The Young People’s Creative Agency,
Under Construction,
2009 I signed.
A nameless charity,
Set in regional crisis,
Joined four teams into one.
A passionate team of thirty,
We had Lift Off and launched,
A home at LCB in Leicester LE1.
Four in a million Creative Partnerships resourced,
Sixty-five Creative Agents,
One School of Creativity, hundreds of Hubs from peak to coast.
Associates and partners pooled from north to south,
Inspiring a creative curriculum,
To one million kids at our heart.
A young girl from Leicestershire,
Inspired the name The Mighty Creatives,
To call us to action for kids most in need and of hope.
The first year I lead TMC in the north,
A year full of single lane travel,
Behind tractors and the odd loose calf!
Young people led Short Bursts of activity,
As creative leaders at Participate,
An Athena youth voice event agenda.
Our first birthday arrived,
Yet to Find your Talent,
Still thriving and striving to be our mighty best.
Shifting Gear for young people 2011,
For me this year was Business as Unusual,
Directing skills focused on innovation and growth.
A Street Arts Academy,
Made way for mighty events,
And one very impressive Mobile TMC pop-up tent.
A new team of Managers,
Our first TMC apprentice,
Delivered a World Event Young Artist leading adventure.
As TMC’s 2012 Lead Developer,
Building the Bank was a highlight,
Securing 1.2 million euros to grow grants and jobs alike.
Coaching Creative Consultants,
To advise creative business starts,
Led to retaining talent in our region and building future starts.
Businesses Moving Together with Underground Creatives,
Pitched and presented our Bank of TMC ask,
Securing support and £15k of Next PLC cash.
Talking of building I scoped The TMC Enterprise Centre,
A space for young people,
A home and creativity centre.
A project with vision, surveys and plans,
A team of Focus Consultants,
Engineers and architects at hand.
Learning from the ‘No’,
A fundraisers life lesson,
This time, this was a ‘No not never’.
2014 was the year to Act for Change,
Inspiring social action,
A child led creative exchange.
East Midlands Housing inspired by our mission,
Donated £100K time and money,
To our social enterprise vision.
Over 1000 young people,
Led Mighty Teams,
To help our communities take the creative lead.
Our Mighty Schools,
Pitched Mighty Spaces,
Crowdfunding a learning launchpad and village school hall.
The death of Shakespeare inspired Spirit 2012,
To fund Emerge Festivals,
Arts Connect-ing Midlands creative realms.
12 local areas,
Trained over 50 emerging artists,
To co-produce 24 live events with 1000’s of young people at their heart.
2016 NatWest Bank invested in,
Young skills and opportunities,
With 1000’s of RBS staff voting for 50 plus creative businesses.
To be Be Mighty Be Creative we celebrated our,
Inaugural charity gala,
A Roundhouse Derby awards winning celebration dinner.
A series of events focused on childhood years,
Sharing The Village based Model,
With Tamba leading the summit field.
2017 now Head of Development,
My next challenge unfolded,
From NAFS great influencing ‘charity first’ moment.
A new strategy for fundraising,
Led our morale-based mandate,
Focused on positive funder first dates.
Connecting kids to culture,
Fused donor and Ambassador rapport,
With Bright Eye-d new Patrons Switch-ing Up Gears with their support.
The last three years supported by Children in Need,
Are most memorable and precious,
Through Derbyshire Virtual School modelling Creative Mentors.
A child poverty manifesto,
Fixed our future and focus,
Calling to action our Boss Bike Ride and Creative Hero movements.
Our covid strategy for survival,
Drew 2.6 Mighty funder support,
To help us ride out a pandemic with passion and pride.
To cut now to this day,
My last at TMC,
It’s time for last after work orders, a speech and a weep.
My mighty memories are many,
Above are just a few,
I will leave the next chapters for my colleagues – a wonderful creative crew!
For those perhaps quite curious,
I will drive north,
To Yorkshire and a new Active Fusion start.