I’ve been forwarded the following which has been written by Anita Bhalla, chair of mac’s board of trustees. As it’s an open letter I figure there’s no problem with me reproducing it in full. Excuse me for dispensing with the usual blockquote rigmarole.
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Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters,
As you may be aware, Birmingham City Council has recently launched a public consultation process on its budget plans from April 2012 onwards, and we thought it would be of interest to you as a customer and supporter of mac birmingham to hear how the city’s plans are affecting our work.
mac reopened in May 2010 after a £15.2m redevelopment and refurbishment. Birmingham City Council played a major role in the development providing £6.7m of investment and delivering the project under their Partnering Framework with Thomas Vale Construction, one of the region’s award winning construction companies. The rest of the funding came from Arts Council England (£6.2m) and from a highly successful fund-raising appeal with donations from companies, individuals and grant-making trusts (£2.3m). Over 850,000 visits were made to “new” mac in its first year after reopening.
mac’s finances are finely balanced in a mixed economy; in our second year since reopening 26% of our turnover is investment from the City Council. Since our much lauded reopening year our business confidence is established and a growing percentage of our income is earned from box-office, sponsorship and other commercial activities.
As part of its response to the government’s public spending cuts, the City Council has already substantially reduced the amount of funding it gives to all the arts organisations in the city and in April this year mac birmingham’s grant was cut by 14%, a cash reduction of £107,000 per annum.
To cope with this significant reduction in income we have driven further the plans which were developed prior to reopening, maximising efficiency, amending our programming plans and increasing our efforts to maximise all other income streams. Throughout the planning and delivery of the mac/sampad Building Project we sought to maximise future efficiency through, for example, creating a flexible staffing structure, delivering a cost-efficient building with an effective building management system, reducing our carbon footprint and our running costs, increasing recycling, using digital technology to manage our building and our communications. Our shared office space has also allowed us provide improved facilities for our partners sampad and for other artists, arts companies and community agencies who share the mac creative hub.
Whilst we fully recognise that we cannot be exempt from the public spending cuts being imposed at the moment, there are few options available for further reducing costs without severely damaging our services. Whilst we continue to look for greater efficiencies and sharing of services we do fear that any further cuts in BCC funding will lead to a serious “downward spiral” in which the inevitable reductions in artistic activity will lead to lower earned income and funding. Further investment secured from additional sources may well then be withdrawn due to our diminished capacity to deliver our agreed programme.
How you can help
Birmingham’s arts infrastructure and activities have, for so long, been a vital tool in the city’s aim to improve the quality of life for its citizens, its inward investment performance and its status as a true global city. Evidence of the hugely beneficial impact of the creative industries can be found at www.birminghamartspartnership.
City based cultural organisations contribute £271m to the region’s economy per year. This is generated from almost 2 million attendances, with arts attenders generating £40m in Additional Visitor Spend (AVS). This represents a return on investment of £29 for every £1 that Birmingham City Council spends on funding the arts.
All of the city’s arts organisations believe that we are now at the tipping point where incremental reductions in costs are no longer achievable.
If you share our concerns and would not want to see the City Council reduce its funding to the independent arts organisations any further, I would urge you to make your views known to the City Council before the end of November.
- By filling out an online survey at www.birmingham.gov.uk/
budgetviews - By emailing to budget_views@birmingham.gov.uk
- By text message to: 07786 200 403
- By writing to Budget Views, Room B119, The Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B1 1BB
You may have received a similar plea from other arts organisations and we would urge you to respond to any one of us. Representation needs to be made before the end of November in order to be effective.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your continuing support of mac birmingham.
Anita Bhalla
Chair of mac Board of Trustees
I went to mac the other day. I thought it had huge potential for one of those trendy coworking spaces. Car park. Actual park. Wifi. Cafe. Bar. Toilets. Just need some space, some desks, some power points and a charging structure. Wasn’t there talk of a coworking space initially? I like to imagine using it in my imaginary alternative freelance career. How many subscribers at what rate would you need to generate the missing £100K? I’d have thought this type of facility has a lot of relevance to the modern creative industries. Perhaps more so than traditional arts/crafts facilities.
I realise this misses the point of the letter above (or does it?).
Why not promote educational value of MAC facilities at bgfl.org, Birmingham’s teaching and learning site? 1 million page views per week, 60% from Birmingham schools alone… at http://www.bgfl.org/contributions.
We have recently started to offer “hot desking” facilities and already have a pool of creatives who have started to call mac home. We are always looking for more; you can find details here http://www.macarts.co.uk/hires/hotdesking
Chris, we’ll take a look at BGFL.
Unfortunately the 3rd Sector and Arts sectors seem to be like rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car over funding cuts. I like many others are disappointed that public funding for the arts is being cut. But similar cost cutting is taking place everywhere, in both the private sector, as well as the public sector.
Organisations like the Mac have been less hurt than others in the funding cuts. So bleating about it isn’t going to do much good in my opinion. Perhaps it would be better if they, and others like them, could use the talents of the sector they operate in better? I think that they need to be more creative and innovative in designing and developing new business models that will help them to transition from a business model that is centuries old towards a new contemporary business model that will be sustainable in future. As Shakespeare once said “whats done cannot be undone…” so lets all move on? This is happening all over the world including in the Arts sector, so why not in Brum?
Jake, I agree that Mac has the potential to use coworking as a new revenue source. But I checked out what Mac offers and its very expensive hot desking, but thats about all. It became clear to me that the organisation doesn’t understand coworking – either its philosophy or business model. Moseley Exchange (just up the road from Mac at Moseley crossroads) offers true coworking for creatives with a real sense of independence, collaboration and community. There are over 50 creatives businesses, independents and freelancers operating there. It is high quality and has a variety of membership options, and is part of the international coworking visa scheme that enables you to share an office space in pretty much every major city in the world….
As a Mac supporter I do hope this comment stimulates some positive thinking…
James
I’m not sure if the funded arts centre business model is centuries old James, but I see what you’re getting at. I’m a fan of mac, I learnt to play the steel drums there when I was a kid and I go to the cafe fairly regularly to moan about the service. [I think it’s improved recently]. I’m glad it’s there, and I hope it is for a long time to come. I do think there’s a danger that it could be a little too cosy in catering to the middle-class families of Moseley and Kings Heath, who arguably need a little less subsidising than others, but maybe that’s just how it feels to me when I visit. Last time I was there it did strike me that there was probably a lot of commercial, creative potential locked up in that building and location and I did wonder if they were orientating towards that fast enough. Hence the comment. I agree there’s a real difference between able to hire a desk and a real co-working environment. It may be that Moseley Exchange has already sewn up the local market, but I think the facilities and location of mac have huge potential. It does need an innovative subscription model, I’ve seen plenty of facilities in London where they really make it work.