Agenda item

Report of the Managing Director.

Members received a report of the Managing Director providing updates from the Barbican Directors on their respective areas. The following comments were made:

·         Members were advised that Gali Gold had been appointed as the new Head of Cinema at the Barbican.

·         Members were advised that ‘Basquiat – Rage To Riches’ had won a Bafta award for Best Specialist Factual.

·         With regards to the new guide format, it was noted that a number of amendments were being implemented in response to feedback received. One of these would be the reintroduction of the calendar feature.

·         The Director of Arts noted that, since the publication of the report, visitor numbers for the Another Kind of Life exhibition, which had been performing well and ahead of target, had slowed. This dip in figures correlated with the recent improved weather. It was expected that this exhibition would still would finish to target, however.

·         The Director of Learning & Engagement highlighted the impact of two recent Creative Learning collaborations, one linked to the Jazz at Lincoln Center and the other the LA Phil, which represented high quality ‘connected arts and learning’ in action. The sum of the two projects involved young musicians from London, Bristol, Sage Gateshead, Raploch in Scotland, New York and Los Angeles.   This represented a broad social demographic of young people from across London, the UK and US.  It was noted that there is still learning to be gained (particularly from the US) as to how we ensure genuine diversity across the range of classical and jazz ensembles we develop through our programmes.

·         Members were provided with copies of “Tuning into Change: A Youth Manifesto for the Arts Written for Young People by Young People” providing a timely, passionate statement about the essential role of the arts in transforming society.

·         The Young Artist Away Day, involving staff from Creative Learning, Centre for Young Musicians, Junior and Senior Guildhall was successful in establishing a new sense of common purpose amongst the London and regional satellites towards a new Guildhall Young Artist strategy.

·         The Director of Operations & Buildings gave thanks to Jim Turner for his hard work working on the change programme, and welcomed Darrell Lunt and Richard O’Callaghan, who continued to lead on projects. He also thanked those Members who had attended the recent Operations and Buildings tour. A Member highlighted the importance and knowledge gained from attending this tour and the Chairman encouraged all Members to attend, as it helped the Board develop a greater awareness of operational matters and thus provide more rational and strategic feedback.

·         Members were advised that performance against target in all Barbican commercial areas to date was being exceeded, except for Barbican International Enterprises (BIE), which so far had not been achieved due to the perhaps overly challenging targets set. It was hoped these would be realigned and a paper updating Members on the Commercial Strategy would be coming to the September Board meeting.

·         A Member commented on the significant number of new Young Barbican Members.

·         The Chairman gave thanks and congratulations to all teams on a strong year building on the outreach of the Barbican and capitalising on assets.