Oliver Bliss Institute Cultural Practice: Placement January May 2012 Feasibility Study for an Internship and Collective

e Capacity Building in partnership with Contemporary Arts Society I had an initial idea to construct my own placement study, which I wanted to explore further. I work full time at Arts Council England and I was note-taking for an annual review of an organisation, which is regularly funded. The relationship manager was encouraging the organisation to include paid internships within their programming. However, this organisation was very small and Arts Council England contributed an amount of money, which represented a contribution to an overall limited income. I did not understand how they were expected to fund the internship or provide sufficient support as the organisation functioned with a small number of part time staff. I thought that if the organisation collaborated with other organisations they might be able to afford an intern who would then act as a volunteer co-ordinator for several partners arts organisations. The volunteer co-ordinator would manage the recruitment and tasks of volunteers whilst acting as a mentor to their professional development. I have a personal passion for the visual arts sector. I wanted to focus on this sector for my placement to provide me with an opportunity to gain exposure to several organisations, build relationships with different types of visual arts organisations and gain an understanding of how they operate and deliver. The placement provided a reason for me to introduce myself to other organisations and have something useful to offer them. This would then enable me to demonstrate how I can think strategically

and provide a useful solution to a broad issue, which could impact on several organisations. Part the reason why I wanted to create my own placement was to allow me to meet with several organisations rather than just one. I approached Mark Doyle, head of collector development in the North West, Contemporary Arts Society (CAS) to become my mentor for the duration of my placement. I felt he would be the most appropriate person to help me with this idea as CAS have funded his position with support from Arts Council England to work with visual arts organisations in the North West such as collectives, galleries and studios with an aim to support artists and encourage more people to collect visual art. As a member of CAS, I had attended a few of the events he had organised and knew he was well connected to the visual arts sector. I felt his experience with the sector would be useful as he had already brokered trusted relationships and could advise which would be the most suitable organisations to target working in partnership. Initially I was very excited by this idea and wanted to use the placement as an opportunity to make it happen. I created an outline draft of my idea and sent it to him for review. Doyle was willing to become my mentor and he helped me adjust my vision to make my aims more realistic. The time constraints of the placement meant that there was a limited amount of work that could be achieved. I would have set myself unrealistic targets without his support, as I wanted to run before I could walk. It would have been impossible to construct the model and be operating within five months. He suggested that I use the placement as an opportunity to create a feasibility study of my proposal to explore whether my idea would be a viable project. Doyle helped me plan a realistic timetable of what I could achieve between January to May and we decided on five key aims upon which the study should focus.

The aims of the study were: What benefits would the role bring to the intern, the volunteer and the arts organisation? Is it needed? How would it operate and is it sustainable? Whether any other similar schemes already exist The current stance of local arts organisations towards volunteering

It was agreed that I could spend January to February researching my idea and creating a document, which would then be checked by Doyle to ensure it was appropriate. This would then be shared with organisations between March and April. Booking meetings was an important part of the planning process as I was aware of the conflicting demands of each persons diaries. I knew I needed to get the information to them promptly in order to give them time to digest it and schedule a date for the interview within the period of March and April. It was hoped that I would be able to interview everyone by the middle of April in order to type up the interviews and analyse their responses before my deadline in May. The scale of the feasibility study also needed to be agreed. Before discussing the idea with Doyle, I was considering how the partnership could work across greater Manchester and Liverpool or even link up to Cumbria and Lancashire. Doyle helped me scale down the project into a more manageable size. It was decided that it would be best to focus on organisations within Manchester, as there are plenty of visual art organisations within the city from which to choose. Focusing on Manchester would also make it easier for me to organise meetings for interviews and test whether there would be any interest. If organisations in Manchester were not interested in the model, I could then extend my search to Liverpool as it has an equally rich cluster of

visual arts organisations. If Liverpool was also unsuccessful, I could then evaluate why both lacked interest or alternatively approach more organisations further afield. It was also felt that a limited number of organisations should be approached to make the project more manageable. A greater number of organisations could potentially lead to an unmanageable range of expectations making it difficult to accommodate lots of conflicting needs.

The organisations that I approached to discuss the model were (as illustrated above) Castlefield, Chinese Arts Centre (CAC), Cornerhouse, Manchester Art Gallery (MAG), The International 3 (TI3) and Ultimate Holding Company (UHC). As a

reserve to these companies (if any did not want to be interviewed) I could have interviewed other local organisations like Centre for the Urban Built Environment, Islington Mill, Richard Goodall Gallery, Victoria Baths and the Whitworth Art Gallery. Doyle advised that I first researched whether my idea already existed or if there were any other similar schemes available. He felt that organisations would take my ideas seriously if I had an evidence base to show that I had researched existing schemes. The latter would reveal whether there are any models that could be adapted to fit my ideas and avoid trying to re-invent an existing model. I developed the first three sections of the feasibility study in consultation with Doyle. Section one (appx a: 3-10) provided an introduction to present the initial idea and some context to the model itself. Information was drawn from my initial research and Doyle helped me edit the structure in ensure that it was clear and succinct.

I found that there is an increased interest for schemes, which facilitate interns and volunteering. The current economic climate has led to reductions in public funding for the arts and redundancies. The lack of opportunities for people to find work in their preferred professions has meant an increasing reliance on the voluntary sector. However, volunteers have unpaid roles and organisations rely upon individuals desire to contribute. This can only occur if a person has spare time and enough income to take on unpaid labour. Those who are not in this position, miss the opportunity to develop new skills and meet other professionals in their art industry of choice.

During my research I found a scheme called New Deal of the Mind that produced a programme called the Future Jobs Fund. It was a programme that put over 500 young unemployed people into work in the creative industries across the UK and

used funding from the Department for Work and Pensions Future Jobs Fund scheme. Young people on Jobseekers Allowance were given six month work placements with arts organisations and provided with training, coaching and networking opportunities. The findings showed the success of giving young people paid work experience. Over 70% of participants on the programme went straight into employment, education or training at the end of their placement. The findings also revealed that many long-term unemployed young people could not afford to do lengthy unpaid internships, which are often seen as a necessary step to get a foot on the jobs ladder. 90% of participants would not have been able to take part if the placement had been unpaid (Creative society, 2011 4). Founder Martin Bright said: We know that the paid work experience is the best way of getting young unemployed people into job. We welcome the coalitions focus on apprenticeships, but more needs to be done to target these at young people. Ultimately, we will need to return to some form of job guarantee for the longterm unemployed. The alternative is to write off a whole generation. Creative Society, 2011 2

These types of opportunities puts people in a better position when applying for employment as it demonstrates that they are driven and committed to the arts with practical hands-on experiences. Internships provide paid work experience, which enables more people to access the opportunity to build and develop skills. Chief Executive Alan Davey from the Arts Council England stated:

In Achieving great art for everyone, Arts Council's 10-year framework for the arts, we set out our long-term goal of creating a diverse and highly skilled arts workforce. To achieve this aim we need to make sure that working in the arts is seen as a sustainable, long-term career for people of all backgroundsWe're determined to open employment opportunities in the arts to all, steadfast in our belief that in the arts will benefit in the long term
from the new ideas and perspectives that a more diverse arts workforce will bring. Well-planned, paid internships have a role to play in bringing about this change by helping people from all backgrounds gain experience of working in the arts.

Creative & Cultural Skills, 2011 3

Organisations are making more of an effort to make their business become leaner whilst maintaining the same outputs. This makes paid internships an expensive luxury for some. Organisations individually can struggle however; this pilot aims to alleviate certain pressures through pooling resources and working collaboratively.

I found a useful illustration from Building Social Marketplaces (Boyd, 2011 25) that proposes the consortium model, which is very similar to what I was suggesting which I used to explain the model. A critical difference between the consortium model and my own was that the hub is made up of a cluster of organisations delegates with collective responsibility rather than one individual being in overall charge of the volunteers as would be the case with my model. The former can create an imbalance in focus as there is no clear leader. Representatives form MAG and Cornerhouse stated that they were part of a consortium model called Cultural Volunteers Consortium Forum (CVCF). (appx a: 7;45;74-79) However, they both stated that they felt disengaged from the consortium as progress was slow and the consortium lacked a clear leadership. They added that although they met as a consortium, there was little collaborative working. Both organisations recognised the potential in the model (appx a: 29;) I was creating and acknowledged that it would improve working in partnership and enable volunteers to work across several organisations. The research in section 1(appx a: 3-10) also broadened the scope of the project and made me consider the role of the volunteer in more detail. I started to find sources which demonstrated how volunteers had been previously exploited in their workplace

(appx a:22;51-52;85). Volunteers are not protected because they are not paid employees. Up until this point, I had been focusing overtly on the benefits to the organisations to incentivise them to join the scheme. I became aware however, that I was drifting away from the needs of the volunteers. Doyle suggested that I summarised the specific benefits volunteers and organisations (appx a: 10) would receive. This would highlight the merits of the ideas so that the information could be useful in encouraging more to join the partnership. I researched different organisations including an accredited scheme called Arts Award whose mission is to support young people who want to deepen their engagement with the arts, build creative and leadership skills, and to achieve a national qualification. I realised this scheme could be incorporated into my model so that individuals could both volunteer and get a qualification through the process. I did test this idea during the interview process and all the organisations agreed that volunteers should receive some form of training. They actually wanted to widen that opportunity further by creating a training budget that volunteers could access to support their own personal development. I collated this data that formed the foundations of my feasibility study. Section two (appx a: 11-16) was created to provide organisations with the core requirements that needed to be embedded to make the model possible. This section was developed last, once I had gathered the information and analysed what the model should include. For the purpose of making the document easier to read, it felt more appropriate to place the core requirements in the second section to highlight the practical issues of the model.

Section three (appx a: 17-26) was an alphabetical summary of the organisations and schemes I had researched. I reduced the amount of information I was originally going to supply because the document was becoming too big. I also attached hyperlinks within the document to an appendix so that the sources could be referred to if required in the future. This helped me to separate the essential information that was needed to understand the model from the more information that could become more useful in the future (if the project was taken forward). Doyle suggested that the document should not be more than 3,000 words otherwise none of the organisations would read it. This proved to be very valuable advice as by the end of the project, I had written over 25,000 words for the complete study. However, for the purpose of making organisations understand the model, I only needed sections 1, 2 and 3. The information was still too dense at around 8,000 words. To solve this, I created an executive summary (appx a:55-58) to explain the overview of the project so that if individually a person required more information they could refer to the full study. When I interviewed representatives, they all said that they had read the executive summary and understood the idea but had not had time to read all the sections of the study. As I interviewed different individuals, I elicited more information that both informed my thinking and also what adaptations I needed to make to improve the document. These findings were summarised in section 4 (appx a: 27-40) of the feasibility study. This section discussed my findings from the interviews. (appx a: 28-94) I summarised the key points raised in the interviews and placed the full narrative in the appendix section (appx a: 66-86) to reduce the amount of information in this section. Comments raised in the interviews helped me formulate an action plan (appx a: 31-35) for a pilot. I deliberately only included headline themes within the

plan; I wanted to provide a structure that was flexible and easy to understand. I extracted detail from the planning narrative within section 2 (appx a: 11-17) which also informed the layout of the structure of the action plan in section 4. It was also important that the content of the feasibility study should retain its validity in the future. The purpose of the placement was to assess the viability of the model and gauge interest in making the model happen and it was found that the model has the potential to work. In principle the organisations were interested however, specifically how the model was going to operate needed to be understood. A budget (appx a: 59-60) for the project was also supplied to the interviewees. I generated the budget based on guidance from the Arts Council England Internships in the arts- A guide for arts organisations (2011). (appx a: 5-6) The document provided guidance regarding payment to interns conforming to the national minimum wage (appx a: 46-47). This was a challenge, as I did not know if arts organisations provided any expenses already or how much should be provided. Research from Volunteer England website (appx a: 24-25) also outlined good practice. From these sources I was able to compare basic costs against volunteer expenses such as travel, subsistence (and other resources the intern would need such as a mobile phone and laptop). I had to calculate the potential cost implications surrounding the project and build in a contingency figure to help mitigate the risk. I created several different options for the interviewee to consider. This gave interviewees an indication of what they could potentially pay if they became partners in a pilot.

Once I had created the budget, half way through the placement, I discovered I would have to amend it as the national minimum wage (appx a: 46-47) will increase in

October 2012. I had to revise all my calculations to reflect this increase in order to ensure the future validity of the budget. Responding to feedback from the interviews, I also amended the budget further including training costs for the intern and volunteer. This was not a cost I had originally anticipated. I had originally considered a budget based on the intern receiving arts award training however, I was unaware at the time of the costs required to moderate (appx a: 18-19) people in receipt of an arts award. Interviewees also expressed that volunteers may wish to receive other forms of training or alternatively have additional travel costs refunded in order to take on shadowing opportunities. It was a pleasure to see that organisations had a genuine interest in supporting the professional development of a volunteer and were willing to contribute financially to reward the volunteers and give them more meaningful experiences. I assumed originally that organisations would want the lowest possible cost with a maximum result which would benefit them more without much consideration for the volunteer. This was a false assumption on my behalf as feedback form interviewees strongly suggested that those working in public funded venues do indeed have the interests of the public as a focus of their remit and are eager to improve conditions for volunteers and artists even when operating with limited means. The additional costs have increased the original budget that the individual organisations would need to contribute. This has been a difficult financial calibration a balance of coast per organisation had to be achieved. I asked open-ended questions of the organisations and as able to gauge a sense of how much they were willing to contribute. Although Cornerhouse does not have a budget for volunteers, I was able to identify that from March 2013 to 2015 they were planning on reviewing their budgets to include the use of volunteers.

CAS does not have a budget for volunteers and from my research I was able to determine that it would be difficult to include them into the pilot as their current budget is a lot smaller than more established galleries but unlike Cornerhouse are not willing to join at this time. I was able to provide a good argument to Doyle regarding the use of volunteers. CAS asks members to pay an annual fee of 50 and I calculated that it would take an increase of 25 members to cover the cost of contributing to the pilot partnership. It is possible that the volunteers could act as advocates for CAS and promote membership particularly at events and other openings. Doyle had considered the potential of the scheme in terms of his available budget within marketing which he stated was 250-500. Doyle had not considered that the cost invested in an intern could potentially create a return in the form of increased membership sales. This would balance the initial expenditure of the contribution to the partnership. CASs risk would be their involvement with the model and paying their share up front however, Doyle agreed that if there were enough evidence demonstrated to reflect this potential, it would be easier to convince his CAS head office in London to support the model. However CAS North West has not been in existence for long and would not be able to take on such a risk at this time. Doyle raised other interesting suggestions as to the direction of the model. He was more interested in being able to opt into the service as a non-member for one-off events. He asserted that he would be more interested in paying for a service that allowed CAS to access volunteers on an ad-hoc basis without CAS having to recruit them. This does create an interesting dichotomy between paying for services and the volunteer who is willing to provide services free. The cost is the interns time for coordinating and recruiting volunteers as well as training that the intern provides the volunteer. However, consideration must be given to the volunteer who would be

providing the operational service for the one-off event and who would not receive any money for their time. There could be a negative reaction from other organisations paying for the service who might not wish to operate in this way or who would agree if the cost to CAS or other potential one-offs were charged appropriately. This could be explored as a potential method of diversifying how income is generated beyond the life of a pilot study. Ethically I found Doyles suggestion a challenge however, I would suggest that one off payments are still acceptable because the volunteer would be willing to give their time for free and receive additional experience in another organisation, gaining practical experience at an event. A volunteer could encourage membership to an organisation on a one-off basis like CAS. CAS generates a 50 income when a person joins. I questioned whether the volunteer should receive commission in the form of a bonus for securing this additional commission. This would alter the relationship as the volunteer would earn commission and their legal status would therefore change to that of a freelance member of staff. This monetary consideration is the primary reason why I would not recommend that a volunteer receive commission. I would argue that volunteers who demonstrate strength in generating sales could then form their own relationship with an organisation that may result in employment. Targets could even be created to provide evidence of success and give volunteers quantifiable objectives, which could be useful when seeking future employment. If tested and proven, this would evidence another positive in the model as a method of opening routes to employment.

TI3 were interested in increasing capacity which could result in income generation. A volunteer could secure potential contacts that might buy a work of art in the future through TI3. This is the key reason for their willingness to join the partnership. TI3 are willing to risk that the volunteer does not generate this income in either the short or long term. They are however, in a position to test the idea whether volunteers would have a positive impact on income. TI3 also have an interest in developing the volunteer and supporting the volunteers understanding of the arts market and how to appropriately interacts with potential clients. This is a specific skill, which requires a sensitive and responsive approach in order to encourage people to buy art. TI3 see their role as mentors to a limited number of volunteers; this would provide a more in-depth volunteering experience due to the symbiotic relationship. Comparing TI3 and CAS demonstrates different models of exchange, which could be beneficial to the volunteer whilst being profitable to the business in either the short or long term. I personally feel that the exchange between TI3 and the volunteer would be fairer as the experience for the volunteer would last longer and they could therefore gain more exposure to the industry and build more relationships and networks. This might be an unfair slur to the value CAS can provide a volunteer, as the events that they run could provide rich experiences for volunteers as well. The experience however, would be in a shorter concentrated burst. Julie McCarthy from UHC also made suggestions that made me reconsider changes to the pilot. She stated that during the planning stages of the pilot and the monitoring stage, staff within the partnership would have to commit time, which had an in-kind cost. If UHC were to be involved in the partnership, any member of staff that was involved in this work would require a fee as each member of staff is paid on a freelance basis. They receive Pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) meaning that they are paid

for the number of hours they work rather than receiving a fixed salary. Therefore if UHC staff was involved in any part of the monitoring or setting up of the pilot, the time dedicated to this task would directly incur a cost. McCarthy pointed out that UHC could plan ahead to deliver this work and become a mentor to the intern but they would need to charge for this service. Alternatively, other organisations (CAC, MAG and Cornerhouse) had stated that they would volunteer at some point in the future to plan and mentor. It is more effective for one person to take on full responsibility to support an intern as a clear point of contact and this in addition, would not drain other staffs time. If mentoring the organisations staff shared mentoring duties for free, this would be more cost-effective financially but a less cost-effective use of the staffs time. McCarthys proposal was unexpected and I had not accounted for having to revisit my proposed budgets in section 4 to reflect upon these new suggestions. I had to inform the partners in advance that the final budget figures I had presented might be different from my initial suggestions. My figures were dependent upon the number of organisations (and their scale) who wanted to join the partnership. The difficulty with this model is the number of people involved in forming an agreement, which has meant a slow negotiation process that remains incomplete. The interview process established a firmer idea of the potential costs and made it clear that all the organisations that I approached wanted to be included. For the purpose of the feasibility study, this meant that I had found a suitable, viable, budget that could be agreed if taken forward as a pilot. A budget would still need to be amended slightly and a contract would need to be created for all members. For the purpose of the study I had however, developed an operational model.

Through the interviewing process (appx a: 66-86) I decided that CAC or UHC would be the most appropriate budget holders as these organisations can accommodate the additional administration and is not attached to other organisations like MAG and Cornerhouse who share funds with other bodies. The matter of the budget holder would have to be finalised between the partners as well as drawing up a timeline for when payments would be due (either up front annual or quarterly through project). A separate bank account could be created for the partners and be controlled by two delegates. This would have the benefit of making the partners a separate independent group. Organisations with Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status (CAS, CAC and Cornerhouse) are not able to apply to apply for Grants for the arts funding. However, as a consortium is made up of a mixture of NPOs and organisations that are not National Portfolio Organisations (TI3, Castlefield, Manchester Art Gallery and UHC), the consortium can apply to Grants for the arts. The work would be delivered separately with other organisations that are non-NPOs under a separate new body. Upon reflection, a potential risk is access to the budget; a budget would need to be controlled by two separate delegates nominated by the organisations. Other organisations may need chasing for payments which would greatly impact on the pilot. A written agreement and contract would need to be created to ensure payments were made on time. All the organisations involved however, do have a strong track record of delivering projects with public funds and therefore I felt could be trusted. The timing of the pilot was discussed in detail with the interviewees and each person gave a slightly different perspective of how the pilot should operate. Originally I

wanted to be able to demonstrate how the internship could work in a cycle. I originally felt six months would be enough time to train up an intern, therefore two interns could be recruited within a year. The first six months would be spent with the first intern. This intern would then train a second intern in the last month; the latter would then take over for the next five months. It was felt that this model was overly ambitious as a second intern might not be found in time and trained within the short period of one month. In consultation with the interviewees, it was deemed more suitable to extend the duration of the internship and deploy one single intern. This would test the role without too much additional risk. Two months were also added to allow a team of delegates (or UHC mentoring) to prepare the internship and make sure the intern had enough support before the individual started (either by UHC or volunteer delegates). This period also allowed time for the delegates to meet a few times (or UHC to plan). Once the role had started contact might be sporadic as they would be meeting and working voluntarily. The interviews raised additional themes that I drew out from the conversations I had individually. These themes (appx a: 36-37) were grouped together as additional recommendations for a pilot project and additional areas of activity, which could take place. I did find that most of the visual arts organisations had an assumption that volunteers would be students or those who had just left education. I believe this assumption is based on the types of volunteer who have approached the organisations directly. These individuals are career focused and approached the arts organisations directly to see if any work were available. This is also why organisations have not actively advertised for volunteers as they receive ample requests from those to have the initiative and confidence to ask. However this limits the range of skills that volunteers can bring. If there was a targeted approach to the

advertising of volunteers, different sets of skills could be sought. Organisations have core audiences and could be accused of being too inward focused, missing external opportunities such as targeting those who are retired or students within different specialist fields such as finance and marketing. Such individuals can add additional value to organisations, potentially providing improvements and solutions to how they operate and deliver. MAG was different in their approach, has links to several other organisations and a broad range of volunteers. It has a voluntary policy and is more inclusive in recruiting volunteers. Through the interviewing process, I identified strengths in what MAG were doing and made suggestions for improving how their volunteers are recruited. Apart from MAG, broadening the age of the volunteers had not been considered by the other organisations and this could change the perception of the volunteer and how they can be incorporated into an organisation. It has been frustrating to become aware of these crucial factors and not be able to pursue the next stage of study due time constraints. I had to be realistic regarding what could be undertaken without impacting the quality of the feasibility study. It was important to focus on viability rather than embarking on testing the model. Separating these two areas has presented me with a dilemma. Part of me would like to start the pilot immediately however, I have to get all the partners to a point where they fully understand the model and want to invest in a pilot which is a considerable challenge and it has taken time to get everyone individually to a place of understanding. It was difficult to be able to plan in time to meet individual representatives from the organisations. Interviewees had very busy and conflicting timetables; finding a time

to meet them was very difficult. In future it could be onerous to bring everyone together in one space; meetings would have to be planned far ahead of time. It is important to ensure that everyone is involved in the discussion in order to make critical joint decisions. Despite these logistical issues, I was able to gain sufficient information from each of the organisations to make recommendations for a model to work towards however, a finalised business plan was not achieved. This is a personal regret as it would have felt as though I had reached a milestone however; the reality of getting to a pilot stage requires substantial joint discussion. I believe the model is feasible, viable and the evidence I have gathered demonstrates particularly how it could be successful. Section 5 (appx a: 39-42) was a conclusion to the study. I have summarised how the model was viable and have based my reflection upon the original aims of the study: What benefits would the role bring to the intern, the volunteer and the arts organisation?

There is strong evidence to support that this model will benefit the organisations whilst also giving the volunteers a more rewarding experience and exposure than they would receive from organisations running a volunteer scheme by themselves.

Is it needed? There is a disparate engagement between organisations working with volunteers. Organisations that do use volunteers stated that a more consistent approach with additional time to develop the volunteers skills could be

achieved through this model. Organisations that currently do not use volunteers want to incorporate them into their work but in practice do not have the time to recruit and manage volunteers.

How would it operate and is it sustainable? I developed a business model which could be used to test a pilot. The long term sustainability of the model is however, questionable and a pilot would be needed to test whether there would be a long-term viability in the model. If the partners agreed to a pilot and it was tested, a full evaluation would be needed. The pilot period would provide time for other sources of income to be identified. It is critical that the final evaluation of the pilot reflects the viability of a long-term, sustainable model which identifies realistic income streams to support the models future.

Whether any other similar schemes already exist I explored several similar schemes which did have related aims however, the way in which the intern is funded through shared sponsorship from organisations, appeared to be a new way of working.

The current stance of local arts organisations towards volunteering Through the interview process, I was able to evidence that organisations view volunteers as positive and useful. They have different perceptions of a volunteers values and motives. Each organisation interviewed had a different way of working and faced diverse challenges however; the desire to incorporate volunteers was universal.

A risk factor intrinsic to the model is its dependency on the efforts and commitment of the intern. If the intern had to go on long-term leave due to ill health or another personal reason the pilot could implode. However, the risk is considered to be relatively low as there is evidence to show that work can be delivered by one individual. Doyle is the only employee for CAS to work in the North West and his counterpart Rebecca Morril who covers the North East. Similarly TI3 only has two members of staff have managed to survive. I also found additional evidence to show one individual can be used across several organisations. Kathy McArdle works as a Cultural Programming Co-ordinator across the Quays Cultural Consortium (appx a: 23) and delivers shared programming with several organisations across the Quays. These individuals demonstrate that although there is a risk of sickness, it should not prohibit the pilot being successful. Additionally, this potential risk from sickness could be mitigated if some volunteers could be trained in elements of the co-ordination role in case the interns were unavailable for a short period. Long-term sickness could heavily impact the model if delegate staff attempted to cover the role. The risk of adapting this model is dependent on budget holders being convinced by arguments made in the feasibility study. Although organisations have agreed in principle to the model, Cornerhouse, CAC and MAG will need to gain approval from their boards to commit to a pilot. Additionally, Cornerhouse and MAG are linked to other organisations already and may this may create additional constraints when persuading budget holders to release funds for this particular pilot. Assumptions have been made by those I have interviewed that the key decision-makers could be convinced to become partners however; this is currently an assumption on their part rather than a concrete commitment. It is easier for the smaller organisation to agree

and commit to a pilot as they do not have to account to a wider body. Smaller organisations would be more vulnerable as they do not have the additional finances and were the pilot to fail, would be at greater risk of financial repercussions were the pilot to be considered unsuccessful. A successful pilot has different meanings to each organisation. Cornerhouse and MAG may be more interested in volunteers providing internal support such as creating a better experience for visitors, being involved front-of-house or increasing participation through social networks. Conversely, success could be measured by focusing on an increase in clients, contacts, membership or by the amount of income generated. The evaluation of the pilot would need to include a range of key performance indicators to give a holistic view of success and demonstrate where the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis) within the model existed. Doyle also questioned whether the internship should become a full-time post. This is different from the original aims of the study as I wanted to create a model for an internship programme that paid interns whilst giving them professional experience. However, if the outcomes of the pilot reveal that it is not a viable project to repeatedly change and train one individual to become the intern; an alternative could be the full-time position of a volunteer co-ordinator. This could still result in an individual entering a professionally paid role through the pilot which would constitute a positive outcome. Overall, I found this study very demanding, specifically collating the level of information required to fully understand how to devise an operational model for my initial idea. I found the experience deeply rewarding as I have met diverse arts organisations and have built a rapport with each of them. I also feel I developed a model which is achievable which makes me very excited about the possibility of a

pilot. If I was to do this project again, I may have saved this study for a dissertation. However it has provided me exceptional practice in considering how to effectively plan out and construct a focused discussion for a dissertation next year. 6,576 words

Biliography Boyd Sam, GMCVO (Greater Manchester centre for Volunteer Organisations). Building Social Marketplaces, providing strength and diversity in public service provision, May 2011, Web 21 May 2012 http://www.gmcvo.org.uk/sites/gmcvo.org.uk/files/Building%20Social%20Marketplac es%20(Full%20Report)%20Final.doc Creative & Cultural Skills, Internships in the arts, a guide for arts organisations, 28 November 2011. Arts Council England, Web. 21 May 2012 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/internships_in_the_arts_final.pdf Creative society, New Deal of the Mind, 2011, no date provided. Web. 21 May 2012. http://www.thecreativesociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/future-jobs-fundprogramme.pdf

For the Appendix and the full model please feel free to contact me o.bliss@ymail.com