Hello

I feel very privileged to be writing to you all as the new co-chair of SDUK, alongside the brilliant Pooja Ghai.  Pooja will write and say ‘hi’ next month.

SDUK membership has stayed strong and committed throughout this difficult time and that, I believe, speaks volumes about the desire for solidarity and the need for representation within our sector.

Talking of privilege – I feel it’s really important when I speak to other artists at this time to acknowledge my own situation: My wife’s income and the SEISS (I didn’t fall into any of the many gaps and traps) mean that I’ve been OK, the mortgage got paid and the kids have been fed.  I’ve been lucky.  This meant I had a lot of time, and the security, to think and to assess.  So as the pandemic took hold, one of the first calls I made was to our Exec Director, Tom; I wasn’t sure when the elections for the board were taking place, but I told him I’d like to get involved.  Thank you for voting for me and the rest of our terrific board.  Once the new board (they will all write a blog in turn) was in place, Tom asked me if I’d co-chair – I wasn’t sure – he said it would be alongside Pooja….I was in!

As a board, in addition to supporting Tom and Liz with their considerable load, we want to be active and to share our engagement with the membership.  One of the ways we will do this is in this monthly blog.

A large part of SDUK’s focus during the pandemic has been the creation of the SDUK Resilience project and it was great to hear from Tom at our first board meeting that that was about to be announced and go live: https://sdukresilience.com/ It is aimed at providing support, advice and mentoring to directors – but also to any from the wider freelance creative workforce, who have been severely impacted by the pandemic.

Throughout the last 12 months I’ve been in touch with a wide variety of directors, sympathising with those within organisations and, of course, with freelancers.  I created a podcast with David Jubb, #CulturePlanB, where we spoke to practitioners working with communities and artists outside of the major institutions.  I got to hear, in great detail, from those creatives who perhaps are doing the most critical work in our sector, work that was also, in relation to funding, in the greatest jeopardy.  Many directors, many of our membership, are engaged in that work.

I joined SDUK five years ago for one reason: I wanted us all to get a royalty, wherever that was possible and appropriate.  I still want that.  A great amount of effort has been put into that by Tom and previous boards, and we intend to pick up that argument again, once sector confidence has been restored.

That’s why I joined, but I remain a member and stood for the board because of the many times members who don’t have agents (most of the membership) have told me about the times when SDUK has stepped in to help with contracts, and issues arising, as freelancers try and work out if they are being treated fairly by organisations.  To give you all a sense of this, Tom and Liz currently deal with about five of these issues a week.  That makes me beam with pride.  I find it moving if I’m really honest.  That is SDUK in action.

So as we hopefully begin to stumble into a better time, a recent tweet from David Byrne, the AD of The New Diorama, really helped me focus on something positive and constructive.  His tweet was,

‘How do we (re)build trust between artists and organisations? ‘

There is no location of blame in his question, nor in my response to it.  One positive I see, is that we as directors are uniquely placed to answer the question, as so many of us are freelancers and a considerable number of us are leaders of organisations, Artistic Directors and Associate Directors.  The rebuilding of that trust could come from the same hopeful place of pan-sector solidarity that sees us all putting our hands in our pockets and paying our membership subs every month.

SDUK and its board are here to talk to and support all directors as we move forward into the new landscape.

Oh – and please tell your friends and colleagues.  Increased membership means increased strength and increased resources.

I can’t wait to actually see some of you.  And thanks again for your trust and support.

Sending love, strength and solidarity.

Matthew