Breakout Periods
Morning Breakout Period, July 15th, 11.45-12.45
1. Events and IT
Theresa Williamson (Catalytic Communities); Steven Flower (substance)
Catalytic Communities is a web based service for community groups ‘where community-generated solutions are just a mouse-click away’, providing inspiration and information for community solutions from peers worldwide. Substance offer a range of IT based solutions for evaluating and researching events. Theresa and Steven will present some of their ideas about how IT can help stage and deliver legacies for events as well as involving delegates in thinking about their IT needs and uses.
2. Staging Events with Excluded Young People
Clare Corran (North Liverpool Positive Futures)
Following Clare’s hugely successful session at last year’s conference, this session will help us learn about the top tips of delivering events for excluded young people - how to approach such events; what to avoid; how to generate longer lasting impacts from them? This will be a workshop format that brings in the practical experience of both NL Positive Futures and delegates.
Conference Report
The session was well attended and the audience consisted of a good mix of practitioners and strategic policy managers. Clare posed the group with three key questions, those being,
- What is an event?
- What is a successful event?
- What are the concerns or major considerations?
The delegates places their post it answers on the flip chart and it was interesting to note that not one person referred to the ‘content’ or activity of the event. As Clare noted, an event is ‘something that has an impact upon you but is not bound by a subject.’ The group considered the notion of ‘whose agenda’ you work towards when hosting an event. Clare stressed that some local authority organised events have a strong focus upon the need for site-visits, health and safety and so on and that this can be a very different starting point compared to a community led event. Clare added,
"We try not to see these things as boundaries, I want people to tell me the issues and we will work around them. But we are still a professional organisation and we have polices. The important thing is that we are role models."
This workshop was extremely interactive and Clare got everyone up on their feet to engage in an impromptu scenario decision making exercise. Clare read out a number of key facts associated with ‘events’ her team have hosted in the past, she then asked the audience to move from one end of the room, representing a ‘positive’ event to the other side of the room which represented a ‘high risk’ event. The workshop produced a lively debate and was extremely thought provoking. The interactive nature of the session worked well and ensured full participation and input from the audience.
3. Volunteering
vinvolved and Events Volunteering: Tiger De Souza (V)
Tiger will run a workshop around the work of the vinvolved team network and how that can support events volunteering. This session will outline the work of the vinvolved team network and its capacity building work, as well as involve the audience with practical guides to how vinvolved can support organisations interested in engaging young volunteers.
4. Cities and Major Events
Andrew Macgill (Leeds City Council); Eamonn O’Rourke (Manchester Leisure)
Where events once had been little more than a vanity exercise for cities in the last twenty years they have now become focal points for much wider regeneration and development. There is also a growing understanding of what cities should do to make the most of major events elsewhere in the country, such as 2012. In terms of developing culture and sport strategies around events, two of the UK’s leading examples are represented in this session, and presenters will outline their approaches and initiate discussion.
Conference Report
This session contrasted the approaches of two major regional cities – Manchester and Leeds – to planning and staging event. Eamonn O’Rourke explained how, following its Olympic bids and the success of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester has established a reputation for staging large-scale international events, especially in the field of sport. He also explained that the core drivers for Manchester’s events strategies are economic and social regeneration. Andrew Macgill explained how Leeds has to date adopted a more modest approach to planning and staging events, concentrating largely on hosting free sports and cultural events for local people. However, in line with a new facilities and infrastructure building programme he explained that Leeds is now seeking to stage more high profile national and international events. In doing so, it will be considering the development a more thoroughgoing legacy and monitoring programme.
5. Sports Events and Community Conflict
Jessie Feinstein, Leap: Confronting Conflict
Sports events can be used to help overcome community conflict and tension. Leap will share their experience of work in this area, which includes a Sport Relief funded programme to overcome conflict. It will focus on factors to be considered when sports events are used to bring communities in conflict together and offer practical tools for planning these events.
Afternoon Breakout Period, July 15th 3.15-4.15pm
6. Evaluating Events (i)
Maxine Gregory, Gemma Hart (Sheffield Hallam University); Dr Gavin Mellor and Dr Kath O’Connor (substance)
This session is the first of two workshops that look at the problem of evaluating events. Using expertise from substance and Sheffield Hallam University, this workshop session will present different approaches utilised, explore with delegates new approaches to monitoring and evaluating events and offer practical help for people to do this.
7. Sports Events and Cultural Concerns in Israel/Palestine
Professor John Sugden, Brighton University
The Football for Peace initiative in Israel/Palestine is one of the more remarkable ‘community football’ events to come out of a UK university. Professor John Sugden is a leading football academic and manages the initiative, and he will reflect on how this project has operated, developed and coped with issues over the last few years. He will also lead a discussion about this sort of work and outline lessons for others organising events in difficult circumstances; and the relationship of research and practice.
8. Putting on Community Football Events
Colin Bridgford (Chief Executive Manchester County FA); Vinny Thompson (FC United of Manchester)
This practical workshop will consider how to stage a community sports event. Focusing on football, the session will provide a check list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ and Colin will talk about practical experience of community football festivals - working with partners, engaging hard to reach groups and engaging sponsorship. Vinny Thompson was responsible for organising FC United’s recent and hugely successful Youth United Day. He will reflect on how to engage disparate and diverse communities and young people around a non-league match day - and how to fund it!.
9. Events for the Excluded - The England Homeless World Cup Team
Richard Brown (Big Issue in the North)
Richard Brown manages the English Homeless World Cup team and will discuss the running of trials, training and tournaments for some of the most dispossessed people as well as the benefits resulting from their engagement. He will explain plans to develop wider social impacts from the work, overcoming some of the obstacles and pull out lessons on approaches for the most excluded.
10. Events and Facilities: Sydney 2000 and the Public Use of Olympic Facilities
Glen Searle (University of Sydney)
Glen Searle is Director of the Planning Course at the University of Technology, Sydney . Facilities are one of the most tangible legacies from major events and a key focus for legacy initiatives in sport and community development. Glen will present learning from Sydney 2000 about the development of facilities there and the public access to sue them. This will draw out lessons for creating access to, and use of, facilities from events of all kinds and involve the audience in discussing new ways forward.
Breakout Period, July 16th, 12-1pm
11. Involving Young People in Events
Freddie Hudson (Arsenal Positive Futures); Damian Payton (Radiowaves/Supporter to Reporter)
Young people are a key focus of the conference - their access to events and the benefits they can feel from them. Freddie runs the very successful Arsenal Positive Futures project and Damian is responsible for the Supporter to Reporter project run by Radiowaves who were a feature of last year’s conference and will again be involving young people in reporting from the conference itself. This session brings together these different experiences, with practical outputs for the audience in terms of involving young people in their events.
12. Making Cultural Venues Open
Dave Moutrey and Sarah Perks (Cornerhouse)
There is increasing pressure on cultural and arts venues to meet a range of agendas in terms of being centres for the delivery of events on a daily basis. One of these is the drive to make arts venues more ‘open’, accessible and to involve the audience more in programming, something which both Dave and Sarah have been intimately involved with. Cornerhouse is Manchester’s leading contemporary arts venue and is moving toward more ‘open source’ programming as well as being a leading example of running initiatives for the creation and consumption for art and media by and for young people.
Conference Report
Dave Moutrey, the Director and Chief Executive Officer at Cornerhouse began the session explaining the history and activities of the venue, ‘We are a visual arts and cinema venue and opened in 1985. We show specialized films and have 3 galleries, 2 bookshops, a café and a bar.’ He went onto explain that the education and marketing teams were brought together to create an ‘engagement’ team. This team delivers, ‘interpretive and interactive events such as the ‘Projector’ programme for 14-19 year olds and the ‘Underexposed’ programme for new and emerging directors.’
Sarah who leads the engagement work at the Cornerhouse posed the question of what an ‘open’ venue means to the audience. This question was deliberated in small groups and the audience decided that to be open the venue must be physically accessible, culturally accessible and comfortable at the same time as not being pandering to a clique or over-specialised group.
Sarah concluded the session explaining their ‘Live-Wire’ project which encompasses a range of projects across film, art and multi-media. These sessions are open and free and more importantly are delivered at flexible access points across the city, ‘we perform targeted outreach and young people attend and chair our management team meetings.’ The session produced a wide debate upon what makes a venue open and how to reach multiple audiences. More information about the work and programmes of the Cornerhouse can be found on their website; http://www.cornerhouse.org/today/
13. The Importance of Small Events
Andy Preece (Director, PMP)
Although much of the events agenda centres around the mega events in sport and culture, Andy Preece, from leading consultants PMP, will argue that there is a need to recognise the limitations of these and the opportunities in smaller, less high profile events. Based on extensive experience, Andy will outline his views that ‘bigger is not necessarily better’, that smaller towns and cities can be major players and that communities need to make the most of the capacity they have. The session will conclude with discussion and involvement of delegates in identifying pointers on how these benefits can be achieved.
14. Evaluating Events (2)
Professor Chris Gratton (Sheffield Hallam University); Dr Calvin Jones (Cardiff University)
The second of our sessions on evaluating events looks in detail at two different, but related, impacts: economic and environmental. As part of a consortium now researching a new framework for evaluating events, and with extensive experience, you could hardly ask for more relevant presenters, with Chris focusing on economic impacts and Calvin on ways to evaluate environmental effects.
Conference Report
This session contrasted the approaches of two major regional cities – Manchester and Leeds – to planning and staging event. Eamonn O’Rourke explained how, following its Olympic bids and the success of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester has established a reputation for staging large-scale international events, especially in the field of sport. He also explained that the core drivers for Manchester’s events strategies are economic and social regeneration. Andrew Macgill explained how Leeds has to date adopted a more modest approach to planning and staging events, concentrating largely on hosting free sports and cultural events for local people. However, in line with a new facilities and infrastructure building programme he explained that Leeds is now seeking to stage more high profile national and international events. In doing so, it will be considering the development a more thoroughgoing legacy and monitoring programme.
15. Understanding Participation in Cultural Events
Dr Abigail Gilmore (Northwest Culture Observatory); Ruth Melville (Impact 08)
This session will look at recent research from two major events in the region – Liverpool 08 and Manchester International Festival - what they tell us about arts and cultural audiences and the nature of participating in events. How can we better capture the benefits of events to local cultural infrastructures, what constitutes participation, how this is represented in evaluation and what use can be made of research in audience development and programming?
