We should have met in Copenhagen this week, but we had to meet online. It was going to hosted by our partner the Norrebro Theatre, Denmark’s largest comedy-focused theatre, but this is not stopping us to share our experiences on the process of capacity building workshops, what worked well based on the implementation of the prototype, what didn’t work, and evaluate what has been going on so far.
One of the main goals of the ADESTE Plus project is to create space for the different organisations to test and experiment new ways of engaging audiences in their cultural programme.
ADESTE + partners have devised a program of training and capacity building aimed at enabling cultural professionals to gain new skills and to allow them to acquire soft skills through a peer to peer approach. Both hard, related to audience development practice and strategic thinking, market planning, use of data, communications, mediation-facilitation, consultation, Participation and soft skills such as bridge-building, negotiation & persuasion, vision (mission), cultural values and influence “Manage up.
A lot of attention has been put in designing tools to support participants in this changing process. What we have learnt from previous experiences is that supplementary activities that encourage for co-coaching networks, international exchange of good practice, building a Europe-wide approach and making the case together is vital. As a result, participants are taking part in an action learning programme, a group coaching technique that brings together a group of peers, individual coaching sessions and a buddy programme.
We are continuing our discussions on how to engage the whole organisations in becoming more audience focused. The stories continue…
