PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE
A MONTH IN THE LIFE PSA rounds up a busy month of meetings...
Meetings, we go to a lot of meetings, we also have meetings to discuss what went on at all the meetings and what we have to do to get beneficial outcomes for our industry from all the bloody meetings. This month, we thought it might be fun and cathartic to look back at November’s diary and give a little synopsis of some of the meetings we’ve been to, especially the ones we’re not allowed to talk about.
Are you creative? Are you a manager? Are you an entrepreneur? None of them are exclusive; you can be all 3, apparently. Thing is, out there in the world of creativity, there are people who don’t realise that they have the management or entrepreneurial potential to help grow the industry. At least, that’s what the British Council and its partners from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and the UK think, which is why they put together Live Skills, a project which aims to design and pilot a series of original learning programmes for professionals and people looking to develop a career in the Audiovisual and Live Performance sectors, the programmes are designed to fill skills gaps already identified by research in the 4 partner countries, namely management, marketing and entrepreneurialism. The PSA was asked to sit on the advisory group, looking at the work of those developing the programmes and offering insight and suggestion for both development and deployment. This month, this involved a dash to the lovely city of Sofia to spend and afternoon critiquing their work before leaving the working groups to pick up the pieces. Our advice is, if you’re going to be on a group, be on an advisory group. Liveskills.eu is where you can learn more about the project. INSPIRING THE NEXT GENERATION
BORING THE NEXT GENERATION Mum, Dad, I’m going to be a sound engineer, say several dozen people every year. Some of them enrol on courses, some really good courses that teach real, practical skills. DbS, formerly in Plymouth but now in Bristol, has been doing that for a good few years now. As part of their professional practice module, the PSA’s GM pops in once a year to deliver a guest lecture on ‘Professionalisnm and How Trade Associations Can Help’. Not one line is checked, not one fader is moved, as students spend an hour being dazzled by facts, figures, practicalities and, well, all the other stuff they never knew they needed to know but now they do know they won’t have to learn the hard way. STANDARDISING THE BORING BITS 90
