• Marc Reeves: Why ‘business as usual’ is a fatal response to Birmingham’s riots
  If you only read one thing in this round-up, make it this
• ACE dancer Letty on new challenges « ACE dance and music
  A nice peek behind the scenes
• Birmingham Hippodrome Autumn Season 2011
  A few musicals (Top Hat, Evita, End of the Rainbow), some dance (plenty of BRB, Some Like It Hip Hop, Burn The Floor), opera (WNO doing Don Giovanni) and acrobatic craziness (Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China and Cirque Eloize). All to be squeezed in before the panto
• BCMG Concerts, Workshops and Events Sept 2011 – Jan 2012
  A new season brochure’s out for you to browse if you fancy
• 70-Eight.com
  Or 78. Maybe even Seventy-Eight or 7eventy Eight. The replacement for the Medicine Bar at the Custard Factory opens this weekend
• Bring Out Your Dead
  “We are working with Grand Union, an artist-led studio and exhibition space, that support the development of artists and aim to establish a dialogue between contemporary visual artists and art organisations”
• 7 Inch Cinema – Event – Adventures in freelancing
  “At this free one-day event you can explore what it takes to be a freelancer in the film and moving image industries, getting inspiration and advice from professionals in a huge range of fields – from art to animation, from gaming to graphics.”
• Heritage Lottery Fund workshop | The Moseley Exchange
  “To find out more about Heritage Lottery Fund grant schemes, top tips for filling in the application form and a chance to meet the HLF Development Team come along to a workshop at the exchange on Tuesday 4th October – 10am til 12.30” You’ll need to register for this.
• Birmingham Ballroom Wall Of Fame Open Day – Saturday 3rd September
  “Following the unrest not only in the second city but throughout the UK, we were very sad to announce that the original date for the Open Day had to be re-scheduled, however we’re very happy to inform you all that the show is now most definitely going on and we will now be opening the venue to you all on Saturday 3rd September to welcome you all back to the bosom of Dale End once more!”
• transmissions from the hub
  “A volunteer based radio venture homed in the Our Place Community Hub, Sutton Coldfield” Volunteers wanted
• News from Writing West Midlands
  Plenty of good stuff in their newsletter
• Home of Metal Black Country Weekender
  On the first week in the Sept the folksters will be in Moseley for the festival, the metalheads will be in the Black Country for this
• Programme Support Scheme Awards 2011/12 « Museum Musings
  Some museums have gone some money for doing some things

You may have heard of the government’s plans for Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs):

joint local authority-business bodies brought forward by local authorities themselves to promote local economic development – to replace Regional Development Agencies (RDAs)

Marc Reeves has written an amusing summary of the situation in the West Midlands. Or it would be amusing if this stuff wasn’t quite so important. Essentially it’s all a bit of a mess. Here’s the substantial bit:

Business VoiceWM, 17 Chambers of Commerce and their affiliates, IoD, CBI, the EEF, FSB, the Noddy Club, and Kingswinford Lions have joined with 65 other business organisations to each separately make several statements about how united they all are about Doing Something Serious for the West Midlands. Unfortunately, none of them quite knows what that is.

Marc suggests we compare and contrast this with the harmonious situation in Leeds. Manchester seem to be doing pretty well too. If you want more detail then David Bailey in the Birmingham Post has been worth a read on this subject recently. Follow The Business Desk (WM) too.

There’s a worry going round that businesses aren’t sufficiently involved in the discussions around what might/might not come out of all this. I’d bet that creative industries businesses/freelancers are even less involved. It’s important to have a voice in the discussions though, especially given the amount of funding/investment funnelled into the industry and the extent of the cuts predicted.

So people should get involved. There are a few questions though:

• with the current level of uncertainty, who are the people we should be speaking to?
• how should businesses/people get involved?
• who’s getting involved on whose behalf?

Answers on a postcard…

UPDATE

There’s some great comments below. Additionally, Dave Harte has written a stat-stuffed companion piece.

• Ed Vaizey (Conservative)
• Siôn Simon (Labour)
• Lord Clement-Jones (Lib Dem)
• Marc Reeves (TheBusinessDesk.com)

Journalist, broadcaster and author, Rosie Millard will chair the debate.

The politicians on the panel are, or have until recently been, party spokespeople for arts and culture. Marc Reeves has recently advised DCMS on new models of independent news provision. They’re all busy people at the moment so pinning them down can’t have been easy.

What would you want to see them asked? How far spending cuts are going to go? Whether encouraging philanthropy is going to help anyone other than large venues? What the heck they were thinking with the Digital Economy Act?

You can watch follow the debate on CiB below and chip in with any thoughts or comments as we go along. The liveblog has a page of its own here too.