Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games & Festival UK 2022 – cultural legacy
Martin Green OBE had to unfortunately give his apologies for the meeting and therefore Phil Batty (Head of Ceremonies & Baton Relay) presented the item together with Raidene Carter, who had declared an interest and was representing the Games organisation for this item. The slides/presentation will be shared with the CLB. Some key points included:
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The plans for the cultural programme are progressing as planned and the group is working towards securing the funding required for the cultural programme. Amongst other funding partnerships to be announced, Birmingham City Council has confirmed £2m for a CWG festival grants programme for creative community-based projects, which will be launched spring 2021.
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The R&D projects for Festival UK 2022 had now also been announced and the focus of the festival will be on openness, originality and optimism
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It was noted that the organisation for Festival UK 2022 was separate from the Games organisation
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The CWG team are still scoping activity and having discussions with sector representatives. The main focus of the activity will be on the 3 WMCA LEP areas, although some of the sporting and cultural activities will take place outside this boundary.
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Digital, international and sector development activities (e.g. leadership development programmes) were also key parts of delivery
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Raidene shared the Theory of Change model for the Games and links had been made between Coventry City of Culture – Martin to follow up specifically on evaluation. Artistic programming links between Coventry City of Culture and Birmingham 2022 are more challenging to make due to the different timelines, but the teams are in good dialogue about the crossover time period.
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Some concerns were raised about the issues around representation within the main CWG organising committee (OC), lack of opportunities for diverse applicants to apply for senior roles within the OC, as well as the allocation of funding and opportunities for smaller sector organisations. Phil noted that the team were working with various different sector organisations and a new Inclusion Officer would be starting soon. This should help the Games to improve on diversity and representation across the organisation and the cultural programme, including workforce. Raidene noted that as of yet no CWG culture funds had been allocated as their own fundraising plans are only just being confirmed, but commissions would not just be offered to ‘larger/regularly organisations’.
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A question was asked about the levels of digital participation. Raidene clarified that the 10% target figure referenced in the presentation related to international audiences, and that the targets for local and national audiences would also include online/digital participation.
- The legacy plans also include the cultural team supporting the development of a 10-year cultural strategy for the region. A question was asked about the role of CLB in this process and how different legacy plans and evaluation work (i.e. Coventry 2021 and the Cultural Officer’s Group plans) could be brought together. The chair noted that a separate meeting could be set up to discuss this further, which was welcomed by Phil and Raidene.
The Chair thanked Phil and Raidene for the presentation.
Action:
- Salla to coordinate meeting to discuss legacy plans