How can cultural institutions collaborate and use their assets to influence the public? How do we tap into audiences and cultural partnerships to expand conversations around sustainability? How do we use our position as trusted messengers in society to engage the public meaningfully on the complex subject of climate change?

These were some of the questions tackled on 31 October 2023 when we joined members of the Scottish National Culture for Climate (SNaCC) group at the National Museum of Scotland for a day of micro-presentations, dialogue and workshops. ‘Culture collaborating to influence public on climate change’ concluded with a closing plenary and discussion panel during which we heard from Scottish Government representatives and used the time to present ideas from the day to them, and to board members of SNaCC organisations, stressing SNaCC’s joint influencing power. The event was funded by the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Public Engagement & Behaviour Change team.

Influencing work

The morning and afternoon sessions opened with micro-presentations about influencing work that some of the group members are already undertaking. The presentations – from Ruth Gill (National Museums Scotland), Katie Eagleton (University Museums in Scotland), Gillian Macdonald (Historic Environment Scotland), Lucy Armitage (National Galleries of Scotland) and Lewis Coenen-Rowe (Creative Carbon Scotland) – provided inspiration as attendees moved into practical breakout sessions.

Facilitated breakout sessions

Using public engagement strategy as a diving-off point, Bettina Sizeland, Head of Bus, Accessibility and Active Travel at Transport Scotland and Jeremy Hanks from The Scottish Government Climate Change Public Engagement & Behaviour Change team set the attendees some challenges to focus on during the breakout sessions that followed.

The two sessions, with five cross-SNaCC groups each, were organised to fire and free the imagination, discover what assets and skills the SNaCC members have to offer, raise ambition, experiment with new ideas and make use of the collaborative opportunity. Facilitators, who came from SNaCC members’ education/outreach teams, plus an artist, applied creative practices to stimulate the groups’ imaginations. The approaches used to capture the outputs ranged from crafting to model ideas, singing rounds, compiling a playlist encapsulating individuals’ emotional responses to climate change and nature, and drawing, as well as more traditional methods like Post-it notes.

Imagining projects

The morning session considered challenges posed by Transport Scotland, such as ‘Are there any practices that you can change to help people travel more sustainably?’ and ‘What new partnerships could you develop with bus, train and ferry operators to solve some of the problems stopping people from travelling more sustainably?’. The groups were asked to imagine short-term projects based on current possibilities and tangible changes in practices that collaborative groups of two or more SNaCC members could take forward in 2024.

Based on challenges posed by the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Public Engagement & Behaviour Change team, the second session challenged the attendees to push their creativity and generate ideas of how the cultural institutions’ combined assets, reach and influence could come together and produce a large-scale all-member project that could be developed and delivered over the next few years, to meaningfully engage the public on climate change. A key aspect of the challenges was to ask, ‘Who’s missing?’ to get the groups thinking about who else, outside the arts and culture sector, can help and collaborate on solutions.

Future ideas

The brainstorming, alongside the opportunity to visit the museum’s current exhibition Rising Tide, led to thought-provoking future ideas with attendees generating plans for potential national projects where all SNaCC members work together with the relevant authorities. Ideas included: ‘20 minutes to inspiration’ with every neighbourhood having a cultural, climate-related offer, ‘The people’s feast’ of Scottish food and songs focused on local and sustainable sourcing and bringing communities together, and ‘Sport x Culture’ – a year of half-time shows live in stadiums, maximising audiences and inspiring action.

The presentations resulted in a combined collaborative idea: ‘Festival of the future’. A SNaCC attendee expands:

‘A stumbling block when it comes to climate change is that it feels too big to get past. [We can change this] by creating a space that allows people to imagine that the problems can be overcome and that the other side of the climate and biodiversity emergencies is a positive place. This has the potential to allow people to work through the actions that are necessary.’

Closing plenary and panel discussion

The workshops and discussions were followed by an afternoon plenary, which included an introduction by Ian Russell CBE, Chair of National Museums Scotland, a rallying call to SNaCC members from Màiri McAllan MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition, and an inspiring talk by Professor Sir Ian Boyd, Co-Chair of the First Minister’s Environmental Council.

To end the day’s event, Dr Ben Twist, Director of Creative Carbon Scotland, moderated a panel discussion with Màiri McAllan MSP, Professor Sir Ian Boyd and Dr Sam Alberti, Director of Collections at National Museums Scotland, exploring topics such as using knowledge from the past to imagine a hopeful future, utilising leadership and sharing knowledge while eliminating competition, incentivising and empowering people to make decisions, regulation with integrity, focusing on the benefits of climate change mitigation and adaptation and the vital role of culture in the climate crisis.

‘Your sector is absolutely vital to helping people understand the world around them. Culture has huge potential to support the transformations and transitions in society that are so vital to the next part of our decarbonising journey.’ – Màiri McAllan MSP

Attendees

SNaCC members

• Creative Carbon Scotland
• Creative Scotland
• Historic Environment Scotland
• Museums Galleries Scotland
• National Galleries of Scotland
• National Library of Scotland
• National Museums Scotland
• National Theatre of Scotland
• Scottish Chamber Orchestra
• Scottish Opera
• University Museums in Scotland
• V&A Dundee

Invited

• CILIPS (Scotland’s library and information professionals)
• City of Edinburgh Council
• Dundee City Council
• East Lothian Council
• Improvement Service
• Museums Association
• Scottish Government
• Transport Scotland

What is SNaCC?

Convened by Creative Carbon Scotland, SNaCC is an informal collaboration between several national cultural institutions, development agencies and performing arts companies. You can find out more about SNaCC’s goals, how and why the group was formed, and past events and projects on the SNaCC page.

‘My rallying call to the group is to use your diverse and creative minds and your voices to capture the attention of Scotland’s people at what is a really critical moment in a critical journey, to help our communities connect with climate change in a human and intuitive way and to come to terms with what can often feel like an exceptionally lofty, complex and insurmountable challenge.’ – Màiri McAllan MSP

(Top image ID: A collage of brainstorming diagrams and text from ‘Culture collaborating to influence the public on climate change’.)

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Researchers at the University of Glasgow have launched a new initiative that aims to unite Glasgow’s UNESCO City of Music identity with the city’s ambition to become net zero by 2030.

Creative Carbon Scotland and many of the city’s music businesses and organisations have collaborated on the initiative, which aims to identify what Glasgow’s music sector needs to thrive in the future, co-design projects to meet the sector’s needs and investigate the role music and culture can play in a broader just and green transition.

A website has been launched to mark the initiative, which hosts resources and guidance for city stakeholders including musicians, venues, music ensembles, policymakers, and researchers, environmental organisations and fans. It also contains a directory of music businesses in the city and a comprehensive map identifying over 200 spaces for live music in Glasgow.

Matt Brennan, Professor of Popular Music at the University of Glasgow, said:

“We’ve been lucky to have the feedback and participation of many of the city’s largest music organisations including DF Concerts and Events, 432 Presents, the SEC Hydro, SWG3, Celtic Connections and Glasgow Life. We’ve also had input from grassroots venues like St Luke’s, the Rum Shack, and the Glad Café, as well as local labels and shops like Last Night From Glasgow, Monorail, to name only a few.

“All of these have informed the design of the Just and Green Music City project. We hope to build on this network and are now putting out a call to other interested music stakeholders – either within Glasgow or those from other cities hoping to do similar work – to get involved in the initiative via the contact form on the website.”

Geoff Ellis, CEO of DF Concerts & Events, said:

“In 2023, we asked fans, staff and contractors to ‘Play Your Part’ in taking climate action at our events. This campaign encouraged circular fashion, use of public transport and active travel, the use of reusable water bottles, plant-based eating and composting. Next year, we will be continuing on our decarbonisation journey, enhancing our data collection in food and transport whilst expanding our ongoing investment in 100% HVO biofuel with trials of power technologies. Collaboration is key to a thriving Glasgow music scene and we are happy to support this initiative as part of our ongoing commitment to meaningful change in the city.”

Debbie McWilliams, Director of Live Entertainment for the Scottish Event Campus (SEC), said:

“We are committed to sustainability, as evidenced by Glasgow’s OVO Hydro becoming the world’s first arena to achieve A Greener Arena (AGA) certification for its commitment to sustainability earlier this year. Our ambition to become net zero by 2030 aligns with the broader ambition of the city of Glasgow as a whole to do the same, and we are therefore happy to see this initiative showing what role the city’s music sector can play in this goal.”

Lewis Coenen-Rowe, culture/SHIFT Manager at Creative Carbon Scotland, said:

“It’s been great to work with Dr Matt Brennan on this project and benefit from the skills and knowledge that researchers at Glasgow University can bring. We’d love to see the concept rolled out in other places so that the music industry can stand front and centre in the just and green transition.”

For more information contact Aine Allardyce, Communications Manager, University of Glasgow on 07976 201938 or email aine.allardyce@glasgow.ac.uk or media@glasgow.ac.uk.

Or email Lewis Coenen-Rowe: lewis.coenen-rowe@creativecarbonscotland.com

Read more about the Just and Green Music City initiative on the dedicated website.

Visit our Towards a Just and Green Music City project page.

(Top image ID: Green image of Glasgow waterfront. Overlaid text reads: Towards a Just & Green Music City.)

The post CCS, researchers and Glasgow’s music sector team up to launch ‘Towards a Just and Green Music City’ initiative appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is happy to launch a new carbon budgeting tool. This marks the end of over six months of collaboration with organisations across the cultural and creative sectors, who have been taking part in an action learning set to try out carbon budgeting (the planning of how and where we ‘spend’ our carbon) across their own operations.

Beginning of the project

The tool was first developed by Imaginate as a way to identify planned travel up to three years in advance, estimating the carbon emissions and strategically planning ways to limit these emissions through pre-emptive actions. With the initial tool, they could set reduction targets for different departments, allowing these areas of the organisation to take ownership of their emissions. Creative Carbon Scotland has developed the tool further by integrating net-zero trajectories and expanding the emission sources beyond travel, so that emissions totals can be aligned to a given net-zero target.

We understood that a lot of organisations were looking for ways to plan carbon and we wanted to try out this new tool before launching it. Therefore, we invited green champions to participate in a carbon budgeting action learning set where they could try out the tool, see how the processes would work in their organisations and discuss improvements collectively.

Action learning set

Thirty organisations signed up to be part of the carbon budgeting action learning set. They represented a range of sizes, art forms and activities, giving the sessions a real insight into different ways organisations and individuals in the cultural and creative sectors will interact with carbon budgeting.

The sessions began with an introduction to the tool, then the green champions were given a month to explore it. At this stage, as they had been shown how to use it, the participants found that the tool was much easier to understand. To help new users understand the tool, we have provided a walk-through video of the tool.

A month later, we reconvened and discussed how we found the tool and talked about how it could be improved. This feedback completely changed the look, usability and functions of the tool. Some features that came from this included having cumulative totals of budgets, space to plan materials and a page to add additional locations for travel.

Once Creative Carbon Scotland made improvements to the tool, the participants were given three months to integrate the tool into their organisations’ operations. We came back for a final session where we discussed the potential issues of carbon budgeting as a concept and how we can avoid them.

A discussion point that came up was that of the climate justice aspects of planning travel emissions – for example, how can you ensure equitable participation as you try to move to slower forms of travel or less travel? On the Move, which supports artists to operate internationally while working to reimagine mobility as fairer, greener and more inclusive has produced some valuable resources around this. We recommend reading their 2023 Cultural Mobility Yearbook.

The involvement of a wide range of organisations was a valuable part of this process. Their collaboration has led to what we believe is a versatile tool that can be used by any organisation or individual to reduce their operational emissions through planning.

The tool

You can access the tool on our website. The main use of the tool is to allow you to plan carbon in the same way you plan your financial budgets. It will allow you to do the following:

• See how your emissions should reduce each year to reach net-zero emissions by any given year.
• Plan emissions for the coming year in line with your net-zero trajectory.
• Split up your planning by department or project.
• Explore how changing what you do can impact your emissions.

It has been built to be as adaptable as possible. You have the option to budget for up to 10 departments/projects, but you can equally plan all your emissions as one. It can be used in either Excel or Google Sheets, though Excel will be slightly more user friendly.

When using the tool, you should be aware of the following:

• It is a planning tool where all calculated emission values are estimates only. You should not use these methods for reporting or actual measurements.
• This is our most advanced tool. You should have calculated your/your organisation’s carbon footprint, understood all your sources of emissions and set a net-zero target year before using the tool.
• If your/your organisation’s emissions are less than five tonnes, please explore the tool and use it if you would like, but the benefits might be outweighed by the time it takes to fill out the tool. We encourage you to instead explore how you can use your influence to effect change beyond your core emissions.

We hope you find the tool useful and if you have any questions or suggestions for improvements, please do get in touch at matthew.belsey@creativecarbonscotland.com.

(Top image ID: Carbon management logo.)

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We invite other European cultural networks and platforms to join the SHIFT Culture eco-certificate pilot project, supported by Creative Carbon Scotland with auditing partner Green Leisure Group.

Participants receive

• Participation in and support from a community of European cultural networks acting to minimise their environmental impact.
• An annual workshop with other participants including training, surgery with the auditing organisation, opportunities to share progress among participants and a way to contribute to the ongoing development of the community.
• Access to tailored tools explicitly developed for this certification scheme and customised to the needs of European cultural networks.
• Tailored individual support from supporting expert arts and sustainability organisation Creative Carbon Scotland.
• A ‘buddy’ participant from within the group for peer-to-peer exchange and learning.
• An external audit from auditing organisation Green Leisure Group.
• On successful completion of the audit: a certificate demonstrating to partners, members, funders your organisation’s efforts to address climate change.

The work required

In order to get the most out of the SHIFT Culture eco-certificate and community, time and effort is required to participate. Participants to date are enthusiastic about the impacts they’ve experienced from taking part. Before applying, we encourage you to review the publicly shared SHIFT eco-guidelines on which the certificate is based and consider the capacity required to implement all the mandatory norms within your organisation. Along with the time required to implement the guidelines, you will need to build a relationship with your buddy organisation, prepare for and attend the workshop, carry out a self review and a peer review for your buddy and have an external audit. We estimate this to take approximately one to two days per month. We ask for a minimum of two years’ commitment to the scheme.

Cost

In order to cover the costs of running the eco-certificate we ask for a contribution of 2500 Euros (including VAT) per year (subject if necessary to an inflationary increase for 2025) and a minimum commitment of two years. However, in order to reflect different types and sizes of networks, as well as geographical and economic contexts, we propose a minimum contribution of 2000 Euros, with larger and more established networks which can afford it contributing the higher rate.

Application process

Please complete the application form by Friday 19 January 2024. Within the application form we ask about the nature of your organisation and your motivation for joining, as well as asking you to confirm your organisation’s capacity to implement  the mandatory norms included within the SHIFT Culture eco-guidelines during the first year, and some optional norms in the second year.

In this round of recruitment, we are seeking 9 participant organisations to join the existing SHIFT Culture eco-certificate community of 16 participating organisations. If we are oversubscribed with eligible applications, a working group consisting of representatives from Creative Carbon Scotland, Green Leisure Group and current eco-certificate participant organisations will select those we feel the scheme is best fitted to support in achieving their climate ambition. We will recruit further for increased participation beginning in 2025.

Applicants will be notified of their selection at the start of February 2024 with a public announcement in the middle of the month.

Link to application form

Enquiries

If you have any questions relating to the scheme and the process used, please contact Caro.Overy@creativecarbonscotland.com. Caro is also able to connect you with a range of organisations who are already participating in the eco-certificate who are happy to share their experience directly.

(Top image ID: SHIFT culture logo on a peach-coloured background.)

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Yambe Tam speaks with CAD about her residency experience in North Yorkshire and the impact it’s had.

In February 2023, Chrysalis Arts Development welcomed emerging artist Yambe Tam as the first artist in residence at the Art Depot.

In this interview, she speaks with two of the Chrysalis Arts Development non-executive directors about her residency experience and the impact it’s had on her artist practice.

Thank you to Yambe Tam, Sara Trentham-Black and Helen Turner. A special thank you to the project funders Arts Council England.

Watch the interview here.

Yambe talks about the importance of connections to the natural environment in her work, her experience of the residency and the landscape, geological history, ecological links and unique biodiversity of the place and gives advice to people who are interested in undertaking a residency.

About Yambe Tam

Yambe is an artist and ordained Zen Buddhist creating contemplative experiences through sculpture, video games and immersive installations.

These works meditate on the void and how conceptions of reality are constructed in humans and non-humans, from microscopic to planetary scales. Often collaborating with creative technologists, sound designers and scientific researchers, she builds interactive, immersive worlds that engage the senses in their primal instinct to explore and play.

About the interviewers

Sara Trentham-Black has worked in arts development and project management, for Arts Council England (2002-10) and in consultancy. She also lectures in cultural policy and management at Sheffield Hallam University.

Helen Turner is the Associate Head of Art at York St John University, with a background in public art, specialising in textiles, and experienced in project management, including community engagement.

(Top image ID: Artist Yambe Tam sits at desk with laptop, books and natural materials. [supplied])

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It is with great pleasure that we launch the Green Arts Charter, a collaborative sustainability agreement designed for and by member organisations of the Green Arts Initiative (GAI).

The charter aims to inspire, support and provide a framework to deliver the climate action needed to achieve transformational change in Scotland’s cultural sector and beyond. Sign the charter today!

Since SPRINGBOARD 2023 in February, a cohort of cultural organisations including the Barn, Bothy Project, Cryptic, Fèisean nan Gàidheal, the Edinburgh International Festival and Starcatchers has been working with us to develop a Green Arts Charter.

Through a series of meetings, workshops and ongoing feedback, cohort members have agreed four core pledges focused around mitigation & adaptation, collaboration, community and advocating for change. They are pledges that all GAI members can work towards and provide a way to bring about collective climate action as a network.

Alongside the pledges we have developed a framework of actions to guide an organisation’s environmental action planning. Each pledge has different goals, and each goal has different actions an organisation can take to achieve it. We also have a list of resources that organisations can use to understand each goal. As new ideas, collaborations and ways of working are introduced, new goals and actions will be added.

Find out more about why we’ve created the charter.

We encourage organisations to read and sign the charter. Any organisation that is not already part of the GAI, a network of 400+ cultural organisations across Scotland working on sustainability, is encouraged to sign up first.

Join the Green Arts Initiative.

(Top image ID: A bright green background with CCS logo and text reading ‘Green Arts Charter’. Across the middle is a strip with text reading ‘Sign today!’. Below are four illustrations in icon style: a graph, three talking heads in a huddle, two hands in a handshake and weighing scales. Illustration credit: Phoebe Jones.)

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How can school grounds make an impact on climate adaptation?

In Scotland, school grounds make up 14% of local authority-owned land. However, 84% of that area is either grassland or hard surfaces, offering little mitigation to the effects of climate change. Because of their scale, school grounds hold great potential to help our climate resilience.

In this blog Architecture and Design Scotland and Learning through Landscapesshare news about the process of developing a toolkit to support Climate Ready School Grounds, including the ways in which they tapped into children’s creativity and imagination with playful activities.

The Climate Ready Schools Grounds project is a pioneering initiative to empower schools to embrace nature-based solutions. The initiative explores using school grounds to address the impacts of climate change whilst creating outdoor environments that support learning and play.

About Climate Ready School Grounds

Throughout 2023 Learning through Landscapes, the leading UK charity dedicated to outdoor learning and play, and Architecture and Design Scotland – Scotland’s design agency – facilitated workshops with three schools across Scotland to help identify the impacts of climate change on the school grounds, along with practical ways to mitigate them. Through listening and involving pupils, we were also able to learn more about their knowledge and views on climate change.

The pupils explored the five different types of climate around the world, and then focused on the UK’s temperate climate. Each school took part in an initial workshop to audit their grounds. The School Grounds Climate Survey is designed to stimulate discussion and awareness around developing climate-ready school grounds and is based on six themes:

• Heat, cold and wind stress
• Biodiversity and ecosystems
• Water management
• Carbon management
• Air quality
• Learning, play and community

Subsequent workshops allowed the pupils to explore these themes further and get hands-on experience of adapting their own school grounds to mitigate climate change. Here are snapshots from the work across the three schools.

Adapting existing resources – St Mary’s Primary School, Dunblane

The children at St Mary’s in Dunblane planted an amazing willow archway in a seating area outside to help reduce the temperature on the tarmac, capture carbon, provide shade for pupils and support biodiversity.

Two existing, but unused, planters at the end of each bench were refreshed and planted to create this green space, making best use of the existing resources available.

St Mary’s already has an orchard with six fruit trees. However, the trees needed some maintenance, so the school contacted a local community group, Dunblane in Bloom, which helped to provide additional soil. The pupils weeded the containers and pruned the trees. This creative activity helped them make the link between the importance of existing adaptations in their grounds and climate change globally.

Building shelter – Newmilns Primary School, East Ayrshire

Newmilns Primary school in East Ayrshire has a huge green grass space and is surrounded by community woodland. It is a relatively green school space, but also close to a very busy main road.

The school is considering fundraising to create a shelter in the playground. As part of the workshops, the pupils created temporary shade structures using loose materials. This allowed them to test the idea of a shelter, for example, identifying the best location and size. They used sticks, pallets, tarpaulins and a range of other resources. This was a valuable way to support the children to think creatively about developing a new shelter as, through the audit, they had already identified where the hottest, coldest and windiest spaces were in their school grounds.

Building community – St Michael’s, Glasgow

The pupils at St Michael’s in Glasgow participated in a film that was created for the project. They showed their playground designs and shared their concerns, creating visual plans and a basic model.

Although St Michael’s already had large planters available, they were too high for the children to use and, as a result of the audit and workshops, have now been made more accessible. The pupils involved with the workshops are keen to promote the growth of fruit and vegetables, harvesting their crops and providing food to the local community food bank.

Practical, local focus

Stephen Moizer from Learning through Landscapes, who led the workshops said:

‘As part of the process we played a lot of related games, including a recycling game and a game focusing on the needs of pollinating insects. We’re focusing on climate change mitigation, but it’s less doom and gloom and more about proactivity and identifying what pupils can do to make positive changes in their local environment.

It is important to know about polar bears and penguins, but identifying the impact of climate change in their local area is vital in supporting children’s understanding and, therefore, the need to take action.’

Climate Ready School Grounds resources

During the year we collated related resources, connected with similar projects around the world and learned about the role that landscape can play in mitigating changing climate. This has helped inspire the learning resources that are now available to anyone involved in creating Climate Ready School Grounds.

How to use Climate Ready School Grounds for schools in your local authority area

Climate adaptation and mitigation require us all to work together, and our school grounds can be one of the many ways we adapt our places to meet the needs of tackling the climate emergency.

If you are a parent, pupil, teacher or designer there is a whole suite of resources – including case studies, practical resources and guides – available on both Architecture and Design Scotland’s and Learning through Landscapes website.

Use the Architecture and Design Scotland website to find appropriate resources to support you in creating and adapting school grounds to be more climate ready.

Use the Learning through Landscapes website to download resources to support you in planning and implementing changes to your school grounds.

The resource also includes a video by Yellow Balloon Film that sets out the opportunities for adapting our school grounds to tackle the climate emergency and create more inspiring learning spaces across the country. You can watch the short film here.

(Top image ID: A grid collage with three photos of children playing with willow, planting trees and sorting seeds. Images by Malcolm Cochrane Photography)

The post Guest blog: Transforming Scotland’s school grounds for climate adaptation appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Originally posted on Creative Carbon Scotland

We’re looking for a dedicated General Manager to join the SMIA Executive Team.

Location: Glasgow/hybrid
Reports to: CEO and Creative Director
Salary: £26,000 p.a. (£32,500 pro-rata)
Term: Permanent (subject to ongoing funding)
Working hours: 32 hours per week (based on a four day working week)

The General Manager will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the SMIA’s business operations, including overseeing the successful delivery of our annual programme of services, projects and events and supporting the work of the wider executive team.

Projects and events include the Scottish Album of the Year Award, the SMIA Summit, Scottish Music Industry Futures Roadmap, ongoing membership support and industry development, academic/education partnerships, careers advice and skills development.

Under guidance from the CEO and Creative Director, the General Manager will devise and implement an effective and efficient operational plan that meets business requirements, drives growth and supports the SMIA in achieving its vision and mission.

As a senior position within the company, the role requires someone with strong interpersonal skills and a proven track record in operational, people and financial management. The role is key to the SMIA delivering on its strategic objectives, as well as generating value for its membership, building deeper relationships, raising its profile externally and enhancing its impact.

The role has direct people management responsibility for the Projects Coordinator and the Marketing and Communications Executive, as well as some freelance project staff. A key aspect of the role includes managing partnerships across SMIA projects and programmes, and therefore, the role is central in allowing the company to generate revenue, deliver value and unlock new opportunities.

The General Manager will think strategically, act tactically and have exemplary attention to detail.

Key Responsibilities

• Devising, developing and delivering the SMIA’s operational plan, on time and to budget, and under guidance from the CEO and Creative Director.
• Supporting the CEO and Creative Director in financial management, with delegated authority in areas including formulating budgets, processing, issuing and paying invoices, credit control (ensuring timely payments for SMIA sales and services), processing staff payroll and pension contributions and liaising with the SMIA’s accountants to ensure accurate and timely preparation of quarterly management accounts and other financial reports as requested.
• Overseeing business administrative and compliance duties and delegating where necessary, including HR support, writing, issuing and evaluating tenders, business insurance, reporting (particularly to Creative Scotland), HMRC and Companies House.
• Supporting the CEO and Creative Director in writing reports for the company and its stakeholders on key issues and activities, including in areas such as fair work, sustainability and equalities, diversity, inclusion and accessibility.
• Supporting the CEO and Creative Director in identifying, writing and submitting funding applications, as well as providing wider administrative support.
• Managing, coaching and supporting the SMIA’s Projects Coordinator, Marketing and Communications Executive and freelance project staff; delegating tasks appropriately, setting realistic goals and targets and ensuring an efficient and effective output through conducting reviews to measure performance against objectives set.
• Managing and building SMIA partnerships across projects and programmes; ensuring deliverables are met, driving revenue, making recommendations for future development and nurturing positive relationships.
• Supporting the CEO and Creative Director in effectively communicating the vision and mission of the organisation to staff, members and external stakeholders.
• Developing and maintaining relationships with current and potential members; responding to members’ needs by helping devise and implement new initiatives.
• Representing the organisation at a wide range of industry events and sector meetings.

Required Experience

• Passionate about music and developing Scotland’s music industry.
• Demonstrable experience (at least three years) in a comparable management role, and preferably in the creative or arts and cultural sector.
• A proven track record of successful operational delivery, including development, delivery and evaluation of projects and/or programmes.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to engage with individuals from all levels of the music industry, including being able to adapt style to suit the audience.
• A confident communicator across various formats, with excellent attention to detail and experience of report writing.
• Strong numerical skills, with experience in budgeting.
• Experience of people management (preferably including freelance project staff).
• Experience of managing projects and programmes.
• Proficient in using cloud-based software including Google Suite, Zoom and Slack.
• Able to deal with changing priorities or obstacles and to provide alternative solutions.

Desired Experience

• Experience in business development (particularly for arts/creative organisations), including applying for public funding and securing private/commercial revenue.
• A network of key contacts in, and an understanding of, the music industry and wider creative industries.
• Experience of using financial software such as Xero Accounts (further training will be provided).
• Experience of managing/working for a membership organisation or trade association.
• Experience of working on major events and/or projects in a senior operational role.
• Experience of engaging and working collaboratively with stakeholders.
• Experience in creating reports for senior management/company boards and a demonstrable ability to summarise complex information clearly and concisely.

How To Apply

If you meet the majority of the criteria we require for this role then we want to hear from you. The SMIA is committed to ensuring equal opportunities in employment. No discrimination will be made throughout the recruitment process based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, gender or socio-economic background. The SMIA values the understanding that lived experience brings.

To apply for the role of General Manager, please email a CV and accompanying cover letter detailing how you meet the requirements of the role to jobs@smia.org.uk.

Once you have completed your application, please fill in the SMIA equality and diversity monitoring form. If you have any questions about the form, including requests for reasonable adjustments, or if you would prefer to complete an offline version using Microsoft Word, please contact jobs@smia.org.uk. Please note, all questions are optional and filling in this form is voluntary.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to be made to the application process, for example, submitting your responses via audio or video, please contact jobs@smia.org.uk.

Application deadline: 5pm, Monday 8 January 2024

Following the application deadline, we will then arrange interviews with the most suitable candidates. Interviews will take place w/c 15 January, with the role commencing shortly afterwards.

(Top image ID: A red poster with the text: ‘We’re hiring: General Manager’ with the SMIA Scottish Music Industry Association logo.)

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The Jorum Craft Award is a materials-focused grant supported by Jorum Studio and Craft Scotland.

The Jorum Craft Award provides funding to support makers’ exploration of materials, including but not limited to research and development of a new piece of work, project or collection.  Each Craft Award centres around a theme, exploring the intersection between technical skill and material innovation.

The theme for Round 8 (winter 2023) is childhood. Your work explores a sense of personal history and nostalgia, or maybe work with a younger audience in mind.

We are looking for proposals for new bodies of work that explore the theme of childhood and which investigate different approaches to materiality. Applicants must be able to demonstrate a clear view of their future development (and/or that of a particular project), and how receiving the Jorum Craft Award would help them to achieve their goals.

Award details: One award available per round, between £500 and £1,000, to assist with the development of your creative practice .

Deadline: 9 January 2024

Learn more about this opportunity and how to enter on the Craft Scotland website.

Jorum Studio is a Scottish perfumer established 2010 – creating perfumes conceived of the head, nurtured with heart, crafted by hand.

(Top image ID: Photograph of two ceramic vessels. Photography by artist Eleanor White. [supplied])

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7 October 2023: At our first Green Tease exploring architecture and retrofit, we spent the afternoon discussing just transition and the role of art in future possibilities for housing.

This Green Tease was made possible by collaborating with Scott McAulay, who is a Glaswegian climate and spatial justice activist, Part 2 architectural assistant and sustainability specialist, whose work with the Anthropocene Architecture School creates spaces for people to learn about climate solutions and opportunities for a just transition in our built environments.

The team at Civic House in Glasgow provided their spacious venue for us to hold workshops and discussions, exhibitions and a film screening for Reimagining Retrofit.

The afternoon began with culture/SHIFT officer, Maja Rimer, introducing Creative Carbon Scotland’s work and highlighting that the climate crisis is a cultural issue. Andrew Williams, Project Manager at the sustainability charity Sniffer, spoke about Creative Climate Futures, a project building climate resilience in Glasgow communities. Scott McAulay then introduced the work of the Anthropocene Architecture School, covering the importance and urgency of buildings in the climate crisis. Emphasising that the tools to build sustainable homes and to retrofit existing ones to standards fit for a climate emergency already exist, and such buildings becoming the norm would change and save lives. Scott ended his talk with a radical imagination exercise, asking everyone to close their eyes and imagine what future housing might look like if it allowed humans and non-humans to thrive.

Our aim for this event was to invite attendees to begin imagining retrofit as an action beyond the scale of the individual home, to create space to have thought-provoking discussions and to generate ideas of future possibilities amongst themselves. Scott led a workshop designed to explore retrofitting at different scales – the home, the street andthe neighbourhood, encouraging attendees to sit with people they might not know to foster new connections. Facilitators from environmental, sustainability and architecture backgrounds – ACAN Scotland, the Architecture Fringe and Imagine If CIC – supported the flow of discussions.

Some of the themes that emerged from the day’s discussions were:

• community
• scale
• long-term security
• job creation
• governance
• ownership
• shared responsibility
• collaboration
• the role of culture
• the power of imagination

‘The scale of just transition opportunities that could be unlocked by resourcing communities to co-design and govern the retrofit of their homes, streets, and neighbourhoods is dreamlike. Barriers standing between where we are today, and a Scotland where such programmes are underway – changing and saving lives, are not technical ones: they are cultural and political and must be collectively, and imaginatively, tackled as such.’
Scott McAulay, Anthropocene Architecture School

The Wyndford Exhibition group introduced ‘Rethinking the architect: The fight to save the Wyndford’ co-created with local residents. They spoke about the frustrations of the wasteful construction industry and that demolition is never the solution. Imagine If CIC introduced their exhibit and game, designed to revolutionise the housing design process. Their aim is to challenge the decision-making process in residential design projects to allow individuals to have a say in how housing is created.

Attendees had the opportunity to explore the housing exhibitions and to watch Dampbusters by Winnie Herbstein, a documentary that explores the past, present and future of community organising in Glasgow. The film centres around the work of Cathy McCormack, a housing and anti-poverty activist from Easthall in Easterhouse.

Artist Martha Orbach led a creative re-visioning workshop on the role of culture and creativity in imagining a radically different housing future. Through experimental making with willow, drawing and diagrams the attendees explored how art can provide a space to rethink how we make a home amidst the climate crisis. There was great enthusiasm for using willow as a material, and an atmosphere of creativity filled the room. People shared their creations and commented on the meditative process that sparked their imagination.

We ended the day with Scott facilitating a second radical imagination exercise and giving out Reimagining Economic Possibilities postcards from Civic Square so that everyone had something inspiring to take away.

‘Through discussions, exhibitions and crafts we discovered how culture and art can help us imagine how our homes and neighbourhoods could be transformed. Through the event, we created a space and a time to reflect, which can be hard in a society that urges us to keep going. It also allowed participants to meet people who think differently across the arts, climate and architecture sectors, which is so important if we wish to rethink how we build today.’ Maja Rimer, Creative Carbon Scotland culture/SHIFT officer

If you were not able to attend the event, we encourage you to think about the following questions:

Physical changes retrofitting entails and relationships to the home. What has your experience of housing been over the last few years? How would your home being retrofitted to meet your needs change your life?

Cultural and social changes unlocked by retrofitting streets. What if the climate transition and retrofit of streets was designed, owned and governed by the people who live there? What more becomes possible when retrofitting as a street of neighbours?

Physical, cultural and social change necessary to retrofit neighbourhoods. What possibilities can be unlocked by retrofitting entire neighbourhoods? What kind of infrastructure is required to make this a reality? What might the role of arts and culture be in communicating the scale of what is possible?

Further resources and opportunities:

• Accelerate to Zero podcast episodes on retrofit
• Episode of the Building Sustainability Podcast – ‘How Buildings can Save the World‘
• Glasgow’s Retrofit Reimagined 2023 event on 11 November

About Green Tease

This event took place as part of the Green Tease events series and network, a project organised by Creative Carbon Scotland, bringing together people from arts and environmental backgrounds to discuss, share expertise, and collaborate. Green Tease forms part of our culture/SHIFT programme. 

(Top image ID: People sitting and standing in a room in Civic House, having conversations. The tables have paper and willow structures on them. Behind them is an exhibition ‘The fight to save the Wyndford’.)

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