January's Arts Award forum is all about reviewing arts events with Becci Smith of Total Theatre magazine. Book your places here.

Arts Award Advisers Forum: 26 March 2014

How to become a Supporter

The last Arts Award Forum welcomed Rose Kigwana who is the Programme Manager for Arts Award. Rose covers the South East and is connected with the Arts and Cultural sector. She helped to explain how to become a Supporter with a step-by-step guide. During the session, Rose went into fine detail about what it meant to be an Arts Supporter, with all the additional information of what it entails.

The best place to start is here with this short guide.

So what are the pros of being a supporter? If you are an arts venue or heritage organisation you can attract more visitors by displaying the supporter logo on events which are suitable for Arts Award participants alongside talks with experts and artists, exhibitions and more. By offering discounts and incentives to groups you can join the Arts Award Supporter map to promote your centre to schools and groups undertaking the award in your area.

The activity comprised of the group splitting in two; each group were asked to discuss and plan a hypothetical situation, e.g, how one School or Youth group can be a Supporter to others; where they would start, and what the plan of action would be. The two groups were then asked to report back to each other to share ideas.

Artsbox has arrived!

Artsbox for online portfolios was released last week. I have just had a quick look around it and its looking good.

Firstly I would say if you're planning to use it sign up in advance as it can take up to 48 ours to register.

To begin with you are greeted by the rules of Artsbox, clearly laid out and with templates for letters etc.

The first thing I saw was the chance to make an avatar, so without looking anywhere else I began. The graphics made me chuckle straight away and much fun was had making my mini me!

On with the serious business! Next I made a practice page for the forum. You can upload Pictures, Video and Text. This is going to be great for our reviews which we have always shared online.

Over all it looks simple to use. I'm not sure how the comments box works, I'm wondering if this is open to all? I will watch what happens.

Vicki