Introducing the Charter for Equity pilot organisations
We are delighted to introduce the Charter for Equity pilot organisations: That! Dance CIC, Live to Your Living Room, Black Country Touring, Stourbridge Glass Museum, Open Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. These six pilot partners will test the Charter through self-assessment, action learning and peer review.
The Charter has been developed through sector research, consultation, and collaboration, with the aim of improving working conditions, workplace culture and accountability across the region’s cultural ecology. It focuses on creating a shared framework that supports fairer practice while recognising the realities of how organisations and freelancers work.
The pilot organisations will explore three key themes: inequality and oppression, material working conditions, agency and power.
Richard Crellin will be supporting the Charter for Equity pilot. Richard is an accredited action learning facilitator and will be supporting the organisations on the pilot to explore, adopt and develop the Charter.
Read the profiles below to learn more about the pilot organisations:
That! Dance CIC
That! Dance is a small, impactful CIC based in Burton-upon-Trent, formed in 2022 following the inclusive mass movement project ‘Critical Mass’. We work with young people and adults aged 16-30, with a range of needs, who all love to dance, running weekly creative sessions, co-creating films, performances and exhibitions, and supporting artist and freelancer development in our local community.
We’re thrilled to be taking part in the Charter for Equity pilot at a formative moment in our development. We want to deepen our practice in building a more ethnically diverse workforce and better supporting disabled freelancers, while sharing what we’ve learned about working well with parents and carers, and giving cultural workers agency and power in how we operate.
“As a relatively new organisation (formed in 2022 following ‘Critical Mass’… our policies, processes and way of working feel malleable and open to exploration… By being involved in the pilot, at a crucial, formative time of our organisational development, we know that we can develop what we do in a way that is effective, fair and ‘right’.”
Live to Your Living Room
Cat McGill BEM is Co-founder & Creative Director of Live to your Living Room. She’s an award-winning pioneer in the creative sector with demonstrable impact spanning access and inclusion, and is committed to democratising arts and culture by improving equity of access. Autistic and Neurodivergent, Cat fosters connection and community by bridging access gaps through a portfolio of groundbreaking inclusion initiatives.
Live to your Living Room is an online platform, hosting a regular and diverse programme of world-class, high-quality live music and arts events. We’re driven by a steadfast commitment to proactively improve equity of access to the arts. Through our curated programme of shared live events, we help a global community of fans (who may have previously felt excluded from cultural venues due to access barriers) feel a true sense of connection and belonging.
Black Country Touring
We are Black Country Touring - an arts charity based in Thimblemill Library in Smethwick. We work with local people to bring professional touring theatre, dance and cinema from around the UK and beyond to the local communities of the Black Country in spaces they can easily access it, physically and financially. Such as schools, libraries, community centres and art galleries.
In terms of what we hope to achieve by being part of the pilot - we hope for collaboration in cohesion and also hope to gain joy and fulfilment in being be part of something genuinely useful that will help us and others as companies, and individuals alike, in whatever way that ends up being.
“…This is something that we can be a part of, right from inception to help guide and mould the Charter with others; thereby it will feel like we are all part of a new team, having the freedom to do the following things. Learning. Growing. Sharing. Being honest. Explorative questioning. And most importantly - implementing.”
Stourbridge Glass Museum
Stourbridge Glass Museum is Midlands newest and most award-winning Museum, located in the Black Country. We have some of the Europe’s greatest collection of glass sculptures, a beautiful colourful array of modern and historic glass stretching over centuries, plus live glassmaking demonstrations.
“We are keen to ensure our internal culture authentically reflects the community and heritage we represent. The Charter for Equity pilot offers a vital, structured opportunity to examine and strengthen this alignment. Participating allows us to learn alongside regional peers, moving beyond performative diversity statements to embed meaningful, equitable practices.
We are a modern forward-thinking Museum that wants to be on the cutting edge of the kind of change that the new Charter for Equity Pilot explores.”
Open Theatre
Richard Hayhow is the Founder/Director of Open Theatre, established in 1990 in Coventry and now an Arts Council NPO. The company works collaboratively with young people with learning disabilities, across Birmingham, the wider region, nationally and internationally. The company is driven by a vision to Do Difference Differently: challenging itself and the key sectors of education and the arts, to rethink how young people with learning disabilities can help to reshape society through their unique creativity.
Open Theatre now stands at a critical crossroads: either society reimagines how to fully embrace difference or the company's work cannot progress. Despite global attention on equity, diversity and inclusion, the full range of young people that Open Theatre works with, most of whom remain invisible in society still, will continue to be marginalised without this reimagining.
Through the Charter for Equity pilot, Open Theatre intends to co‑create new entry points into the arts with young people with learning disabilities, deepen understanding of the diversity within this community, and drive meaningful, systemic change in how the cultural sector welcomes and works with them.
“We are increasingly keen to influence systems, shape sector practice, and advocate for structural change, particularly in response to the escalating crisis in SEND education and wider inequalities affecting young people with learning disabilities. The Charter for Equity pilot offers a timely, collaborative framework that supports our ambition to share evidence, strengthen sector learning, and deepen understanding of inequality, material conditions, agency, and power.”
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. The company employs more than 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and on tours across the UK and internationally.
“Equity sits at the heart of the RSC value of Inclusion, and this is a timely moment after a major change programme as we have capacity to turn intention into action. We still have a long way to go! This pilot directly supports our goal to attract artistic talent by creating the best conditions for artists to make their work.”
Facilitator & Critical Friend: Richard Crellin
Richard Crellin
Richard has worked in the voluntary and community sector for many years supporting organisations to learn and develop. He has a particular interest in co-production, lived experience and in changing wider systems and structures. He has a particular passion and experience of working with children and young people to ensure that they can be powerful agents of change.