Business Start Up Support

Judith Alexander and Liz Wallens

Unfortunatley, Judith could not make the talk, due to illness, so Liz Wallens and her colleague from Wrexham Council came to do the talk alone. Liz is a business adviser at the council, based on the industrial estate. She came to tell us what would be on offer for people setting up a business in the Wrexham area. The first are free business workshops which can be attended by anybody who aims to set up a business in Wales. There are also a number of grants and bursaries available to those who want to set up a business in Wales. The business Wales team are always on hand to give advice too.

Liz then gave us the chance to ask questions on what we wanted to know and tried to help as best she could. The first question asked was 'what is on offer to graduates wanting to go into business?'. Liz went over what she had just said again, this time highlighting that individualised one to one advice is available by appointment. She then explained some of the bursaries on offer, such as the £6000 available to graduates between 6 months and 7 years of graduating. As good as this seems, your forecast must predict an £80,000 turnover in the first year of business. I think that this is way too much money to expect from a new graduate business, especially after the first year. Hopefully this will get lowered, making it more accessible. Liz then explained that they can help to create a business plan and a cash forecast so that a person can put in for a grant or bursary. Some other grants that are available include one from Wrexham County Council and a Bilingual Grant. The Bilingual Grant is available for a business that is willing to have their leaflets and advertisements etc in both Welsh and English. Liz then went into more detail about the workshops, telling us that there are 6 in total, including, marketing. mindset and finance. I am intrigued by these workshops and will look into signing up when in my final year of study. I will write a future post with regards to this after attending.

I did not realise how much needed to be done to gain funding to set up my own business. To even be considered for a grant, i would need to apply and provide a business bank account, financial evidence of my own contribution to the business and i would then have to make my purchases and claim them back. If I want to go into business, which is an option I am considering, I think I would have to work for a company while building up the funds for my own business. Another thing I would need to consider is the location of my business. As these are Welsh grants, my business would need to be set up in Wales and I would not be able to relocate for at least 5 years, one of many conditions of the grant.

There are a lot of training oppurtunities and classes available that I didn't know about until this talk. Yale College, the local college in Wrexham, offers night classes. It costs £50 pounds to become a member for 3 years, as long as the person attending is a resident of the college catchment area. This is for as many classes as you want to attend.

Key Note Address

Painting Over the Cracks - Paul Heywood

Paul Heywood is the advisor to the Vice Chancellor at Salford university whilst also being the chair of NAFE. NAFE supports visual arts within the UK. Paul has a wide background in art and design but specialises in community based practition.

I was a bit put off straight away by the talk, due to Professor Paul Heywood's opening slide said 'Isn't art sort of pointless?'. However, he did tell us to be a bit selfish this week and get everything we can out of it, which is sound advice. I found it hard to keep up with what Prof Heywood was sayin at first about chairs. It seemed a bit pointless to me and I really felt lost.

Paul's nest point hit home. Everything changes. This is so true with every creative outlet. I came to University with the aim of becoming a freelance photographer and now I really love to edit. This is similar to Paul's' experience of practice.

Paul then got onto some more statistics, with regards to the very current global economic crisis and recession. He told us that 1.6 million companies, in the US alone, avoid payroll taxes. These are the taxes that go towards things such as pensions. There has also been around 100billion capital flight from Africa each year. Add to this 3.1 trillion that illegally evade tax each year and we definitely have a problem.

Paul the went on to talk about his career, which is quite impressive. Most of his career has been spent in Manchester, as he is from around that area. His role in Salford is to make learning co-operatives across the city. He aspires to bridge the gap between agencies and creativity. I think this is a great thing to aim for.

Ffresh Festival 2013 - 20th-22nd Februaury 2013

Glyndwr University was holding the Ffresh Festival in its 10th year, so I was able to attend. Ffresh is a festival that celebrates the moving image. It features the work of students across Wales and Welsh Universtities. At this years festival, the collective had a stall, in order to promote ourselves. As I am now a key member of the admin and 'managerial' team of the collective, a lot of my time was taken up running the stall. This meant that I did not get to many of the masterclasses and lectures or see a lot of the shortlisted films. However, having the stall was very beneficial for us.

©Sue McGrane. Me at Ffresh Festival - Collective Stall

We had some posters printed, along with some examples of our work, and pinned them up around our stall. We also had a slideshow of images being played on loop, along with some of the videos we have produced. These caught peoples eyes as they walked past and a lot of people stopped to ask questions. The first to talk to us was a couple of women who owned their own online business, Web Waterfalls (www.webwaterfalls.com). They are based in Oswestry and are extremely keen to get a meeting with us, as we are local and a collaboration would be beneficial for both parties. Another company that liaised with us were Printers Inc. They are a company that helps artists get things printed and delivered. They are also keen to set up a meeting with us. We have also been approached by GTV and the Photographic Society for collaborations. We were also approached by a number of prospective clients and had some jobs booked in. All in all, this was a very busy week for us at the collective and lots of things are coming up.

©Will Aron. Myself, Holly and Sue at work on the stall.

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Tomato Collective

The speakers name was Dylan Kendle. He is part of the Tomato Collective. I chose to attend this talk because of my work in the collective. I thought it might be beneficial and that I would get some good hints and tips to pass on to the group and use in my own professional practice. It turns out that I was right to go to this talk as it inspired me so much as an individual artist, as well as a key member of the collective.

            I learnt that there was no structure in the running of Tomato. This meant no hierarchy. This was a valuable piece of information as we have been having problems with this with in our own collective. It was great to hear Dylan’s views on this. He says that, although there is no strict hierarchy, the person who knows the client or has the most skill in the specific design area will head up the project. This is the way we have been running things and it is how we should carry on, as Tomato is proof that this works. He went on to say that this more casual attitude leads to a better atmosphere and therefore makes for a good forum for relationships. He also says that Tomato is a non-profit organization. I understand why this is the way it is but our collective needs to make money to survive.

            Tomato has been running for 22 years, since it was founded in 1991. Dylan didn’t join until 1993.It was founded by a group of men looking to collaborate together. They are constantly working on new and exciting projects. 

The Mill Talk with Sid

 www.themill.com

I was really looking forward to this talk, having visited The Mill last year on our industry trip to London. Watching the showreel and examples of work done by the mill got me sitting up and excited to listen to the talk.

It was great to see what is being done in the media and the creative sector of employability recently.

However, my mind started to wander as the talk turned to the more technical side of visual effects. I am not really interested in the visual effects side of film making so I did not really benefit from this talk.

Opening Address

Whats Current in the Creative Industries?
Sarah Mair Gates - Creative and Cultural Skills
Creative Skillset Cymru
Intro By Stuart Cunningham

This years opening address was a lot better than last years and left me feeling positive and happy about the upcoming lectures. I loved Stuart Cunningham's entrance. I like that it showed and example of things that we can do in the industry. It also showed us we should sell ourselves, as well as being funny and uplifting.
It was nice to find out what the aims are of creative futures. It gave me a positive head to put on and made me realise things i needed to look out for during the week. The aims where to create an insight into the industry, help us to develop our personal work and gain employability advice. The last two aims were to help us to network and to fulfill out studies. I beleive that I already have good stamding in these areas but I aim to make the most of this week. I know how important networking can be, as the saying goes, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

Sarah Mair Gates is the Wales manager of a part of the Sector Skills Council. This covers performing arts, visual arts, craft, design, public, live events, literature and so on. This talk was all about statistics more than anything else. It opened my eyes to some of the things that can become something I could utilise. In Wales alone, there are 1,745 businesses with 27,990 people employed within the creative industries. 92% of these have less than 10 staff. I can understand this because of the collective. Although we have around 40 members now, there are around 7 of us that are constantly working. We have to be flexible to take on many roles. Sarah says that this is a useful skill to have when entering into a job within the sector. I was disheartened to hear that film and photography were not part of the largest number of businesses.
I've looked into the website that was mentioned (creative choices). There is a lot to look at. I will keep it in mind as there are opportunities for jobs and competitions. I also like the case study feature. I have bookmarked this site and will review it every now and again. Sarah showed us a video of Kursk, a submarine theatre show, made by graduates. I found it a little irrelevant but found some videos that were better on this site.
After the video, Sarah gave us some more details. She again told us how important it is to be flexible and how the Sector Skills Council can help with on the job training. This advice is great as it reminds me to keep my options open when looking for employment. My skills lie mostly in film editting, but this could lend itself to numerous jobs.


http://creative-blueprint.co.uk/

Creative choices are something that run workshops for school children at creative venues. 
http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/



Unfortunatly, the next speaker, Gwawr Hughes, of Creative Skillset Cymru, could not make it to the University due to illness. Luckily, Dr Stuart Cunningham stood in to deliver the talk as best he could. He started by explaining what CSC is about and their aims, using Gwawr's slideshow. CSC is more toward the technological side, which is more relevant for me. Their aim is to match training needs and deliver it to the employees of creative companies so that they comply with the benchmarks set by themselves of national occupational standards across Wales and the rest of the UK. Some statistics were then fed to us again. There are 31,490 people in the creative sector within Wales, most of them in fashion and textile or TV. The average income of people in Wales in this sector is £28,700 per year. This is not a lot of money so it just proves that the passion and drive is what you need to keep going. The salary is higher within England, due to London, Manchester and Birmingham. the workforce itself in Wales is made up by 68% degree holders, 30% of which have post graduate qualification. This made me think about doing a Masters in my course. Howver, Stuart went on to explain that we need to stand out from the crowd in order to get a job. I believe that all the work experience I have been doing will go someway to helping me with this. New graduates also offer the freshest cretivity and most up to dat skills, which can fill in the skills gaps that over half of the businesses have. This could be technical skills or simple things like communication and organisation skills. It's really daunting to think about things like this and if anything it gives me the push I need to hone my skills as much as I can and vary my specialised skills to include as many of the core technical skills needed. These days, to be successful in a creative media career, you need to be multi-skilled so you can carry out a number of jobs. This was the key message of the whole talk. Creative Skillset Cymru is there to help every step of the way. They can start at school level, then offer apprenticeships as the child progresses, offering on the job training. They also partner with FE and HE centres.This is something I need to look into as I am hoping to get a work placement this summer to set me up for my final year of the degree.

After telling us about Creative Skillset Cymru, Stuart gave us some tips of his own. This was mostly based on retaining the talent into Wales. We have to inspire the next generation to study creativley. Stuart told us about a recent Skills Audit in Wales that showed that there is a lack in transferrable and managerial skills.  He also told us about the increase in support across Wales, due to a massive push from the Governments realisation of the importance of the sector. It helps that our sector employs 1.5 million people and is worth £36 billion per year.

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