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Introduction
It is my pleasure to present the Chairman's report for aaa in this, its twentieth anniversary year.
When I was invited to take up the chairmanship of aaa I had only a passing idea of the contribution it has made to the cultural wellbeing of the Auckland region, and of the work it has done to give arts practitioners, managers and administrators a forum and a voice. I have been impressed over the last year by the dedication of the executive, which continues to reflect the commitment of a small number of very hard working people to the challenge of promoting the interests of the cultural sector of the region.
In this report I review the work of aaa over the last twelve months and look forward a little to the next.
Arts About Auckland
Much of aaa's work in recent years has been devoted to advancing the concept of a single stop website for arts activities in the Auckland region, under the Arts About Auckland name, which aaa has developed as part of the earlier stages of the project. Funding was secured to advance aspects of this project and the challenge over the last twelve months has been to settle the web site design, to begin collating existing material for it and collecting new content.
Progress has been slower than we would have liked in developing the website architecture itself, but not for lack of very creditable efforts from the executive members involved. Some outside assistance has been contracted in and has certainly helped move the website design along, and the engagement of Lorraine Sweden as aaa's administrator has also helped with the capacity to bring the necessary information together to see this project to its next stage. The challenge for the coming year will be to substantially complete this project and to ensure that the website is introduced to member organisations and other potential users.
In addition the name Arts About Auckland is seen as a strong brand to be developed beyond the concept of a working website and into other initiatives. As this report notes below aaa has initiated a joint venture with Jasons Travel Media to locate arts oriented information display stands in key locations throughout the region. These will be branded Arts About Auckland and as the brand develops aaa will look at protecting it with trade mark registration.
Education and training
Over the years aaa has tried to provide interesting opportunities for its member organisations to improve their learning in matters that impact on the arts. With emphasis having been directed to the Arts About Auckland initiative in the last two or three years, it was considered important not to lose sight of this historical commitment during 2005-6.
Because of that a series of three seminars was organised for May this year. The topics were considered to be useful and interesting to members and we were very fortunate to be able to call on executive committee members to be able to present two of the three seminars and highly qualified experts in the sector for the other. The seminars took place at the University School of Business and covered Web marketing, the development of business relationships and tax issues.
While it is very helpful to be able to prevail on executive members for their assistance in seminars such as these, I believe that we should be trying to make education opportunities a key element of aaa's yearly programme. For obvious reasons we cannot ask executive members to continue to take on all of this responsibility so a continuation or expansion of the education programme will inevitably require us to involve more outside organisations and individuals. That ought not to be a great difficulty given the business development opportunities that go with programmes like this.
Topics that I would like to see built into the programme in the coming year include:
(a) Timely examination and discussion of key arts related policy material issued by the Government, Creative New Zealand, etc - this should also help the advocacy role aaa has;
(b) Issues seminars run by representatives of member organisations so that others understand the key contemporary issues facing various sectors of the arts community;
(c) Presentations by arts coordinators in and from different local authority areas examining the issues facing their communities;
(d) Debate on the current laws of copyright and how they might be altered (this is a matter that the National Party speakers at the political forum seemed very keen on);
(e) The arts and the public health system.
Policy and politics
aaa was established to advocate arts issues. This role has been less evident in recent years, perhaps in part because of the relatively benign political environment arts organisations have enjoyed since 2000. Nevertheless there are issues of concern to arts practitioners and managers which demand attention and which warrant debate.
It was that thought that led to aaa organising a political forum that was held at the Opera Factory auditorium in Newmarket in April this year. All but one of the parties represented in Parliament sent representatives to the forum and the Government was represented by the Associate Minister for the Arts, and Minister for Auckland Issues, Hon Judith Tizard. Cabinet Minister Peter Dunne spoke on behalf of the United Future Party and the National Party sent two representatives, the shadow spokesman on the arts, Tim Groser, and Shadow Attorney General Chris Finlayson who also has strong arts credentials.
The forum was an opportunity for the audience to get the measure of the parties' spokespeople and to be able to ask questions on topics of particular interest or concern to them. There were some provocative comments made about things such as the access of artists to schools and the National Party took the opportunity of the occasion to announce publicly (and probably for the first time) a bit of a mea culpa for the past and a "must do better' for the future. I am sure that all of those present will watch the progress of that Party to gauge how it lives up to the promises.
Obviously it is not possible to hold too many of these events without them being repetitious. They must serve some purpose. The April forum had first been conceived of as a pre election 2005 event but could not be organised within the relatively short time of the campaign. It was thought worthwhile to bring the politicians together for a presentation after the election so that some idea of what we might expect over the next three years could be obtained. The next election in 2008 will offer the chance for a similar event.
In the meantime the work done by Creative New Zealand and the Auckland City Council to measure relative involvement in the cultural sector in the region offers the prospect of bringing together key local body politicians to review the arts policies which affect us all at a local level. That is something that I hope aaa will be able to spearhead in the coming year, perhaps in conjunction with the Auckland Mayoral Forum.
Finance and Business
aaa does a great deal on a shoe string budget. It could do more with a more secure funding base. It has been successful in obtaining temporary or short term funding for certain initiatives, but things as mundane as maintaining administrative support are not secure beyond six months.
That said, the organisation cannot expect members to pay their subscriptions unless it remains relevant to them and provides what they consider is value for the price of their association with it. Neither can it expect to attract project funding unless its initiatives are delivering outcomes that are regarded as worthwhile by funding bodies. The Arts About Auckland website concept is one project that has attracted funding and the Arts About Auckland brand has enabled aaa to advance another initiative with direct benefits to member organisations.
Jasons Travel Media specialises in location specific brochure marketing. It has worked with aaa over the last eight months to develop the concept of arts marketing stands to be located in key sites across the region such as hotels, libraries, arts facilities and the like. The stands will be branded using the logo and get up of Arts About Auckland and will be marketed as a joint venture between Jasons and aaa. We have a heads of agreement with Jasons that contemplates a package of benefits being made available to aaa members who wish to promote their activities in key sites that might not otherwise be available to them. In some cases there will the opportunity to submit to Jasons video material that will be run on LCD screens that are part of the brochure stands.
The design and layout of the stands has been approved by aaa and arts organisations throughout the Auckland region will shortly receive the first information from Jasons and aaa introducing the opportunity. aaa made the deliberate decision when negotiating with Jasons not to seek for itself any share of the revenues that Jasons may derive from users of the stands. Instead we chose to ensure that members of aaa who wish to use the stands to promote their activities will receive from Jasons a substantial and continuing discount from the usual costs of such promotion.
aaa will try to identify other opportunities to bring business benefits to its members. One of the possibilities that deserves examination is the establishment within the region of an "Artists Advice Bureau", through which professional advice and assistance at a "first aid" level can be accessed by artists and arts managers using the services of volunteers in the disciplines of law, accounting, town planning, etc. The possibility of members being able to access specialist help through the Arts About Auckland Website should be explored. The electronic age means that this sort of service need not have a dedicated location to be effective.
Acknowledgements and thanks
I would like to offer particular thanks to the members of the executive committee who have been so supportive of me during the last year. There is always the risk in naming names that some will be missed but I could not complete this report without thanking especially past Chairman Angela Antony, Deputy Chairman Donald Trott, Treasurer Ian Gardiner and Administrator Lorraine Sweden for all their help. All of the other members of the executive have been unstinting in their support, and for some I know the demands that have been placed on them have been more than a little burdensome. On behalf of the membership as a whole, thank you.
I hope that 2006 is regarded by all as a suitable reflection of the activity and commitment of aaa as it completes its twentieth year.
Here's to the next twenty!
Geoff Clews
Chairman
19 June 2006
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