Arcola Theatre representives were at City Hall last week to launch their vision for a new eco-theatre in Dalston Junction.  Executive Director, Dr Ben Todd, said:

Our aim is to create a place Da Vinci might call home where creative people across multiple disciplines drive innovation for a sustainable and equitable future.

The theatre’s environmental sustainability and community engagement programmes are seen to be a crucial part of the site which will include a public garden and growing space as well as space for sustainable technologies research.

With London’s theatres needing to reduce carbon ommission by 60% over the next 15 years (read the Mayor’s Green Theatre Plan here), and other art-form venues starting to follow, the lessons Arcola are learning now are likely to come in handy for other organisations considering how best to meet their own target. Our eco-champion here is Bryony who I’m sure will be keeping an eye out…

Follow the project at Future Arcola

Great to hear that several of our bolder and wiser contributors were successful recipients of the recent one off grant from arts council england.   Both Entelechy Arts and the Building Exploratory will be working in new partnerships in 2010 to develop arts opportunities for older people ; Entelechy with Battersea Arts Centre and the Building Exploratory with Cubitt Gallery.  We’ll look forward to hearing more about what happens next year…

Congratulations also to Greenwich Dance Agency, Akademi, Arts Depot, Space in partnership with Age Concern, and Westminster Arts who also successfully bid for funds.  You can read more about the work each has planned here.

I attended the launch of the Arts Council’s report “Beyond their walls” this morning, with amazing views from the top of the Southbank Centre this morning. A beautiful morning to look out over the river, and think about the ways in arts and cultural organisations can engage with people in the great outdoors.

“Beyond their walls” shares 10 organisations’ experiences of working in the public realm. The concept of ‘walls’ with respect to public space is not just about organsiations thinking beyond the physical walls of their venues but, as was pointed out this morning, there are many people who do not engage with public spaces and it is these invisible walls that we should be mindful of when stretching our own boundaries.

The Arts Council hope that this document will inspire in organisations the desire to promote audiences and organsiational development, to explore options for collaborative practice, and to be encouraged to have a go!

We have one printed copy of the report here at the Audiences London office, so if you’re popping in at some point, you’re welcome to have a browse. Otherwise, the report can be downloaded from the Arts Council’s website here.

We helped Emma, Roger and Hetty with their work exploring new writing within smaller scale theatres in England, and the impacts of changes in funding since 2003. It’s now published on the Arts Council’s website (www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication_archive/new-writing-theatre/).

Congrats guys!

A study published this week by Nielsen showed that more people aged 65 and over are going online, as well as spending more time browsing (time spent on the Internet by seniors increased 11 percent in the last five years, from approximately 52 hours per month in November 2004 to just over 58 hours in 2009).

More interestingly, the 8th most popular online activity is planning for a leisure trip (ranking just under news-reading and checking personal health care). In terms of websites visited, Google, Facebook and Youtube all make the top 5.

I always tend to get a little excited at the sight/ mention of infographics. To me, they’re a great way of presenting information to people in a fun, clear and visual way. Here’s one that got published last week by the Global Web Index which visualises the number of active bloggers, social networkers, video sharers, photo uploaders and microbloggers in the UK and other countries around the world. Interesting!

A study by UCLA scientists has discovered that Internet searching helps stimulate brain functions in middle-aged and older people by setting off key centers in the brain responsible for controlling decision-making and complex reasoning.

It is the first academic study to look into the impact of Googling on brain performance. The full report will be published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

The study concludes:

A simple, everyday task like searching the web appears to enhance brain circuitry in older adults, demonstrating that our brains are sensitive and can continue to learn as we grow older

Read more here

Do you know if older people are accessing your online content?  This is an area we will be looking at here at Audiences London in 2010, if you have experiences or comments I’d love to hear them.

Interesting article on the BBC website by Alex Stranger on how Opera is changing it’s image through new initiatives. One quote stood out for me early on in the article: La Scala spokesman Carlo Maria Cella saying “Every theatre has to cultivate a renewal of its audience. As someone wrote: new blood for the old ceremony.”

I was recently the Librarian (with a dark secret) in Coney’s production of  ‘A Small Town Anywhere’ at BAC – my first experience of participative theatre (as an adult)…  While I’m still digesting how we managed to oust the Mayor, not find out who the Raven was and hold back from a town hanging, overall I really enjoyed the set-up and filling in my back story, but was not so good personally at getting involved with the politics of the town.  So, the question is when you leave the participants to work things out for themselves, do you lose the sense of dramatic tension central to a theatrical experience? On the other hand, maybe you just can’t compare apples with oranges and I should just relish the experience for what it was!

I recently went to the Directory of Social Change’s Charity Communications training day, and good value it was too. I attended some very good seminars by ngo media and virtual construction (set up by a very nice chap called Matt Haworth I used to work with in Manchester!).  The sessions were practical, encouraged networking and were definitely thought provoking, I recommend DSC training days very much.

My top tips from the day are:

1. Always ask for something – whether it’s just a signature or a donation, it never hurts to ask but do try to offer something for free in return!
2. Keep active – good for SEO and client relationships and trust. Keep your content fresh.
3. Personalise – when sending communications make sure it’s from a real person that your clients or supporters can interact with should they wish to.
4. Plan - communications plans do take a LONG time! Never underestimate how many people will want to give you their input, and how hard it will be to get the input from the people you need it from!
5. Evaluate - always try and track your communications, who they reach, who reads your stuff and what kind of impact it’s having on your business.