Introduction [Rest]
So, how was your summer? Do you remember it? I did something I’d never done before and (more or less) had a rest. For years I’d looked enviously, and with a kind of wonder, at people who did that but never managed it, but this year, with a bit of rearranging, I was able to.
One of the books I read was Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist, whose narrator taught me something about poetic metre my education and training had failed to get through to me: that poetry (even iambic pentameter), like music, relies partly on rests for its rhythm. He might be an unreliable narrator, but I felt there was truth in this – at least to how my ear works.
It strikes me that the rhythm and melody of work are best, and healthiest, when there’s the occasional rest, rather than pages of relentless activity. When we play the silence, as Miles Davis may or may not have suggested. The rest gives due space and attention to the notes played – because in music you also play the rest. So why not think of work ‘rest’ as part of our activity, rather than a burden or a guilty pleasure.
Rest may also be a better word than holiday for we freelancers.
The virtues of rest and recuperation are increasingly clear – and they certainly are to me. I was able to be healthier, to re-decorate my office - rest doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing - and generally take a breath and decompress.
September, by way of contrast, has had some passages played in double time, and more notes than a late John Coltrane ‘sheets of sound’ solo, so it’s only now I’m able to return to the newsletter. It could have been a blockbuster, but I aim to keep some interesting reading in hand so I can become regular again. [Pulls Kenneth Williams-face…]
Stories of Change
I mentioned in my summer reading list that Future Arts Centres had published my report about the Action Research Group that I worked with them on, to help 11 arts centres trial the Most Significant Change qualitative evaluation method. To quote from the introduction:
MSC is a collaborative and non-hierarchical participatory way of identifying what has the greatest significance for people involved in accessing, delivering, and funding services - what matters most to all those involved, and why. The technique uses ‘stories of change’ as data, collected with and analysed by project stakeholders through a process of shared discussion. By actively listening to stories from those directly involved in the work in some way – as audiences, participants, artists, team, partners and funders – it provides a valuable addition tool for learning organisations, responding to the challenges of the survey fatigue many people feel, and the complexities of evaluating personal, relational work.
I came across MSC when working with Imogen Blood and Lorna Easterbrook on the programme level evaluation of Arts Council England and Baring Foundation’s ‘Celebrating Age’ programme. I’ve since worked with many organisations to explore how they could use it and used it on ‘independent evaluations’ myself. I have tended to use it alongside other data collection methods, and other reflective methods such as Failspace. I have also found it a useful technique for collaborative working in adjacent sectors to the cultural sector, and have trained people working in mental health and in refugee and asylum seeker support.
I won’t replay in fast forward the whole report, do read it – it’s short and snappy. What came out of the Action Research Group was really encouraging – Future Arts Centres have positioned peer learning as central to their work as an ACE Investment Principles Support Organisation. It was really heartening to see how MSC increased confidence in and enthusiasm for qualitative evaluation. As one person said in their own story of change: “This is the first time I’ve been excited about evaluation in such a long time. It feels like something’s finally clicked for us – a richer, wider picture for us across out programmes. We weren’t getting that before for pre-designed questions, based on pre-determined outcomes. It didn’t feel valuable. We weren’t capturing what MSC allows us to now – organic, natural conversations that were happening across all programmes already, that’s the real, rich learning. Now we have a framework to capture conversations that were naturally happening, and we can use them in a far more powerful way.”
If you’d like to know more about the technique or talk about how I could help you use it in your own learning, just give me a shout. For me, it’s really important we see evaluation as an opportunity to listen, reflect, learn and imagine alongside other people, rather than a burden imposed upon us. (Not to deny that it can be that too, of course.) MSC is just one way into that – it’s not a universal tool or a silver bullet – but can be a useful one.
Other reading about people-centred approaches to evaluation
I was really pleased to see that the report was selected by Emma McDowell of the Centre for Cultural Value in their ‘Evaluation Principals Essential Reads’ series. Emma described it as “a rich resource with actionable learning.” I was doubly pleased to see the guide I wrote for the Centre for Cultural Value on co-creating evaluations get a mention in despatches from Stephen Walsh too. The NSPCC resource recommended by Dawn Cameron is a good example of how storytelling can be adapted to a variety of settings and groups. (Even if I am a little allergic to the word transformational.)
One more thing…
I am a proud trustee of Unfolding Theatre. You can hear from the brilliant Artistic Director Annie Rigby in the video above, to get a flavour of why I might feel like dedicating my time to that task. (It’s not easy being a trustee of any charity right now.) Given the racist and Islamophobic riots over the summer, “making extraordinary theatre that makes people think differently about who we are on our own and who we are together” feels more important than ever.
Trailer…
Next time I’m going to talk about funding resilience. You can get a head start by reading this article, which was commissioned recently by Arts and Business Northern Ireland to feed into their annual Funders Forum.