23/08/2026
Building Strong Foundations for Sustainable Creative Spaces & Community Ownership
Thursday 3 September
1-5pm
How can creative spaces become more sustainable, resilient and genuinely community-owned?
Join us for a four-hour facilitated workshop delivered by Clare Lucas of Ducks in a Row Outsourcing Agency (Award winning!) alongside her colleague Liz Baalham.
The session will explore the practical and people-focused foundations needed to develop and sustain a creative space, building on our existing values and work, and looking at how we can collaborate to shape its future.
We’ll explore:
🌱 Vision & Sustainability – developing long-term ambitions, identifying opportunities and thinking about what success could look like.
🏠 Operating the Space – understanding the day-to-day responsibilities of running a creative space, including governance, decision-making, operations and shared ownership.
🌿 Strong Foundations for Growth – exploring sustainable approaches to planning, partnerships, audiences, marketing and income generation.
🤝 Building Community Ownership – creating a culture of shared responsibility and finding meaningful ways for everyone to contribute.
💡 Collaborative Working in Practice – identifying individual strengths, forming practical working groups and agreeing ways of working together.
🎯 Priorities & Next Steps – identifying immediate priorities, allocating ownership and agreeing practical actions to keep things moving beyond the workshop.
The workshop will be participatory, practical and focused on building the people and relationships that will help turn operational plans into reality.
Whether you’re interested in governance, programming, communications, fundraising, events or practical maintenance, there will be an opportunity to contribute.
Come along, share your ideas and help us build strong foundations for a sustainable, creative and collectively owned space.
Attendance is free and all are welcome.
Please book via Eventbrite.
This workshop is part of ‘By Doing Together – Shared Stewardship in Practice’, an Arts Council England funded project providing learning around how to manage independent artist run spaces, with a particular focus on PrimeYarc.
