Quarter 1 update from Richard Clark, TMC Chief Executive

Well, we are 8½ weeks into a new era – not just for TMC - but for all of the organisations and practitioners that have experienced significant change in their work and funding arrangements in recent months. There’s so much to learn about and navigate in the new landscape, I want to use this update to give our partners a flavour of TMC’s activities and ambitions in the year ahead.

For TMC, the new financial year sees the beginning of our new work with Arts Council England as the Bridge Organisation for the East Midlands (more about what this means below). We also continue a wide range of other partnerships and programmes that help pursue our mission. At the heart of these activities lies our core commitment to helping children and young people develop and apply their creativity through participation in cultural activity. Our priority work themes in TMC – of learning, leadership and enterprise – guide the focus and impact of this work and are creating some exciting new opportunities.

Arts Council England’s stated aim for the Bridge Organisations is to ‘connect young people with great art and culture’, an ambition that we really love. To guide this work in the East Midlands, we have just published the State of Our Region report. Produced in partnership with FOCUS Consulting, the report explores young lives in our region and how they currently connect with cultural activity (read it here: www.themightycreatives.com/page/Our-State-of-the-Region-Report/50). A number of priority areas for action are suggested by the report, and we will be talking more about these over the next few weeks to build our programme. We will also publish research from Dubit, who have helped us look more deeply into individual young lives. This work reveals important lessons about young people’s social and family lives, their passion for learning and refining their cultural skills, and the importance of ensuring effective routes to information and access across such a large rural, urban and coastal region. You can follow our developing bridge activity on Twitter #EMbridge.

Settling into our new role, a priority for me over the coming months is simply to see and learn from our partners’ work in more detail. I am exploring the region’s rich cultural provision for young people and families, meeting some organisations for the first time, and revisiting what others are achieving through their work. It’s a great pleasure to visit, learn and Tweet (@Richard_TMC) as I travel around the East Midlands, and I look forward to more mind-expanding experiences as I go. We have so much to celebrate and so much potential for the future.

In the field of learning, our traded service is currently delivering creative school development consultancy to school clusters across the region, addressing such vital issues as literacy, numeracy and pupil voice. We have also been delivering contracted work with Children’s Centres in North West Leicestershire and with Looked After Children in Nottinghamshire. Drawing from our heritage, and with so much changing in the world of education, this interface continues to be an exciting one and we look forward to reporting new activity as it unfolds.

Looking at leadership, we have started our first ever EU Youth In Action funded project, OurWorld. Building on pilot activity across the region, OurWorld starts with an exchange visit with young people from Central Denmark in July 2012. It then moves to deepen young people’s engagement in social action, by inviting them to identify, make films about and lead action on issues that are important to them in their communities. The European adventure is a new one for us, and we are thrilled with the opportunity.

In the area of enterprise, TMC is continuing to support young people’s socially enterprising activity through the Bank of TMC. We have just received a new set of applications from young entrepreneurs in Leicester and Leicestershire and hope to be announcing our new ‘investments’ before too long.  Put simply, the Bank backs great ideas and provides young people with start-up advice, practical and financial support for their new social enterprises. Currently in a pilot phase, we are looking for ways to extend impact across the region.  The Bank connects with the work we are doing with RIO (www.realideas.org), promoting the Social Enterprise Qualification across the East Midlands and East of England.

You can find out about these and our other programmes and partnerships – including Somewhereto_ , the Journals Project and Mobile TMC – on our web site: www.themightycreatives.com

I want to end on a heartfelt thank you. As our work has evolved, so has the staffing structure at TMC. Many of you will know that we have been through a significant reorganisation following completion of the Creative Partnerships programme last year. Such work is never easy, and I want to congratulate my Board and every member of Team TMC on the way they have used their creative skills to see the process through. Thank you to everyone – past and present – who has helped TMC secure our position for the future. You can find out about our current team on our web site. We look forward to connecting and working with you.

Proposed Young People's Enterprise Centre

You might have seen the following article in the Leicester Mercury -
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/pound-1-2m-expansion-Cultural-Quarter/story-16062367-detail/story.html

The article relates to The Mighty Creatives’ planning application to develop a Young People’s Enterprise Centre and mixed use creative venue in Leicester’s Cultural Quarter. This is a really exciting project for The Mighty Creatives and builds on our commitment to supporting young people in Leicester and across the East Midlands to develop their creativity through learning, leadership and enterprise.


The planning application is one important step in realising this ambitious 2-year project which is in its very early stages of development. Over the next few weeks and months we will be working with our partners in Leicester City Council and elsewhere to raise the funding for the Centre and will be applying to a range of sources to help do so. 


We are also developing a suite of support services for young people's enterprise skills - including promoting the Social Enterprise Qualification in partnership with the Real Ideas Organisation (www.realideas.org) and ongoing activity to back young people's great business ideas through our pilot programme, The Bank of TMC, with Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council. We will be reporting on progress with all of these activities as we go along. Look out for updates on our website (www.themightycreatives.com) and social media.


Any potential partners or funders interested in working with The Mighty Creatives on these initiatives should contact: Caroline Cooban, Development Director, The Mighty Creatives:  CarolineC@themightycreatives.com

The Apprentices First Month at TMC

The Apprentices have been writing blogs at every milestone of their time at The Mighty Creatives, and as they reach their first month we upload their stories. 

Kate Smith-Atherton, Community Arts Apprentice

I have been a member of the TMC team for a month now, although it has been very enjoyable, I can honestly say it has been quite challenging too. Over the past month as well as my induction, I have also attended a number of meetings. If I am being honest, at first a lot of what was said in these meetings went completely over my head, and I felt like I would never get my head around things, but now I feel that I have just about got to grips with everything, including the abbreviations used. Of course there are still things I don’t have complete understanding of, and there is a lot more to learn, but the support from the TMC team has been brilliant so far, and I am confident it will stay that way. It’s nice to know that if I ever have a problem regarding the work I am doing there is always at least one person I can talk to who will offer me advice, and help me out the best they can.

As well as the meetings, I have been to a few events, some of these events include; a creative and connected conference/workshop day, a morning at a sure start centre, and a poetry workshop. I have also had lunch a couple of times with the whole team to welcome new members of staff; this too included myself at one point. As well as this, I have registered/enrolled with Leicester College, and I am beginning to put my portfolio together. I have also recently been given a few roles that are my responsibility, these roles are something I am really keen to have responsibility for, some of these include; booking rooms for meetings and travel for other members of TMC, being a part of the Our State Of The Arts project (which I am currently trying to organise a ‘flashmob’ event for) and I am constantly researching new things that I think would be useful for the other members of TMC to know, or information we could use. I have got a few other tasks I will be helping out with/getting involved with in the following months too, these I am also really excited about and keen to be a part of.

Even though I have only been here for a month, the amount I have learnt, and the things I have been involved with really are more than I expected. In the future, I wish to continue working with communities helping them to engage in the arts and culture around them, not just in Leicester, but maybe even in other countries as well. If I can learn and be a part of as much as I have already four weeks, then I am really looking forward to what the future holds. The community arts apprenticeship I am doing is what I have always wanted to do, it is meaningful and important to me, and I am truly thankful to have been given the chance to be a part of TMC.

Ben Tuddenham, Finance Apprentice

6 weeks on and I feel a lot more settled and at home into the company, due to having a much better understanding of the job I am doing, and being given the responsibility of seeing them through alone.

A few weeks ago most of the office went out for a meal and a few drinks after work, this was a great chance to get to know people outside of work in a social environment, and as such I got to know a few people I hadn’t had a chance to speak to properly, and learn new things about others.

The following Friday I got my first day out of the office! I went to Nottingham to the Creative and connected 2 event, to get a better insight to what TMC do and who they work with, this was an eye opener for me as before this I wasn’t really sure about what TMC actually did on the front line! And again this was also a good chance to speak to some of my colleagues more and get to know them.     

 I am now first point of contact for the finance team, and as such I get a lot of ‘where is our money?’ calls from suppliers, I can now quickly track down the right invoice, and tell them if it has been paid/why it hasn’t/when it will be paid. I also have responsibility of processing invoices, from the first step of them coming in the post/email, right through to actual payment, I do every step apart from coding the invoices to the correct budget, which is something I want to learn soon so I can do the whole task!

My first 6 weeks at TMC has been a great experience and a steep learning curve, which I have enjoyed thoroughly, and grasped with both hands as it’s a great opportunity. Writing isn’t my favourite thing, so I have put together a table of random figures from my first 6 weeks instead!

Invoices paid	170
Stamps stuck	82
E-mails e-mailed	232
E-mails received	569
Teas drank	180
Words written in procedures	2765
Cheques written	87
Inches of subway consumed	78
Weight of cake consumed	4 tonnes
Graze boxes distributed	30
Total distance travelled wheeling around on chair	2.8 miles
Minutes spent on hold to o2 listening to Gary Newman – Cars	Too long

First week insight from our fab new Apprentices

The Mighty Creatives recently recruited Apprentices to support our business. Here is an account of how they found their first week with TMC.

Kate Smith-Atherton, Community Arts Apprentice

Wednesday 21^st March 2012

Morning

During my first morning at TMC, I arrived at 10am, where I met Jackie and Daisy for the first time. Over a cup of tea, I had a chat with Daisy about what TMC is, does, and aims to achieve. We also spoke about myself, why I wanted to work for TMC, and also what I was doing before I came to TMC.  After this Daisy lead me to the office, where I was shown where my desk was, I was shown the shared drive and how to access it, I was also shown how to read, send and reply to emails. I was introduced to Yammer, the TMC website and also asked to create an Avatar. Before lunch I was shown around the office, and introduced to the rest of the team, as I went round each member of staff introduced themselves and told me what their role is at TMC.

Afternoon

I went to lunch with the rest of the team, we went and had an all you can eat buffet chinese, here I spoke to members of staff on a more personal level about themselves, and everyday life. After lunch, with Jackie, I went through contracts, the EE form, we also discussed holiday and I was given documents to read on procedures and policies of TMC. I was then given a tour of the building by Daisy i. e the café, outside, toilets, kitchens etc. I was also told about and shown where the fire exits are and where we meet when the fire alarm goes off. For the rest of the day, I spent a couple of hours reading through the TMC website, as well as looking at a few documents from the shared drive i. e notes on meetings, and presentation notes etc.

Thursday 22^nd March 2012

Morning

During the morning, I was asked to catch a train to East Midlands Park Way, here I was met by Emma who then drove us both to Castle Donington. When we got to Castle Donington, we made our way to a parent and child event at Sure Start Children’s Centre. Here we met up with Sam, and also another member of staff who worked at the centre. We were there to observe one of the events that took place every week. In the centre there was a room which had different activities set up for the children. These consisted of ‘the black and white corner’ which was full of different fabrics, pillows, and objects which were only black and white. There was a water pit full of water and bubbles, trays full of ripped up coloured paper, and newspaper for collaging, pots, pans and spoons for the children to make noise, and also a couple of plastic pipes for the children to roll balls down. Slowly the children turned up with their parents. After a while, me and Emma joined in with the children and their parents, I ended up playing in the water pit with the children, getting splashed and covered in glitter (as one child, then all of them decided to put glitter in the water pit). We then had a break, a cup of tea and the children had a drink and a snack. Afterwards, each child was giving a tub of bubbles, we then went outside and started blowing these. We left a few minutes into this, and drove back to TMC’s office. Once back in the office, me, Emma and Ben then met with Ruth and a couple of her colleagues to enrol/register us with Leicester college. The meeting took a couple of hours, we filled in forms, discussed the apprenticeship scheme, talked about goals, and were given tasks to complete by the next meeting. I then had lunch.

Afternoon

For the rest of the afternoon I spent it reading through my policies and procedures documents, I filled in some forms regarding emergency information, bank details etc. I then did some reading upon Arts Award, and a few other bits on the TMC website.

Friday 23^rd March 2012

Morning

I attended a bridge planning meeting, this lasted all day. During the morning session we talked about the bridge, goal 5, NPO’s, organisations, partnerships etc. We then went round and explained what we each thought our job role was, as I had never seen my job role this was quite difficult for me, but i think I did okay. After this, we were then given a piece of paper with each other’s job description on it, we had to read the job description, decide on who’s job we had, and then feedback what we thought this persons job role/main tasks were. I found this task very useful and helpful in relation to understanding what me and everyone else did. Before lunch, we did a fun activity, which was called ‘head, heart, hands’ we had to write down what we knew, what we were passionate about and what we could do, basically what we thought we could bring to TMC through knowledge, belief and skills. This was also very helpful and enjoyable.

Afternoon

The afternoon was spent going through what each person/team was working on, and what we aimed to achieve by doing it. This involved everyone speaking, writing down ideas, and planning what was eventually going to happen. Basically a starting point for us all until our next development meetings. We went through a work programme and we allocated leaders for the time being for each action, this was a big help.

Monday 26^th March 2012

Morning

For the first part of the morning I wrote up my notes from Fridays meeting. I then had a safe guarding and equal opportunities with the other apprentices. Straight after this I met with Mary and Daisy to update Daisy on Fridays meeting (as she wasn’t present). We discussed the tasks we had been allocated, and I was given a couple of tasks to do before our next meeting. After this, I had a meeting about standards and equality and also the somewhere to programme. I was also given a task to do which related to the somewhere to programme.

Afternoon

I started the afternoon off by starting the task I had been given by Vikki for the somewhere to programme, this was to research and write down any events that are happening over the next year that we could attend to promote somewhere to. Towards the end of the afternoon I had a HBR standards and award meeting, here we did some more planning, I then finished off by carrying on with research.

Tuesday 27^th March 2012

Morning

Throughout the day I was asked to shadow Sophie and Dan, before doing this though I completed the tasks I was given by Mary and Daisy; typing up notes, creating our own plan chart etc. I then went to a meeting with Sophie about the DMU framework evaluation, followed by another meeting about the framework evaluation, this was to put the participation teams views across. We then had lunch.

Afternoon

After lunch, I had a meeting with Dan about Our State Of The Arts, he introduced me to the programme and website, and asked for my help on a presentation he had to give. I helped him by finding good, strong, positive and negative quotes young people had written on the website about an art or cultural event they went to. I really enjoyed this. For the last hour of the day, I had an introduction to Journals and Mobile TMC.

Ben Tuddenham, Finance Apprentice

Hi, my name is Ben and I am the Finance and Administration Apprentice at The Mighty Creatives. I applied for this role as I wanted to get into a career in finance/accounting, and it seems to be a great opportunity.

I have been involved in all sorts of tasks relating to the role, such as processing invoices and expenses, and assisting with the supplier payment run. I am now beginning to understand and take responsibility for the tasks I have been given.

I have met most people in the office now, and everyone seems to be very welcoming and friendly (I’m sure the people I have not yet met are just as fabulous). I have been

taken out for lunch (twice), to get to know my colleagues, which makes it a great place to work!

I have really enjoyed my first week here and am getting on well with both my work, and colleagues, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds!

Being a TMC Intern - Bekki Broadbent

In my application to be an intern with The Mighty Creatives, I stated that I wanted this opportunity because I wanted to learn how a real company works. I wanted to have first-hand experience on all the cogs in the machine, and to come away with a sense of knowledge about everything I have experienced.
I have been an intern for a month now, and have successfully had experience in different sectors within TMC. I have had experience in the hiring of new staff, both from application reading to interview days. This experience from the hiring point of view has given me a good insight into what a company is looking for which will be helpful considering I am graduating in 3 months’ time.

I also have helped out with the branding in terms of giving my opinion on the template of the new website, and seeing TMC liaising with other companies within the LCB. It’s good to see the companies working together, and also really good to see how much creativity is in one building! Being in this environment really makes me feel at home.

I also have been given a taster of running an event, and all it entails from the planning, to the venue booking, to generating interest for all those involved, in 5 weeks with a £1,000 budget. I have learnt a number of things, the two main ones being that:

1) People happily cancel on you at any time
2) People generally don’t reply

Having assumed people would reply, this has made the initial plan need to be incredibly flexible and also includes a lot of waiting to hear back from people. This is a huge learning curve in how it is to plan an event for a company as opposed to for a university piece.

I hope to get plenty more experience in different fields, and maybe spend some days sitting in and learning about how different sectors work.

Bekki

Insight from TMC Intern - Sarah Whitrick

Hi, my name is Sarah and I am an intern at The Mighty Creatives. The reason I applied for an internship with TMC is because they are so flexible and offer lots of great opportunities; it’s like having your own tailor-made internship. My interests are working with young people (particularly early years) and the Community. Getting an internship with TMC was great because I get to do what I want. The team, particularly Ben and Daisy, were brilliant in offering me opportunities and experiences that they think may interest you. They really make my internship feel personal, like it is centred around what I want rather than what TMC wants.

I have been an intern for over 2 months now and I’ve already done so many things and had so many opportunities. This includes working with Hazel, who specialises in Early Years and planning and training to carry out confidence-building workshops with young people – something of which I am really excited about. I go in to the TMC office every week on a Wednesday – the time always goes too fast! At the moment we are working on the workshops with a view to carry them out in the next few weeks. However, my internship does not just stop there. Daisy and Ben are constantly offering me exciting and unique projects and experiences that they think will interest me. For example, I am applying to a Young Workshops Leaders Scheme with Curve at the moment; something which was made accessible to me through TMC.

I get so much out of my internship that is constantly developing my skills as well as giving me great things to write on my CV. The workshop training I am receiving will eventually allow me to run a workshop under supervision with young people. Another brilliant thing about my TMC internship is that the team are never hesitant to help me with my University studies. They are a continuous source for resources and knowledge they are always willing to help me in any way that they can. Not only this, TMC gives me the freedom to get involved with the organisation. For example, during my first week of the internship, I got to help make improvements to the TMC office as well as offer advice on how to update the website. Most weeks, it hardly feels like an internship at all; I have been made so welcomed by everyone that it feels like I am a part of the team too!

Sarah Whitrick, DMU Performing Arts Student

Why Apprenticeships?

Did you know that over 46,000 people work in creative and cultural industries in the East Midlands and that this figure is expected to grow by 35% in the next 8 years….?

Were you also aware that currently over 60 % of the creative and cultural workforce in the region are graduates and that according to recent figures the number of registered Creative Apprenticeships in the East Midlands doesn’t even reach triple figures?

With yesterday’s disheartening news that unemployment for 16 to 24 year olds is currently at its highest level for 17 years with 1 in 5 young people nationally not able to find a job; TMC is even more committed to working within the sector to support the development of high quality, accredited apprenticeship in the creative and cultural sectors in the region. Not only are we currently in the process of setting up 3 apprentices working with Leicester College and New College Nottingham, and a further 6 creative apprentices with creative and cultural organisations in the East Midlands, but working with the National Skills Academy - Creative & Cultural, our ambition is to provide high quality mutually beneficial employment opportunities for young people in arts venues, festivals and cultural organisations.

Read about the 10 myths to creative apprenticeships here:
http://nsa-ccskills.co.uk/news/ten-myths-about-creative-apprenticeships-updated

During February we are hosting a series of events for colleagues in the sector to find out more about the services offered by the Skills Academy and bring together arts and cultural organisations and employers, Founder Colleges and other educational settings together to discuss, collaborate and build creative solutions to local issues.

For more information about the National Skills Academy events visit http://www.themightycreatives.com/information/sector-development/skills-academy/ or contact Vikki Pearson vikki@themightycreatives.com.

And look out for more exciting news about TMC’s new apprenticeship opportunities in the next couple of days ….