Being transparent about where we were coming from and what we were learning was integral to BE IT from the outset. The Arts Council bid itself was based off of a lab we held with the Rising Arts Agency community about how they would transform and interrogate leadership. These words were the basis for how we built the BE IT programme.
Daisy Hunter, Cohort 2
We reiterated that this was a pilot – to see how with time and resources leadership could be transformed in these twenty people, their networks, Bristol and beyond. Feedback and reflection throughout created an important space for the programme to be redeveloped, with the cohort's ideas heard and incorporated as BE IT evolved.
This was particularly prevalent in how cohort members from year 1 informed the recruitment, design and even ran training sessions as part of year 2, based on their feedback. This was a tangible means of showing how the programme was iterating transparently and responding to challenges or opportunities in real time.
Daisy Hunter, Cohort 2
I always want to talk about the transparency and how amazing that’s been. That we have been told what things haven’t worked in the past and why things are organised thee way they are now. The open and honest process has been really great, it’s really nice to know that this does happen in the industry somewhere.
cohort 2 interview
I think the team are on a learning process with this as well and I think later on in the year when I last spoke to Roseanna she said they’ve realised people are taking from it what they need and that really varies subjectively across different cohort members and I think that’s a really good insight because the truth is all of us are so different.
cohort 2 interview
Prince asked me for some help with the recruitment process for the next cohort and that’s not something that would have happened without having done Be It. I think it went okay and he certainly took my suggestions and I felt like I was able to have an impact on what they sent out and the format it was in and the language they were using as well. I suggested that they did and easy read version of the application pack, which is helpful from an access standpoint but also helpful in making sure you are saying what you mean and getting rid of any fluffy language. If you are trying to recruit a wide range of people that’s really important because if you use the language you usually use you would exclude the people you are actually trying to get to. So I was glad to be able to have some input into that. We did training for the Rising team and training for the Be It cohort and we put more emphasis on access in recruitment for the team than for the cohort.
cohort 1 interview
A really big thing for me is communicating, which seems like a simple thing, but it struck me that with the commission opportunity, it didn’t work out how it was intended to, but I feel like I didn’t talk about it enough in the moment. This was a pilot so I understand that, so to even get the commissions as a thing was amazing, but learning from the challenges that came up from that was important, When Kamina and other members of the Rising team hosted calls / conversations for feedback it was excellent to read the improvements made for the future and also to learn through that process that prioritising myself and my own boundaries is also very important so I strive to do this more in the future.
cohort 1 interview