Seasonal forays

At the close of the year when all I want to do is pull on cosy boots, thick woollens, and wrap myself up like a pig in a blanket tending to my chilblains in front of a well banked fire, the dark outdoor winter world starts to flicker with life.  Harvests safely stored, it’s time for whooping it up with mulled cider and braziers.

Not one for Halloween (I forgot to grow pumpkins and am hopeless at bobbing for apples), instead I grabbed some sparklers on Guy Fawkes and twirled them in the dark under the stars, dogs dancing round my legs listening fearfully to far off fireworks.

A handful of days later it was Hatherleigh Carnival and the pulling of the tar barrels.  At 5am when I snoozed under a duvet, a group of traditionally minded lads with a taste for high drama pulled flaming barrels on a sledge, from the top of the town to the market square, to kick off carnival day.  At 10pm once the floats had travelled round the town they had another go (better lubricated), with hundreds of spectators cheering them on, agog at the speed of the barrels as they turned the corners, eyes wide and dry with the heat, in anticipation of stray flames.  It may or may not be successful at casting out evil spirits, but the stream of sparks and the massive blaze certainly gave everyone a thrill.

It’s also mumming season and you’ll find me at the Moorland Merrymakers panto in the middle of Dartmoor, where the players in full costume and inch thick grease paint turn waiter in the interval, serving the audience with hot pasties and mugs of tea.  Folk in Dorset have to wait ‘til New Year’s Eve for their own Symondsbury mummers play starring Captain Bluster and Colonel Spring.

As the temperature plummets, thick gloves are a necessity for joining the thorn cutting ceremony in Glastonbury, or nipping into Wiltshire to celebrate the winter solstice at Stonehenge

Come Christmas Eve you’ll find me back in Hatherleigh square singing carols as the Silver Band plays. Last year, walking up from the cattle market, I arrived to the sounds of a gorgeous, plaintive Silent Night. The service ended with hot cider and minced pies; there was real sadness, all in mourning for The George pub, six hundred years of history lost to fire the night before, the still smouldering soot-blackened ruins in full view as we sang and hoped for better things.

One of the seasonal jollies I shan’t be joining is the Christmas day swim in the sea at Exmouth; the very idea of stripping off any layers at a time when I’m adding extra, is more than the body can take.

After a quiet New Year’s Eve embellished with turkey leftovers, mid-January is time for orchard revels, to hang toast dipped in cider in the branches of the apple trees, and pour last year’s vintage onto the roots.  Wassailing placates the tree spirits, encourages a good apple harvest, and makes a lot of noise; pots and pans are clanged and bashed to frighten off the less amenable spirits.  I wonder where all these evil spirits go, chased away by fire, hot alcohol and soggy bread?

Published in The Landsman December 09/Jan 10 Issue 17

First farrowing

Back in February I waxed hopeful about the purchase of a permanent pig, and within the month Aunt Agatha, a pedigree Berkshire, was making the paddock her own, in snorting and nuzzling distance of nine neighbouring weaners.

She arrives having spent two days honeymooning with the boar and we are told to check whether she comes back into heat after three weeks.  I mark the days in the diary and peer at her rear end on and off for forty-eight hours, but can’t see anything suggestive of an unsatisfactory coupling.

Aunt Ag (we are bosom buddies now) swells and plumps like a juicy peach.  Pendulous of stomach and udder, she nonetheless scurries about in search of missed tidbits, and in hot weather makes her own wallow by thrusting her head into the trough and splashing out great waves into a sow-shaped muddy dent.

A week before her due date, we take the tractor into her field and scatter sow nuts into the entrance of the stock box.  She snuffles them up, then walks round and round the tractor to check if any of that is edible.  I chuck another handful into the far corner of the box, and watch, holding my breath, trying so very hard to appear nonchalant.  I scratch her back to calm myself as much as her, and then greed overcomes caution.  The door bolted, she’s lifted into the air and trundled to the barn.

For a week I attend Aunt Agatha in the barn, mucking out the soiled straw and communing with her, sharing grunts and oinks like a pair of biddies at bingo.  There’s a chair next to the pen for me to sit and watch and chat.  She sleeps great swathes of the day, her belly huge, rippling and distended, but even asleep she snorts to me as I come to see her.  When I rub her back she moves ecstatically under my hand, swinging her hips, her natural curry plant smell rising.

115 days is the sow gestation period; three months, three weeks and three days.  Never, in all my previous reading, have I come across the rather useful bit of information that Berkshires extend this to anything from 116 to 120 days.  But when day 118 dawns and Ag is still avidly holding on to her offspring, I start to do my own rooting around.  Armed with this revelation I tell her that she has two more days maximum, that my nerves can hardly cope with much more waiting, when she starts to build her nest with mouthfuls of straw.

Friends join us for supper, and every hour we nip out to check progress.  Yes, she is having contractions.  Yes, she’s let down her milk.  Yes, she has two piglets.  Now four. The sixth pops out like a cork from a bottle.  By midnight she’s had seven, a jumble of baby elephants with truncated trunks. At four a.m. there are nine piglets and she has cast both placentas.  Aunt Ag lies there, unmoving, exhausted, spent, grunting no longer to me, but to her sleek, black, demanding brood.

Published in The Landsman October/November 2009 Issue 16

The return of the post office

A year ago (Issue 9 July/Aug 2009) I, and millions of others, lamented the loss of a local post office.  I felt so disempowered and angry that I found it hard to construct a coherent article, and the temporary gravestone at the turn to the village marked “RIP Northlew post office” said it all.

But I had underestimated the community determination in the village.  Two mornings a week, for just five hours in total, something wonderful happens on the edge of the square in the Church Room.

The place buzzes with activity.  For fifty pence you get tea and a refill plus biscuits, and a sit down round a huge table with people passing the time of day, in no hurry to move off.  There are trestle tables bursting with bedding plants, runner beans, tomato plants and enough young things in pots to fill the most ambitious of borders and veg plots, for not much more than the cuppa. Another table has household essentials – baked beans, soup, flour, coffee, teabags and jam, envelopes and notepads.

Because the mobile post office equipment comes from the local market town of Hatherleigh five miles away, some thoughtful bod has arranged to bring orders of fresh bread from Pete’s bakery at the same time, so the place smells delicious.  You can order fresh milk too.  And best of all, two women have taken one morning each and bake for England the night before to fill yet more trestles with cakes and savouries.  Home made cheese scones, quiches, scotch eggs, sausage rolls and pasties, boiled fruit loaves, butterfly cakes and Victoria sponges are snapped up by the discerning who no doubt also make a beeline for the best W.I. fare wherever that’s on offer.  These goodies are so popular that some are sold before the official opening time to the early birds clamouring at the door.

Notwithstanding all the good humour and positive action, there is a frisson of fury with the Royal Mail at the moment; there has been no Internet connection for the past month and that means no online services and all payments have to be made in cash or by cheque.  I wasn’t there to see it, but the vicar heroically hung out of the window to try to improve things; the village has no broadband (another long and painful saga) and the outreach service relies on a temperamental satellite.  The story is that the leaves on the trees are interfering with the signal.  This might sound unbelievably bonkers to city dwellers, but my broadband goes down every time it’s raining or windy.  But post-mistress Angi cheerfully takes your post and your money and everyone just works around the problems.

It’s not perfect.  Two mornings of local services is not enough and I have to drive to other post offices at least twice a week, but rather than let a national organisation dictate a minimum service, the village has celebrated what it has, rolled up its communal sleeves and taken upon itself to provide something of real value that never fails to make me smile – a joke, a bun, a sense of achievement and a refusal to be outdone.

Published in The Landsman August/September 2009 Issue 15

“Going once, going twice, sold to the woman with a gleam in her eye”

It’s surely possible to spend every day at an auction without crossing the county boundary, and with eBay you don’t even have to leave your chair. But there’s no substitute for those heaving crushes in cattle markets where you can pick up anything from a prize bull to a sofa with bust springs, pitting your wits and technique against the pros and hustlers for tat and treasure.

I’m drawn like swarf to a magnet by farm and livestock auctions, particularly those that flog waterfowl. You may not think that bidding for a clutch of hatching eggs, a group of fluffy goslings, or some majestic Silver Appleyards is much of a thrill, but you’d be wrong. I push past the hordes eyeing up the squawking birds. I spot a fabulous cockerel – black, polished, mature, shiny-eyed. I don’t need a cockerel, but decide to bid if he’s going at the right price. Then there are the ones I’m really keen on: the trio of Khaki Campbells coming up to laying age or those fine, comical Indian Runner ducks that warrant their own primetime cartoon show.

I decide to bid, get my bidding number from the tiny booth, and though I’ve only bought twice before they know my address. The auctioneer’s hand does a quick check of notes, handkerchief and toupée. People cluster round trying to act nonchalant and mostly failing, the numbers of admired lots scrawled on the backs of their hands. The auctioneer’s patter booms through the mic, barely intelligible; I tune in to his wavelength knowing it’s a lost cause bidding on early birds.

The chosen lot comes up, I wait til the bidding slows and raise a hand. Sometimes there are no or few rival bids and you quench your desire for coins; you see something others don’t, or they see something you can’t. At other times a cage goes for bigger bucks than you can fathom. Concentration is total, even though you may be about to part with nothing more than a blue beer voucher. It’s over quickly, and there is an undeniable adrenalin rush.

It’s crucial to read the notices or the catalogue before you join the fray. Some sales are so supremely civilised they are barely auctions. At the Royal Cornwall I’ve slid along the for sale section, clocked a nice young pair of ducks, shoved over to the Treasurer’s desk, paid over my lucre and clicked a sold label onto the cage; done, dusted. But some venues like to keep you guessing; the weekly auctions are sold by the cage but priced per bird (and there may be three or more in a cage), whilst their monthly dos are priced per cage. Same venue, different rules. It’s all too easy to get confused and think you’re about to part with twenty pounds – plus buyers premium and VAT of course – only to find that you’ve committed to sixty quid plus the extras.

And eBay can be the place for auction action; last time I checked, six hatching eggs from rarer-than-hen’s-teeth Chocolate Orpingtons were going for nigh on two hundred smackers.

Published in The Landsman June/July 2009 Issue 14

Hatching and matching

That first egg of the season; how I anticipate it. Ducks normally start producing before the end of January (although they failed to do so this year, adding to the economic gloom) and the geese traditionally deliver on Valentines Day.

Duck eggs are truly celebrated as my culinary egg of choice, and a flurry of scrambled eggs, omelettes, egg mayo and boiled eggs with toasted soldiers are eaten with gluttonous glee in those first weeks. My white Aylesbury’s are hopeless mothers; they may have all the charm of Jemima Puddleduck, their forte growing large and meaty and laying, but they can’t do the former if they fanny around for four weeks keeping a clutch of eggs toasty.

Geese are brilliant parents, but they lay far too many of their huge eggs to keep them all warm, so I leave them with a sensible number, collect the surplus, and put them with the ducks’ into incubators. You can worry a lot about a sitting goose; for thirty-one days they eat practically nothing, even though I put a bowl of fresh corn by her each morning. She’ll get off the nest once a day to suck a mouthful of water and snatch some grass, and go back to the job in hand. The goose will lose an enormous amount of weight; her fat reserves go, the feathers go dry and brittle, and there is none of the usual chubbily overfilled nappy effect dangling between the legs.

When the new goslings finally come out of their hut, down what for them must be an Everest of a ramp, the sitting goose is surprisingly not central to the outing; she is off, heading for food, like the starving animal she is. Instead, the eldest goose takes charge. And with the goslings on the scene the gander finally forsakes fornication and takes up position as prime protector; each time the gawky young wander away he nudges them back with his beak. I can’t get near without a major pecking and blast of eardrum shattering honking; it’s the best protection racket in the animal kingdom.

The first time I used an incubator I spent inordinate parts of the day watching the temperature gauge, ensuring perfect humidity and checking that the turning cradle was working. When I heard the eggs chirrup I nearly jumped out of my skin. I cheeped at the incubator, leaning in close, and back it came. This game went on for hours; I must have worn out those ducklings, and they still needed the energy to hatch, which they did.

Anyone who has watched an egg crack and reveal its treasure will know that neither chicks nor ducklings nor goslings emerge dry, fluffy or cute. First the bill or beak wavers through the crack, and a slimy, bulgy eyed head, far too big for its body, appears. There is intense wriggling to cast off the shell and then, exhausted by the physical jerks, the beast from outer space lies quiet, soaked fluff stirring in the current from the incubator fan. Within twenty-four hours, the picture book baby bird takes over from the alien creature and the fun starts.

Published in The Landsman April/May 2009 Issue 13

A sow of one’s own

It’s not everyone’s idea of a heavenly scent, but when I don’t have pigs around all the time I really do miss their pungent, sweet odour. For years, pigs have only been on the farm during the spring and summer to fatten for pork and bacon, so during the winter months I miss their presence and unique pong.

When the grass has recovered in the pig paddock and the frosts are over, it’s usually time to trundle half a dozen Berkshire weaners from the chosen breeder across Dartmoor and home. At eight weeks old you can carry them in your arms like a baby. Held firmly they lay happy and quiet; as soon as you loosen your grip or they feel less than secure, the squealing is ear-shatteringly dramatic. Every time I pick up the first one to move it into the trailer, the memorised smell hits me. The particular perfume of a young porker is lovely, warm, porcine, healthy; not Après L’Ondée perhaps, but comforting all the same.

But this year will be different. It’s time to add a more permanent presence to the farm. The call of the breeding sow has finally been heard and noted.

As ever, she will have to be a Berkshire. Those pricked ears, revealing the eye and the thoughts within seems to me to be an important factor when dealing with a large animal with a mind focussed on it’s own viewpoint rather than your potentially divergent interests. The thick black hair of the breed is also far better than any slathering of nappy rash ointment or sun protection cream in keeping sunburn at bay; this I learned when scampering optimistically after white pigs with blistered ears. And the rare breed Berkshire is made for outdoor living, with a strong constitution and a perfect covering of fat to keep her warm and her offspring ultimately delicious.

My sow will need a fine set of nipples, strong legs, a fabulous rump, be long of back and meet that essential criteria of being good to handle. To make life a little easier, she’ll arrive already “in pig”; I won’t have to decide whether to hire a boar or go the artificial insemination route for several months.

Now that the barns are restored from dereliction to their former glory (April/May 2008 Issue), the Grande Dame will have somewhere comfortable to farrow; dry and draught free for her, warm for the piglets, and close to the house and with lighting for me to observe progress.

It’ll be six or seven months before the young are off to the butcher and a piece of twine comes in handy to estimate their weight. You measure them from neck to tail, round the chest and apply a simple formula, even though wrapping string round a pig is not itself a simple task.

But from now on the pig paddock will never be empty, and I won’t need to wait ‘til spring for a new lot of weaners to take their turn to rummage and explore. The sow will be there, awaiting the next birthing and contentedly sharing her scent.

Published in The Landsman February/March 2009 Issue12

Good Fences

Nature and time plot to blur edges, rot posts, tumble stones, but some powerful drive moves us to rebuild and re-fence, to put back those territorial markers and references; this side is mine, that yours.

Three years ago I sat with my ruler and pencil and Rural Land Register maps, working out the lengths of each field boundary on the farm, checking and rechecking that there really were eleven kilometres of hedge and bank, most of that in need of restoration. Sheep and cattle had scattered earth, stone and turf leaving a hedge line resembling a sour mouth full of rotting stumps and gaps.

First priority was to make safe the livestock; much of the fencing drooped and gaped and in one week I released two lambs from an almost deadly grip of saggy wire. The northern boundary was pretty much open to neighbouring land, and sheep crossed from one property to the other, mashing the mill leat dividing the farms. Dog walking was a nail biting activity; if I startled a red deer or fox the dogs could give chase beyond my recall. So started a ten-year programme of restoring the banks, hedges and fences.

Winter is the season for major farm earthworks. Whilst the grass, trees, and hedgerows sleep there is heavy machinery at work. Diggers dance along the hedge lines recreating the medieval Devon banks, those strange ramparts, topped with hedgerow plants and trees. Unless they are kept steep sided with a thick palisade of thorny, spiny growth, sheep bounce all over them, walk through them and create gaps that soon become broad livestock thoroughfares.

As a consequence of this effort I become ultra familiar with each bend, slope and growth of the boundaries. I walk back and forth, back and forth, fencing tools in hand, gazing first at the ground where the slumped earth has been removed and remade into banks, and then at the banks themselves; this is the time for revelation. The largest objects I find are several ploughshares in fields that it was thought had never been ploughed. Sometimes I expose shards of pottery: a piece with the date of George VI’s coronation still clear, or thick hand made glass from some bottle of liniment or beer. Occasionally I find whole bottles; my favourite has the legend “Corner’s Oils for Sheep and Cattle” moulded along the body.

I like a natural, wild growth of native plants and the neatness of a new fence does jar, but notwithstanding my fears that all the chopping, laying, banking, coppicing, fencing and general mauling about might lay the place to waste, Spring will make long bacon at me and burgeon regardless. It seems that a hedge is not dissimilar to a rose; you hack it back with some care, and it will burst out with new growth, knowing better than I that it will survive and thrive on drastic treatment.

Tanalised timber has absolutely no romance about it, but in time it stops slashing the landscape, weathering to a more acceptable grey, with hedges spilling through them. And of course fencing does keep areas wilder; foxgloves, primroses, orchids, ragged robin and marsh marigolds have regrouped now that unforgiving hooves can’t trample them.

Now, the stock wire is taut and twangs satisfactorily, the banks are reformed and smothered in summer colour. What looked sad and neglected, then raw and manhandled now bristles with plant life.

I can sleep more easily knowing that the livestock is contained. Finding cows or their tracks in your once neatly trimmed and planted garden is not something I’d recommend. If the cows have broken out of your farm I’d recommend that even less. So no matter if nature, time, livestock or elves tamper with your fences, it’s us that have to mend and keep good, so keeping good relations with our neighbours.
Published in The Landsman December 2008/January 2009 Issue11

Rural Transport

As a teenager in Red Ken’s London I took every advantage of the free public transport; I bussed it and tubed it everywhere, and when I was old enough to drive a clapped out Mini, still used the Routemaster and the underground more often than not.

Moving out of the capital to college, I had an ancient bicycle, the kind Miss Marple perched on, upright and heavy, requiring enthusiastic peddling to gain a respectable speed. I hated the hills and detested the rain, but the bike was never nicked and I could rely on it to take me exactly where I wanted to go.

Next, I went back a few eras and learned to ride a horse. I lived on a farm with a riding school; a buggy was built and in fine weather it was horse and cart to the butchers and the pub.

It’s a different team of horses though, here, now, in Devon. If you don’t drive and have a car, you are at the mercy of someone who does.

Take a train? There used to be a line from Plymouth to Exeter, passing through Okehampton, but the railway was demolished in 1968. Hop on a bus? If it’s Tuesday you can head off to Bideford, and come back again, which is reassuring; or three days a week you can hitch a ride to Okey. No hope of getting there before 10am or leaving after 3pm, so it’s not what I’d call a viable travel to work option. Mind you, Devon Wheels2Work will loan a natty scooter if you’re finding it difficult to get to your paid toil; surprisingly the country lanes aren’t yet riddled with them.

A Ring & Ride scheme for the disabled, frail and elderly enables them (and possibly me in years to come) to shop and use local amenities, and a community car scheme run by saintly volunteers can get you to the doctor.

For everyone else with a scheduled life and jobs to go to there’s the Fare Car, taking upright, well-organised, pre-booked citizens to work and back at the end of the day, £5 return. Phew; getting your head round the options and non-options is a lot more complicated than it used to be.

So, that leaves me and the mobile majority of country folk over the age of seventeen, with non-standard schedules and busy lives, completely reliant on the car. And for farmers it’s not just about transporting yourself; trucks, pick-ups, utes, crew-cabs, 4×4’s, whatever they’re called, it’s as vital a bit of farming kit as the tractor (which could, I suppose, also take you to town at a push, although parking might be interesting). I have to nurture my ageing “Chelsea tractor”, with its increasing tax and fuel burden, so that I can cart around livestock feed and farming bits and bobs without stuff dangling precariously out of a small car’s window, boot or sunroof, and to tow the trailer to the abattoir or pick up new stock. Round here the 4×4 is not so much a lifestyle statement as a workhorse.

Published in The Landsman October/November 2008 Issue10

It’s a postcode lottery

There on the verge at the bend in the road that leads to our village is a newly erected gravestone. It says “RIP? Northlew post office.” There is a shocked communal feeling of having been slapped in the face with a wet fish by some uncomprehending alien.

It’s tiny, our post office and mini shop, but I’ve never been in there alone; there is always someone before me, and another waiting by the time I leave.

Being relatively off the beaten track, many people in the village and probably most in the surrounding areas run their own business from home. This is a substantially agricultural community with lots of farmers, but we also have sizeable businesses including a coach company, industrial and agricultural buildings manufacturer and a tarpaulin maker. There’s a swathe of small businesses; the pub, marketing and PR outfits, audio engineers, IT and web based companies, carpenters and builders, painters and decorators, wine producers and a garage for all your vehicle repairs. And then there are the many micro businesses: a blacksmith, someone who repairs stringed instruments, a graphic designer, seamstress, gardener, tipster, political consultant, honey producer, picture framer, energy efficiency consultant, illustrators, writers, interior designers, historical researchers and more. There’s the church and the Methodist chapel – but I’m unsure whether or not to categorise those as being in the global business sector.

The point is that this is a thriving and diverse community with lots of local jobs – in fact not so much local as right on your own doorstep employment. And every one of us needs access to post office services.

Notwithstanding the new report from Ofcom saying rural households have more broadband than urban ones and the digital divide is no more; we know differently. Want to use online postal services? The village has been refused broadband and online access to post office services remains a dream for the majority. Want to hop on a bus to post a letter, pick up your pension or pay your bills? You’ll be lucky. There is extremely limited public transport, and people in the village will effectively be cut off from post office services.

The contrast between the organisation and the individual is profound; our postman and postmistress really do care. We have the most obliging and helpful postman possible; as long as you put the right stamp on your letter, he’ll pick it up on his round and post it for you, and share a joke to add savour to the day.

We have been told that there will be a mobile service for a total of five hours spread over two days a week. When we struggle to juggle our working day to use the service in that severely restricted window, no doubt that paltry lifeline will also be cut because we don’t use the service enough; a cynical ploy.

The consultation process pits one post office against another. The decision to close 2500 post offices has been made and there is only limited wriggle room as to whether your post office will survive. Work to save your own post office? That means your neighbour’s village post office will likely shut instead.

Does that alien wielding the wet fish have any concept of the full impact of this decision? You won’t be able to pick up your prescription in the village (no doctors surgery or chemist here, but the post office will oblige). You’ll have to travel to pay your bills and get some cash, and that will cost both financially and environmentally.

The village is doing its best to resist the closure with responses to the public consultation, letters, emails, meetings, and the lugubrious but effective sign. This autumn we’ll know the final outcome and whether the gravestone becomes a permanent feature in our village landscape. Who would’ve thought it possible to be in a situation where having a post office was in itself a postcode lottery?

Published in The Landsman August/September 2008 Issue 9

Assessing the vision

Sir Brian McMaster’s report ‘Supporting Excellence in the Arts – from measurement to judgement’ is, on the whole, a very welcome breath of fresh air. If McMaster’s recommendations are taken on board, the arts will find themselves in a new age of self-assessment and peer evaluation. In order to engage effectively in such a culture, arts organisations will have to articulate clear strategic objectives, and before they can do that their artistic visions, ambitions and intentions will need to be in a shareable form. They’ll also need to become involved in meaningful critical analysis and debate – an arena that many find a challenge.

McMaster says “funding bodies must move to a new assessment method based on self-assessment and peer review that focuses on objective judgements about excellence, innovation and risk-taking”. McMaster is clear that in self-assessment, progress must be measured against an organisation’s stated objectives, and that the sector lacks a culture of rigorous and constructive self-assessment. Making judgements, analysing work and recognising excellence in the arts sector has never been a welcome range of activities, fraught as it is with the potential for debating theory and the subsequent successful avoidance of addressing the issues within the context of the art.

Sharing artistic vision
The first step in being able to articulate objectives, and evaluate oneself and one’s organisation against them, is to have a stated and shared artistic vision and mission. Objectives can only be developed once it is clear what the ambition, goal, desire, adrenalin-fuelled heartbeat (or vision) is; the objectives are simply what can make a vision real. Peer review and self-evaluation require written, shareable objectives, but many organisations find it a challenge to articulate their artistic visions and associated organisational objectives even internally: those typically produced may not stand up to much scrutiny.

As organisations struggle with this (conceptually, or through lack of time, confidence or skill), support is needed to enable them to describe their artistic vision and mission, determine the strategic objectives that will enable the delivery of the vision, describe team and individual objectives so everyone is clear how they contribute to the achievement of the vision, and agree project objectives. The results need to be tested to make sure that they are: meaningful to the organisation and true to the vision; genuinely SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound); and set in a simple framework so that the achievement of objectives can be satisfactorily measured by the organisation, its stakeholders, its peers and funders.

Towards critical analysis
This will enable us to enter a new realm of critical analysis as envisaged by McMaster. Few embrace this activity, as it is seen in the context of ‘criticism’ rather than ‘analysis’. I would suggest that there is far too little constructive critical debate within organisations. Until cultural organisations are comfortable with an effective internal process for measuring their achievements against their stated objectives, how can we expect them to participate openly and fruitfully in peer review?

Arts organisations therefore need support to develop internal debate about the art they create and deliver. Too often this is given a cursory place in team meetings, and few feel able to deal with it, sticking to budgets, future programme, and staffing issues. Boards are particularly averse to discussing the art: a crazy situation. McMaster calls for at least two artists or practitioners to be on the board of every cultural organisation, and this, in addition to conscientiously seeing the work and building critical awareness, may give the board the knowledge to have a debate on artistic matters. However, it may not give them the confidence to do so.

Building board confidence
Boards and staff need support in developing the techniques and processes for managing critical analysis and debate. This might include:
• Open forum role models. Some organisations might be comfortable enough to invite peers to a facilitated critical analysis debate to consider a work in progress, or a finished piece. This might be for invitees only or for project partners, or for a wider group as appropriate.
• Facilitated internal organisational sessions (action learning) with all staff to discuss thoroughly a season or a particular piece of work, with the intention of leaving the organisation with the skills and confidence to facilitate future sessions in-house.
• Facilitated board discussions, giving permission to engage in artistic debate, and putting the art firmly and permanently onto the board agenda.
• Production of good practice guidelines for organisations wanting to undertake critical analysis without a physical external facilitator.
• Making better use of audiences attending after-show talks, and using these events to get the information you really need to hear.
• Support for a range of organisational development activities that meet this need head-on.

Artists and audience
If we are to move beyond simplistic targets and instead “appreciate the profound value of art and culture” as McMaster suggests, we need to be able to describe that value, find the words that make that value apparent. Listening to artists talk about their work can be utterly inspiring. The ability to do this inevitably comes more naturally to some than others and improves with experience and confidence. Inspiring examples can offer a starting point for organisations which are unclear how to proceed in describing their vision and developing effective internal critical discussion.

McMaster recommends that artists, practitioners and cultural organisations need to explore ways of communicating more effectively with their audiences, and that digital technology may provide the tool for delivering the message. But technology doesn’t create the message, and this should be the primary focus – getting cultural organisations to develop, articulate, own and share their artistic message is a process and is not a given.

TMPL has championed this ‘vision-down’ approach in its work for many years. We know how hard it can be to start on this journey, but also how very rewarding in that it ensures an absolute focus to the work of an organisation, clarity for everyone who works for it, a clear sense of achievement, purpose and direction, and significantly improved communication. It results in a healthy, learning organisation, one fit for self-assessment and peer review.

Published in ArtsProfessional issue 174, 14 July 2008