A close friend of mine… free work always seems to start with a phase like this, was invited to join a board of trustees. Her links with a number of charities in Southend, engineered a chance meeting with an existing board member of the newly established Wellbeing@garons - a charity organisation with plans to set up a ‘vitality park’ around the existing cricket pitch at Garon Park in Southend.
Following her invitation to become a trustee, it became apparent that there was also a trustee position available for a Marketing, Communications and Publicity. She thought of me.
I agreed to meet Stuart the existing board member, to listen to what the opportunity involved. It appears they have been badly let down by their previous Marketing, Communication and Publicity trustee, a volunteer, and are in need of some help to get their much needed website up and running. To date, they‘ve decided on a logo from a set of student concepts from South Essex College.
Now I’m thinking this is fate, as this is my place of work.
I attended their monthly board meeting to meet the other members. Not being that familiar with any of this kind of scenario; boards, charities etc. I give the position lots of thought before committing. I discover the position of Trustee is more about delegation, as opposed to ‘Free Work’, this is comforting given the busy University schedule (my first priority) proposed for the coming months. Their blueprint reveals some fabulous opportunities; namely their future plans for lots of art orientated projects - this is the carrot on the stick for me, and so I am persuaded to get involved.
I agree to help.
Working at the college it wasn’t difficult to locate the students and begin to piece together exactly where the process was in terms of progress. This I did. It transpires, that not only is there a logo, but also a website at the beginning stages of design – this should be quite easy. It appears that all that is needed here is a link between the two organisations and some mediation, I have taken the following actions:
Set up a meeting with the board to review the current website and collate amends needed.
Set up a meeting with the students to hand over the amends and bring the design to conclusion.
Proposed that the student designer joins the next board meeting to present the final design – this benefits both parties by:
Giving the student experience of presenting to the client and also providing them with real work for a portfolio,
For wellbeing@garons, there is light at the end of the tunnel with their design process, but also the work is free.
Writtle
This is also a great opportunity for future students at Writtle.
Whether the new Land Art or Environmental Art degree course, or Architectural Landscaping– there is a lot of scope for students to become involved with a live brief and watch it come to life. It’s also very good for Professional and Creative Focus. Watch this space…
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