna Lumley and the Gurkhas and so forth. Each of these has elements from which we can learn, and most importantly they all demonstrate that something CAN be done, if we want it to be. If we do nothing now then we'll have no right to complain when everything goes pear-shaped in a few years' time.
An immediate action we agreed upon was the creation of a document in which all the arguments for the value of the arts - economic, social, philosophical, political - were gathered together in one place. This would then form the basis of a campaign manifesto which would sit at the core of all our activities.
I offered to compile this document to set the ball rolling, but it's a lot of work and I'd appreciate your help - if there are any nuggets of evidence you can supply to demonstrate the value of the arts, please pass them over. It's really important that such nuggets be facts or statistics, NOT anecdotes or dearly held personal beliefs; the campaign has to be as empirical and non-ideological as possible.
As to the next step, it was suggested that the best way of organising this might be a kind of cellular structure, with everyone doing what they could in their own way and connecting via a set of principles and methods, rather than setting up a formal organisation. But it seems that this would still need a kind of a steering group to co-ordinate certain activities. So maybe the best next step would be to arrange a particular D & D session at the Actors' Centre to talk all this through?
Finally, to gauge ongoing support for starting such a campaign, could I ask you all to reply to this email, indicating how involved you're able to be? One line will do, and all levels of involvement, from the tiny to the considerable, are appreciated. And if no-one responds, I won't rush around writing the arts value document... Equally, if there are people you know who want to be involved, please pass their emails over and I'll add them to this initial list; perhaps someone else could then take over from me in administering the group...?!
I know from conversations elsewhere that there's a significant groundswell of support for this sort of campaign throughout the arts world; let's not let the opportunity pass by!
Thanks everyone, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
a blog on the topic has been started here: http://valuethearts.wordpress.com/
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