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Tanishka Sharma: my intern experience at Strike A Light
We’re one of the organisations working with the University of Birmingham’s ‘B-Experienced’ Internship Programme — and we’ve been delighted to have had Tanishka as part of our team in Spring 2024 through the scheme.
We asked her to say a bit about her experience with us over the past couple of months…
I’ve been interning at Strike A Light (SAL) for the last 10 weeks, and the team there has truly been my biggest cheerleader throughout, constantly encouraging and supporting me.
Working in the charity sector has taken me through purpose-driven marketing, where SAL actually focuses on bringing artful entertainment and extraordinary experiences to people. Just pure entertainment for the people of Gloucester!
I’ve spent my weeks in the marketing team, learning about different facets of marketing – ranging from writing copies for email marketing to designing creatives for socials. This internship has given me the opportunity to work on HubSpot CRM, Mailer Lite, Adobe Photoshop and honed my inbound marketing skills.
I’ve learnt how marketing is not about taking it up like a checklist, task by task, it’s actually a about finding the right balance between what your audience expects from you, and how can you as a brand meet those expectations with keeping the brand core and values intact.
It involves thinking backwards, and finding your audience on the right channels, and talking to them in a language they speak, about things they want to hear.
The thing I loved the most was that I had the chance to work things that were completely new to me, with full support from my manager!
I learnt basics to code a website, work on the back-end of it and then taking it live. While interning I also got my hands into the event side of things, on bringing an event to life, from paper to the stage, with a massive audience.
And I truly enjoyed every bit of it, it’s such a team effort! The whole experience has left me super motivated to work in a team, achieve big things and then celebrate wins together.
And, like I said in the beginning, people at SAL will be your biggest cheerleader whenever it comes to trying something new, or even making a mistake. It’s such a happy, sunny environment in the office!
The team has really taken care of me, being an international student at UoB, away from home. My experience at SAL provided me opportunities to explore Gloucester and its rich culture, and I’ll cherish the memories I made here.
Surviving GDPR as a small arts organisation
This article was originally published in 2018 — so some of the information may have changed since then!
You’ve heard people saying the letters GDPR in hushed tones with panic stricken faces.
You know it’s to do with data protection and something important you should be doing by 25 May (2018!). You may also have started reading through the ICO website and then decided at the line “standard data protection clauses in the form of template transfer clauses adopted by a supervisory authority…” that maybe you should make a cup of tea and have a sit down first, before filing it away under ‘to do at some point’.
Actually, I’m being unfair. The Information Commissioner’s website is very clear and helpful and their introduction to GDPR here is a very good place to start. They also have a Self Assessment Checklist you can use.
Strike A Light have been undergoing a big organisational development project as we’re now a National Portfolio Organisation with Arts Council England (fanfare, confetti etc) and we’re also in a consortium of arts organisations here in Gloucestershire for a project called Catalyst with Create Gloucestershire. As part of all this we nominated ourselves to explore the world of GDPR and report back for our colleagues.
We’ve been on two different training sessions, we’ve read every single thing we can find online, we’ve watched youtube videos from legal firms, and we’ve condensed it down into an action plan for small arts organisations.
If you’re looking for a place to begin making friends with GDPR then hopefully this will help. Click on the links below to download the documents.
- This is the action plan which introduces GDPR and what it means for arts organisations, and includes a checklist: GDPR-Action-Plan (.pdf)
- This is a template for a data audit, which is an important action on the checklist: GDPR-Data-Audit-Template (.xlsx)
- This is our current draft of our new data protection policy: Data-Protection-Policy (.pdf)
Hope you find this useful and please do read the disclaimer below.
Good luck on your GDPR adventure!
Christina Poulton
Executive Producer, Strike A Light
(image from We Are Lightning, which is coming to Strike A Light on its national tour)
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER!
We are sharing these documents in the interests of partnership working, sharing resources and to try and speed up the process for those who have a ‘to do’ list as long as your arm and are drowning in admin (i.e. most of us)
These documents are based on our research as above, presented in good faith, but DO NOT replace formal legal advice and are designed to be used in conjunction with the ICO information and your own research to ensure it is implemented comprehensively for your organisation.
We are still updating these documents for our own organisation as we work through the process and updates are being issued by ICO regularly.
This is also aimed at small arts organisations so information that is less pertinent for that context is only included briefly. If you handle large quantities of sensitive data or work with lots of international partners for example, then you will need more detail for these aspects.
Once you have read through the documents, do use the links included in the action plan for further research to make sure you’re covered.
Thanks!
Aisha Ramzan: my intern experience at Strike A Light
We’re one of the organisations working with the University of Birmingham’s ‘B-Experienced’ Internship Programme – and we’ve been delighted to have had Aisha as part of our team in early 2024 through the scheme.
We asked her to say a bit about her experience with us over the past couple of months…
I have been working as an intern for Strike A Light.
I have genuinely loved this experience because it has been full of teaching me skills about marketing – such as being able to send out content to mailing lists, how to cater to different audiences, and seeing the logistics behind event planning.
What surprised me most about this internship was how much work actually goes into marketing to be able to sell these tickets for events.
Seeing first-hand how much effort and time goes into it really gave me an insight into how marketing works beyond just making content.
An aspect that has challenged me within this internship is catering my writing style to different audiences: having to send out different emails, campaigns or writing information for the website requires all different kinds of linguistics and it was challenging for me to adapt to that.
However, my manager made it very easy to learn and helped me learn all the necessary skills.
I would definitely recommend working at SAL because it has been such a positive experience.
Outside of the marketing aspect, the people there are just so kind and understanding. You can genuinely tell they want to make a difference in the community and treat each other with respect and care.
It’s an environment where you can make mistakes and you will kindly be guided how to correct and full of positive reinforcement!
110% recommend.
A huge thanks to Aisha — both for the kind words and all the hard work! She’s been an invaluable addition to the team and will be much missed.
BECOMING AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Hello! This was meant to be my “6 months in the job” blog. It’s actually my “9 months (ish) in the job” blog. And this perhaps articulates better than I can the role of Executive Director.
I didn’t know what would be useful to write about. I think there are a lot of blogs/twitter threads of the plights of arts management. So I hope I won’t make this one so gloomy. This is just how I’ve found my first ED role so far with some notes about what I’ve found the job is really about, in the hope that it might be helpful to someone, somewhere thinking of going for their first one.
This is my first ED role and it sort of happened without me really realising. When talking to my manager at Arts Council (I was doing a mat cover RM role at the time) about job roles he said something along the lines of “you’d be great at somewhere like Strike a Light”. 2 days later SAL advertised for an ED role. Some sort of destiny? I doubted I could do the role but the sound of the organisation, its ethos and mission was completely on point. I grew up in Sharpness (it’s a dockyard in Gloucestershire, don’t worry no one knows it either) and spent my childhood in Gloucester & it felt in some sort of way I was coming home.
I didn’t actually know if I wanted to be an ED and was completely sure I wouldn’t get the job. It’s important to say I’d applied to lots of other jobs, many I thought sounded great, which I didn’t get interviews for. If it wasn’t for a very encouraging manager and a supportive partner I’m not sure I would have actually completed the whole process for this role. Sometimes it is just the right place, right time & right organisation but it’s hard to remember that when you’re on “Personal Statement version 12”.
So when I got the job I was completely amazed. What helped slightly with my imposter syndrome was that the interview process was very detailed and included 2 tasks. I’d recommend this to anyone recruiting for roles like this- it puts you both at ease that you’ve done something real to see if you can do the job. But my word I was a sleep-deprived nervous husk in a blazer when I arrived for my first day.
Anyway, I’m into the swing of it a bit now and here are 10 reflections on the last 9 months. Some of it may just be relevant to me and how I am working.
- I should be better at excel than I am. Also people always tell me I should love it (!?) and I don’t. You aren’t an accountant and weren’t trained as one. So go easy on yourself. And if in doubt, color coding works well.
- Your most important job is making sure people are ok. So make time for it even when you are furiously typing a funding report. The team, and their welfare, comes first in everything.
- Getting a good board is really tough and will take time. You are asking people to volunteer their time. Put time into the recruitment, it’s worth it.
- HR will sit with you but having someone external to go to for HR on an adhoc basis will really help. Also having robust policies in place, that are lived, also help. There is a reason organisations have external HR departments.
- You ultimately got into this job because you love & believe in art. Sometimes it’ll feel like that part of your job is just peeking through the window. Go and open it up and bask in it from time to time. It makes the rest of it easier. You are still a creative person working in the creative sector.
- A relationship with your AD/s where you can have a robust fight over a project will mean you get to the good stuff. There are times you will both have to cave.
- Which leads me to you: you will have to say “no” a lot. That’s ok. You’re still fun (ish).
- Sometimes your job is to hold things, to protect and ease the pressure on the team. Find someone somewhere you can go with that (preferably your chair)
- Nobody, including your loved ones, really understands your job & many think you work on Mamma Mia.
- The best intentions will fight with the limitations of you as a charity. The arts are built on people who want to do the best & the most without any of the resource. Sometimes you can’t change the world (because you need to keep the lights on) but you can do the best with what you have. It also really helps if you remember other people are trying to do that too.
There is no hiding it: it’s a hard job. The weight of the organisation’s survival sits on your shoulders. No solely, but heavily. You also get with that the weight of people’s jobs and livelihoods. Recently at an event for current and aspiring EDs, organised by the fabulous Natalie Chan and Unlimited, I heard the plights of other EDs and the high turnover the role is currently having. What came out was a real need for that peer support and some ways to still keep the passion for the work under spreadsheets and funding bids.
BUT it also made me reflect on the great thing, the best thing, is that people who decide to work in the arts are kind. And I work in one of the most lovely teams. No one pretends and everyone cares. We say when we struggle, we say when something is new and confusing and that takes such a weight off. I really love my job. I love being able to make change in a city which means so much to me. I like that we laugh. I like that we are ready for a fight.
I think what I’m saying is, if you want to be an ED, don’t worry about the day-to-day. If you’ve got a bit of experience of budgets, management & fundraising, you will work out the rest. Focus on the people around you & how the organisation’s mission makes you feel. Everything after that, well, you just add it to the list…
Lynette Dakin (Strike A Light Executive Director)
‘Let Artists Be Artists’ — 4 artists appointed to experimental employment scheme in Gloucester
‘Let Artists Be Artists’ — 4 artists appointed to experimental employment scheme in Gloucester
Gloucester-based arts charity Strike A Light (SAL) has appointed four artists to ‘just be artists’ — working on an employment salary for 2.5 years, with no predetermined outcomes to their activity.
The four artists are Munotida Chinyanga, Viv Gordon, Ed Patrick and Jamaal O’Driscoll.
Munotida is an ‘anti-disciplinary practitioner’, creating work primarily through direction and sound design; Viv is a theatre maker, survivor activist & arts and mental health campaigner; Ed (aka Kid Carpet) is a musician, video and theatre maker who looks to ‘make superheroes out of everyday people and ordinary things’; Jamaal is a professional dancer working across a variety of dance styles, especially breaking.
The scheme the four join, called ‘Let Artists Be Artists’ (LABA), is designed to be an experiment in countering precarity and providing stability for artists.
It’s based on the twin beliefs that ‘arts and cultural activity flourishes most when it’s free from the project treadmill — chasing prescribed targets to find hand-to-mouth funding. And that when arts activity flourishes in our city, people are healthier, happier and have a better quality of life.’ (Strike A Light)
LABA is funded by SAL’s uplift from its most recent grant as one of Arts Council England’s ‘National Portfolio Organisations’ — meaning the money is channelled directly to artists.
The pressure on artists, and the depth of felt need for security and stable income, was clear to see in the application process — with submissions from more than 300 individuals.
In response to their appointment to the scheme, Ed said:
Let Artists Be Artists is a brilliant and revolutionary scheme which recognises and values artists. It begins to normalise the haphazard area where art meets economics and salaries.
Getting appointed to this opportunity/award/scheme/job will enable me to develop my practice, increasing the scale of work that I can offer in primary schools and get some mind-blowing, transformative, co-creative kids projects off the ground.
CAN’T FLIPPIN’ WAIT
Viv said:
I’m really thrilled to be one of the LABA artists — to be able to work alongside an arts organisation for two and a half years, to do some long-term, place-based durational work and see what happens when we get to do that. I really am excited about ‘occupying space’ — I want to take up space, and that’s what I’m gonna do!
Jamaal said:
Super excited to be working in Gloucester, with communities, with existing artists in the city, and kinda seeing what’s gonna happen — we don’t know exactly what the outcomes are but we kinda know what the goal is, and hopefully you’ll be on a journey with us to figure that out. Hopefully we’ll leave some ‘wow moments’ in the city over the next 2.5 years!
Munotida said:
Not only will this allow me to work consistently for the next 2.5 years, I will also have the privilege of trying and failing and playing which will lead to wilder ambition and strong artistic growth as opposed to the last two years of being stuck and weighed down. I’m thrilled to dive into this journey, to collaborate with the communities of Gloucester, and already the support from this incredible team has been both uplifting and inspiring, solidifying my belief in the extraordinary potential this opportunity holds.
Lynette Dakin, Executive Director of Strike A Light, said:
“We are so excited to announce the 4 artists on our Let Artists Be Artists scheme: each of them will bring their unique and brilliant character to Gloucester.
At Strike A Light, we always want to challenge entrenched systems and consider new ways of working. LABA is about rethinking how artists are supported — and, even more broadly, how we can support people without pressure or preconceived outcomes, without hoop-jumping; in ways that make it clear that people’s value is not the same thing as their ‘productivity’.
We are hugely grateful to the Arts Council who awarded us an uplift in our NPO to support this work. The majority of our uplift went directly to the salaries of these artists.
We look forward to sharing the findings of this work with them and the wider sector to support and advocate for a step-change in how artists are supported.”
The artists have started their roles and will be employed for 2.5 years. Strike A Light will be running a free online workshop about the LABA scheme, where people and organisations interested in the model can find out more, in January 2024.
For more information, see strikealight.org.uk
