My foray into arts administration came late in my career and, once I found it, I was so mad at my younger self for not following my heart and gut-instinct straight from school. However, as is the way of life, all the choices I’ve made – and not made – along the way have given me the skills, knowledge and experience to be here now and writing this blog post.
I left uni with a degree in English and Art but with no idea what to do with it (ah, the bygone days of full grants and no fees). I ended up working for BT for 13 years, starting in the call centre, then writing processes and procedures and ending up as a project manager. I learned all aspects of administration and project management amongst all the financial comforts that a global corporation has to offer. Skip to redundancy, being a stay at home mum for a bit and that’s when (through my hobby of choral singing) I discovered arts administration was an actual thing (I never knew!) and where my professional heart lay. I spent 5 wonderful years as administrator for a classical music festival and vowed I would never do anything else!
Fast forward to 2023, I wasn’t looking for a new role at the time, but whilst idly scrolling on facebook one day, these words jumped out at me:
“If you’re enthusiastic about beautifully organised admin, like being the go-to person in a small team and enjoy setting up systems to get stuff done, we’d love to hear from you.”
Yes, yes, yes AND it was Strike A Light, an arts organisation in my home city that I’d followed and admired for a number of years. I mean, you never KNOW you’re going to get the job, but it felt like the job description was written entirely and only for me. I’d finished working for the music festival a few years prior, was in a finance role for a fostering charity and though happy enough, was missing working in the arts and being in a creative environment. I grabbed the chance and…here I am, 2 years into being General Manager at Strike A Light.
The official job description of my role is “to ensure the smooth and effective running of Strike A Light’s financial, HR and administrative systems”, but I like the words of the job advert best. If you’re the kind of person that loved buying gorgeous new stationery at the start of every school year, that colour codes your diary, delights in restructuring a disordered filing system or creating a flow diagram or an organisation chart, then this job is perfect, well almost….
… the tasks alone aren’t what makes the job perfect for me; doing them for an insurance company or a car manufacturer would bore me senseless. Doing them for Strike A Light, for an organisation that believes art can changes lives, that creates incredible events in Gloucester, gives young people opportunities to dance and act with brilliant professional artists that, literally, ‘lets artists be artists’ in a world that often doesn’t, that’s what makes this job perfect, well almost…
… tasks and a great purpose are nothing without a great team of people. These ordinary, some-would-say-dull (but not me), tasks of finance and governance and documents and spreadsheets are what enables the brilliant team of Strike A Light staff to achieve creative, amazing and inspiring things. They inspire and amaze me, they make me laugh – every day – they can make me cry (thankfully not every day!). Being around such passionate, talented and dedicated people is a total gift and I love being part of this great team of people and for an organisation driven so strongly by its values.
Strike A Light 