The last fortnight expressed as an equation would read: Work peak + Loss + Book-proofing x Articulacy Deficit = 0 Newsletters. A week off writing the newsletter for me - or was I giving you a week off reading it?
Anyway, this will be the last one this year, so An End of Year Think seemed appropriate. I’ve struggled with it, between you and me, having done three or four versions or major rewrites to get to this. Finding a tone that felt honest and true to the complexity of the year without turning into something much longer was hard. I’m not sure I’ve cracked it even now, but it’s time for it to be abandoned into the world. (I tweaked it after recording the VoiceOver, by the way, so that is ever so slightly different from the final text. It does have a Xmas bonus at the end though.)
Have a good break if you’re getting one, and here’s to 2024.
Words and People
This year, for the umpteenth year running, I’ve found myself grappling with this condition, defined by Greil Marcus in his classic Mystery Train:
“It is not the simple presence of evil that is unbearable; what is unbearable is the impossibility of reconciling the facts of evil with the beauty of the world.”
Elsewhere in the same book Marcus talks of the disabling freeze-out that can descend when “raw emotions must be avoided when one knows they will take no shape but that of chaos.” His original context was Nixon/Vietnam-era USA, but 2023 has at times felt like that.
I don’t go around think of chaos, evil and beauty every day, despite, you know, the world, but I do connect to and support the making and living out of constructive purpose and values in unbearable, destructive times. That guides, shapes and provides the enabling constraints for my work. If anything, saying this feels even more awkward than a not-so-humblebrag list of What I Achieved in 2023, but I offer it comfortable in the knowledge that I am/add but a small misshapen scratch in the world.
It’s been a busy year. (This paragraph was once hundreds of words: it has been edited for length, nothing was redacted.)
Alongside a lot of coaching, facilitation and mentoring I’ve researched, written, co-written or completed 112,018 words of research reports, evaluations, visions, plans and strategies; a collection of poems that will be published early next year (9,191 words); and around 15,000 words of this newsletter. (Links to much of this here.) Oh, and far too many words in unsuccessful tenders. That’s about as many words as A Tale of Two Cities.
Would I have been better off writing a novel than turning all that listening, observation and thinking practice into words? Or maybe another book about culture like Tactics for the Tightrope, which has continued to bob around the seven seas like the message in a bottle it is, being picked up and used in all sorts of ways? That ‘memoir’ about food? When those thoughts pop into my head I think about the people I get to work with.
As someone who most often finds ‘flow’ at his desk wrangling with words, applying backside to seat in the way writers must, whatever the dangers to our backs (don’t get me started on my 2023 back …) I could easily slip into solipsism. But I found a long time ago that Me is an ok place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I am because we are, as I repeatedly say.
I draw energy and inspiration from other people and what they do, from facilitating and connecting those who make things happen for others as well as themselves, people who work with, for and alongside others not just themselves, who know the darkness and chaos in the world, and their local challenges, but refuse to surrender their passion, ingenuity and generosity.
On a good day, and I’ve had a lot this year, that’s the sweet spot I aim for in everything I do, at my desk alone and in rooms with others: to create and hold space and to reflect back what’s going on so they see and own their relationships with the world more clearly. From that comes a sense of the possibilities of the world, and the power to work in and on it, not away from it.
I have worked with so many people with whom I feel a sense of shared project this year, too many to list. I’m grateful to them all for allowing me to share this work. If you’re reading this you’re probably one of them. Thank you.
Governance
My governance and advisory roles have also been rewarding, and I want to highlight three brilliant organisations. I am a trustee of Unfolding Theatre who won Performance of the Year last week at the NE Culture Awards, for A Street Like This. You can read what has made the brilliant Annie Rigby, Artistic Director proudest of that project on the Unfolding website. Spoiler: it’s not winning prizes but igniting the confidence and creativity of the people involved. More brilliant work to come in 2024 too. If you’re quick you can donate to Unfolding’s North East Deaf Youth Theatre Christmas Campaign.
I have also been a member of Spirit of 2012’s Policy Impact and Influencing committee, helping think through how best to generate, share and encourage more happiness from events, physical activity, arts, culture and volunteering. Spirit recently celebrated its 10th birthday and described its achievements in an Impact Report. Last week they also published a report on how to make events more inclusive for and with disabled people which I highly recommend. I really like that Spirit uses the word Happiness so prominently. You know Happiness: it’s what ordinary people call Well-Being.
In 2023 I stepped down from the Investment Panel of The Key Fund after nearly four years. Originally recruited as additional cultural expertise when Key Fund began to deliver the Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund, with funding from DCMS, I learnt so much from being involved. Key Fund supports all kinds of social enterprises across the North of England and into the Midlands with a combination of loan and grant finance, a very different process from the over-subscribed scarcity-shaped grant programmes I was used to. The Investment Panel discussions were challenging and robust, combining concern for business capability and social impact. Importantly, Key Fund invests flexibly in people committed to change at local level. You can read about some of them in their most recent Social Impact Report.
Loss
To connect that thought about people to the Loss in my opening equation I want to end by noting some of the losses of recent weeks.
We lost two significant writers in Shane McGowan and Benjamin Zephaniah – both of whom were dearly loved. (I find myself wondering if they ever met – that would have been a picture.) Sean O’Hagan wrote a lovely piece about Shane McGowan, as did Jeff Tweedy who put one of my feelings into the right words: “It’s easy to wish we had more from him. But it’s hard to argue that what we got—what we’re all left with, forever—wasn’t enough.” Jackie Kay’s recollections of Benjamin Zephaniah say everything about why he was so beloved.
Closer to home, my former colleague Pauline Tambling died recently. I shared something she had written only the week before her death. So many comments from people reflected my own experiences of Pauline. They are summed up brilliantly by Sally Bacon, with whom Pauline write a vital report on arts education just recently, so I can do no better than quote Sally:
“Pauline can take credit for so many people having a career in the arts and for making so many positive things happen in the sector. She was incredibly generous in offering her advice and counsel, was an unfailingly wise guiding light in the arts education and training world, and a brilliant colleague and friend.”
Finally, I wanted to remember Esther Salamon, a stalwart of the arts in North East England who also died earlier this month. Esther was for many years Co-Director of Artists Agency (later known as Helix Arts) alongside Lucy Fairley, where they broke new ground in artist residencies. Esther was also a trustee of several important organisations connecting and supporting artists, notably a-n, the Artists Information Company. She was a passionate, committed and generous champion of genuine connections between artists and their social and environmental worlds, who’ll be much missed. I will personally miss the emails she used to send when one of my posts pushed her buttons, sometimes agreeing, sometimes dissenting, always kind.
Thanks and a Tactics Tomato
Given how social media has essentially died as a means of sharing things, I am grateful for every reader to this newsletter, especially those who talk back or get in touch. Would I like to have more people reading it? Yes, of course. Please share and recommend to your friends. Here’s a button to help:
Finally, here’s my little gift to you if you’ve read this far: a Christmas and New Year themed Tactics Tomato. Do no work during any of it.