Set up during COVID, our regular West Midlands Culture Response Unit (WMCRU) meetings were a vital lifeline for the sector in connecting, sharing and getting practical information and advice. Our next session invites Baker Richards Chief Executive, Robin Cantrill-Fenwick to explore ‘Britain Votes: What’s About to Happen to Culture?’.

Grow is our regional mentoring scheme that works across art forms, skills and experience levels. We have already made a number of successful matches, and now we are looking for a new cohort of individuals who are keen to help shape the future of the sector by building lasting connections either as a mentor or a mentee.

As part of Culture Central’s Birmingham 2022 Festival Legacy activity, we are pleased to publish an insightful new evaluation of our Creative City Grant Legacy Development Programme. The report offers compelling evidence for investing in grassroots community arts organisations in the region.  

As well as the Culture Matters campaign, Erica Love, CEO of Culture Central shares an update about the work we have been doing both publicly and with local and national government and other regional stakeholders and with our members since the section 114 announcement.

Culture and Creativity connect to every part of our lives - whether that is listening to music, watching a film or TV programme, going to the theatre, a gallery or a concert or how you express your own creativity.

In light of many local authorities reducing funding for culture, we want everyone to know why culture matters and to celebrate culture and creativity across the West Midlands. Here’s how you can help…

Culture Central was a proud supporter and strategic adviser to Birmingham Festival 2023. We're pleased to share this evaluation of the festival demonstrating a positive impact on the city.

Through Cultivate Heritage, we want to help organisations design and pitch creative projects which explore and celebrate the heritage of communities across Birmingham and the West Midlands. In this strand of our 'Birmingham Festival 2022 Legacy programme', we are raising awareness about The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s recently launched new funding programme, National Lottery Heritage Grants, which supports heritage-focused projects.

With ‘Collectively Strategising Culture’ just over a week away, Dr. Anthony Ruck, shares some of our contexts and thinking behind the development of the summit, and introduces the main question we’ll be asking throughout the day.

In this first year of a three-year leadership programme for those traditionally excluded from the cultural sector, we recruited 20 people to learn alongside and explore how we can make change for ourselves, our peers, the sector and the people and places of the West Midlands. Meet the first cohort of Collective.

Join Culture Central, and other leaders to reflect, celebrate and strategise as a sector in the West Midlands.

For Culture Central, 2023 was a year to catalyse and drive activity focussed on our priorities of collective action, inclusivity and supporting a dynamic and collaborative cultural sector, for the benefit of the region.  In this blog CEO, Erica Love reflects on the achievements and challenges of the year for our organisation and the sector.

Culture Central is proud to be partnering with Create Central and BFI Skills Clusters on the delivery of a West Midlands Skills Accelerator programme - this work focuses on skills and training opportunities for ‘below-the-line’ production crew in the region, aiming to make the sector more accessible and representative.

Are you looking to take your career to the next level? Would you like to benefit from the expertise of an experienced sector leader? We have relaunched our mentoring programme, ‘Grow’, and have refined our offer, training and support for mentors and mentees.

Culture Central was a proud supporter and strategic adviser to Birmingham Festival 2023. We're pleased to share this evaluation of the festival demonstrating a positive impact on the city.

Culture Central are looking for a film maker to capture the Culture Volunteer WM programme.

Join Culture Central to support colleagues working across the cultural sector in the West Midlands to ensure that we have a dynamic, resilient, equitable and inclusive sector. We are looking for people interested in developing their mentoring skills, as well as experienced mentors who would like to take an active role in supporting the cultural sector to change, learn and grow.

Culture Central offers a collective statement to organisations, workforce, communities, stakeholders and supporters with regard to uncertainty around arts, culture and creativity in Birmingham.

This year, Culture Central joins forces with More than a Moment on October 20th, presenting the Beautiful Futures Summit — an intersectional critical dialogue for the sector.

Culture Central and More than a Moment have been working together to curate a week of radical listening sessions platforming the voices of marginalised creatives and culture sector professionals.

After the success of our initial Chairs forum in Coventry in April 2023, we will be hosting three more in 2023-24.

The Chairs forum is a confidential regular meeting for those in voluntary governance positions in cultural organisations in the West Midlands with the goal of working collectively on challenges and opportunities facing boards.