Reflections on an unusual year.

 

‘We are thankful to the Culture Recovery Fund for supporting us by committing funding to our work. As a social enterprise we strive to add value to the sector; our plans for the Culture Recovery Fund aim to do just that. This funding will enable us to develop our Workforce Futures stream of work, a development project that we began prior to COVID-19. We have modelled a new approach to workforce development that would offer more value to the sector.’

We wrote these words at the end of 2020 and as the year ends, we have managed to achieve all the targets that we set out for ourselves using the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) so gratefully received from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF). We have used the funding to employ an admin to help the Head of Projects to deliver on training our heritage assistants and ensure that we are digitally ready for the next year ahead.

It has been a challenging year, but our team has been able to support each other and create a future for Culture Syndicates that now sees us working with many partnerships and advisors.

January - March we researched working digitally and created our digital tool kit. Feixue Huangdu joined us working in partnership with the Heritage Trust Network to build opportunities for British heritage sites to communicate digitally with international audiences. We also contracted Ruth Gray to support Natasha Clegg head of Projects with her work as heritage admin assistant. With the support of Neville Stankley heading us up as Acting Chief Executive Officer.  

February – April we took part in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion training to help us to ensure our company reflects the values set out in our mission statement. Our conversations on the above topics have been divergent, bold, and thought-provoking. Our workshops and meetings with Lara Ratnaraja and Helga Henry catalysed our thinking and sparked exciting ideas about how our work supports individuals and organisations within the cultural sector. Projects included working with City Arts and St Peters Church.

May- June We worked on our website content making sure that it will be a hub for sector entrants to gather useful knowledge and support about the sector. Neville joined us as a permanent member of staff as the Chief Operating Officer. We also formed strategic partnerships internationally working with Yanqiu Autumn Dai, our new strategic advisor to the Culture Syndicates board. Projects included Wordsworth Trust and the Barbican.

July - August we used the CRF2 funding to train our heritage assistants and bring them back into the team after the long lockdown period. This also became the final fully working from home months as we now have new offices at the National Justice Museum. Projects happened in person for the first time in 18 months taking our heritage assistants to Mrs Smiths Cottage the National Football Museum and Museum of Cambridge.

September – December saw the fruits of all our rebuilding come to fruition as now we welcome onboard Elizabeth Neathley as our Head of Workforce Inclusion. and we can finally start developing further the core of our work to reflect our mission which is to help sector entrants gain key sector employability skills. Feixue Huangdu made new cultural connections for us in Beijing.

October- Elizabeth Neathley engaged with a range of universities regarding placements and internships including Oxford, Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University and Derby.  This will focus on inclusive routes for young people and their families or carers to enable them to gain meaningful first-hand information and experience to inform them of cultural careers. 

Changes are part of any business and this year as for many companies around the country we have all had to spend time focusing on new ways of working and for Culture Syndicates we have spent a good year looking at our business plans we have had a governance review and shifted the structure of the company to properly focus on our mission.