This creates a narrative arc from creativity in regeneration all the way from Creative Futures, a Cultural Action Plan for NE Sheffield through the Cultural Pathfinder, Creative Places and up to the present.

Last year I was interviewed by a Masters student from Sheffield Hallam University on (Policy Action Team) PAT 10 and the Social Inclusion Unit.  If you weren’t around 12 years ago, these were key government initiatives and policies that gave a context for the work in neighbourhoods that many participatory arts organisations had been doing.  It was fascinating to view my own past in the context of historical research (!) but sobering to realise how much good practice with arts and community engagement could simply disappear.

While most arts are ephemeral, participatory arts and community engagement are even more so, being carried out by small organisations with huge dedication and ambition but few resources and staff.

When our 2.5 year Full Circle project in Beighton was previously archived we learned that archivists don’t just want the end products, but the meeting notes, funding bid, planning proposals etc that provide the background context to a project and enable future researchers to fully understand the  how and the why as well as the who and the what.

So I’d encourage all small arts organisations to contact whoever is relevant – your council archive, local university archive, the web archive http://www.webarchive.org.uk -and ask if they are interested in your work.   Yorkshire Sculpture Park hold an archive on arts in education,  University of Sheffield archive recently received the 40 year alternative theatre practice archive of  the wonderful Mary  Turner and ActionSpace Mobile,  the Web Archive hosts a number of arts project and organisation sites.  They’ll give guidance on what they collect and the formats and processes you need to go through.

This decision has been taken in response to the current difficult trading context.

We are grateful to Arts Council England for the support we have received as a Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) and National Portfolio Organisation (NPO).  We have always used our RFO and NPO funding as the basis for generating significant additional earned income which was used for commissioning artists and developing strategic projects which would not have existed without this income.  This has proved increasingly difficult in the current economic climate.

Cluny Macpherson, Arts Council England Regional Director, Yorkshire, said

“I was disappointed to hear about the closure of Eventus. We have a great deal of respect for Clare McManus and her team. The work they have done across the region will leave a lasting legacy for many individuals and communities.“

We would like to thank all the wonderful partners, artists, staff and community members we have worked with over the past 15 years.  We are proud of the quality of our work and the flexibility, responsiveness and adaptability to changing circumstances shown by Directors and staff.

We remain committed to the importance of culture in peoples’ lives and look forward to continue working with you, in different ways, in future.

The Company will cease trading on 23 September 2012.

As a result of this, and participation in an ACEVO focus group on consortium working, Clare was invited to be part of  a Guardian on-line panel on 31 July on forming a third sector consortium.

The debate is closed but the discussion is still on-line.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2012/jul/26/voluntary-sector-network-forming-a-charity-consortium

This follows an Arts Council England funded review commissioned as part of an R&D project into consortium working & strategic commissioning which found that the formal structure of a separate limited company adopted in 2009 was unnecessary. Servicing its needs and those of a separate Board took too much unfunded and unresourced time, particularly from Eventus as lead managing agent, which could have been better spent focusing on developing collaborative bids.

Eventus were successful in winning and managing over £600K of contracts, for delivery by 5 partners, including a recent half term programme for Sheffield Children’s University.

Consortium working has been a positive experience and members will continue to develop this approach through more informal consortium and partnership working.

Eventus will continue to use its experience as lead managing agents on appropriate tenders.

Sheffield was one of the pioneers of 3rd sector consortium development and other local consortia are also reviewing ways forward to meet changes in strategic commissioning.

Why does it matter? I recently saw a local authority advert for a whole range of activity leaders for ‘play, cultural, environmental and sport sessions’. All applicants should have NGB level 2 or ‘equivalent recognised qualifications from the play, sport, fitness, cultural and environmental industries.’

So what’s the cultural equivalent?  I know some specifically youth focused arts organisations take people through youth work training, but a jobbing artist working across a range of  community groups isn’t necessarily going to be included in that. So what do you offer instead?

I’ve spent many years supporting non-arts partners to employ artists based on a mixture of experience, artform training and relevance to the particular context; I can’t imaging any of that being replaced by a generic qualification.  And I’m not sure, but this ad might be for the replacement for a programme that we previously contracted quality arts organisations to deliver.

Quality – of practitioners, of experience, of expertise- has been a key concern in much of the work we’ve been doing on strategic commissioning over the past year. Increasingly it seems that commissioning processes are simultaneously too open – anyone can say they’re an artist who’s worked with vulnerable older people and commissioners have no skills in assessing that – or proscriptive, as in this instance.

So if you do know know of any equivalent qualifications, I’d be really interested to hear about them. If not, perhaps we should all start practising our roller skating – artistically, of course.

Last week someone described this as changing from wholesale (selling to the council/ NHS trust) to retail (selling directly to the customer.) This is a huge step change for participatory arts, although it is the model used by venue based companies. (And it will be interesting to see how many of these enter the personal budget market. )

At the Arts Council briefing on the new Creative People and Places yesterday, a similar distinction was made between the NPO investment to the supply side (the arts organisations) and the Creative People and Places  investment to the demand side (residents  in the areas of low engagement).

The most challenging – and interesting- problem is always to identify the people who don’t use your service then devise ways of finding out why they don’t, before you can start addressing those reasons and getting them involved.

This may well be the biggest challenge facing any of the consortia formed to bid for the funding, and it will be fascinating to see the ways in which different combinations of experience, scale and partnership working  rise to the challenge.

I enjoy my sporadic Twitter stream and am often intrigued by the retweets and the people who’ve retweeted them, as well as the followers who appear after a tweet on a particular subject. And although I’m occasionally frustrated by its impermanence – losing a link because by the time I get around to following it up the original tweet has disappeared- I like the transience.  It seems to fit the times we live in.

But, it’s time to hold my nose and jump.

The context in which the arts operate is changing so rapidly, especially for those of us who work mostly with non-arts partners. It feels right to be trying to capture that change and challenge, even if we can’t quite see where we’re going.

So from now on I’ll be blogging regularly and hope that there will be times when others want to join in that conversation.

The way councils and public sector bodies work with arts and other organisations is changing. Grant funding for projects is being replaced by commissioning and personal budgets.

Eventus have produced an online guide for artists on how to understand and work with strategic commissioning http://www.eventus.org.uk/strategic-commissioning

The guide ‘Strategic Commissioning: What Arts Organisations & Artists Need to Know’ takes artists through the policy context, signposts them to resources and has examples of good practice.

It was produced with funding from Arts Council England as part of a Research and Development project. Other outcomes include ‘A speedy introduction to strategic commissioning’ presentation so that viewers can decide whether they want to proceed further. Documents on market development and consortium working are also available on the site.

Arts Council England Yorkshire have taken the national lead on this work. They have commissioned Eventus to develop a series of training sessions for arts organisations which will be advertised shortly. Eventus are also researching case studies for the national Arts Council England website.

Sorby House, Spital Hill, Sheffield S4 7LG

Jointly organised by Sheffield Council Adult Social Care and Eventus

Self-Directed Support (sometimes called personalisation) gives people in receipt of adult social care power to buy the services they want, rather than those centrally provided.

There are opportunities for artists to develop & market services for people with SDS budgets, particularly for those with experience of arts work with vulnerable people, although you may need to develop different ways of working and marketing from grant funded projects.

There are currently several hundred people in Sheffield receiving SDS and this eventually this will become several thousand.

Arts Council England sees arts involvement in SDS as part of ‘Great Art for Everyone’

The workshop will look at:

• Why you should get involved.
• What is it?
• Market development support.

To apply: Please e mail janet@eventus.org.uk giving your name, contact details and whether you are applying as an individual or on behalf of an organisation (if the latter, please provide the organisation name)

Places are for Sheffield based artist or organisation

Individual artists are very welcome

Places are very limited so only 1 person per organisation on a first come first served basis. (There will be regional events for arts organisations in February & March)

RSVP by Friday 20 January to janet@eventus.org.uk

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/city_s_artistic_merits_1_4115804

City centre locations often feature strongly on the page, so it was a pleasure to be able to highlight some of the great community based creative and regeneration initiatives that are or have been taking place in Sheffield neighbourhoods.

And despite being given a strict limit of only one mention of a place outside the city, Clare was able to sneak in lots of mentions for arts and food places gathered together in one place on the Welbeck Estate near Worksop.