The St Hugh’s Foundation invites applications from candidates who are interested in joining our team, as a Trustee or Chair of the Foundation.
About the Foundation:
The St Hugh’s Foundation is a registered Charity, formed in 1991. A series of award schemes have been offered annually since 1992 to artists and arts organisations living/working full or part-time in Lincolnshire (including North and North East Lincolnshire), the East Riding of Yorkshire or the City of Hull. In 2019 we awarded our most recent Main and Development Arts Awards to Lee Karen Stow (documentary photographer) and Tanya Akrofi (writer and story-teller), as well as awarding visual artist Charlene Clempson our inaugural Claire Frances Peasnall Memorial Award.
In 2020 the global pandemic meant the Trustees had to review the Foundation’s approach, and developed a new programme of smaller ‘Artists Respond’ Awards focusing on helping more artists take the time to engage with their practice in whatever form felt most relevant given the challenges of the current situation. We made eight awards in total in 2020, and most recently announced 5 more Artists Respond award recipients for 2021. We hope, through this new temporary format for our Awards, to be able to continue supporting individuals and organisations as the arts begin to reform and reshape in the coming months and years.
Briefly, our stated objectives in our Trust Deed are:
- To seek to improve standards in practice, presentation and management of the arts by supporting initiatives to develop public knowledge and individual ability and skills
- To encourage initiatives to develop education and training in the practice, presentation and management of the arts
- To encourage the development of knowledge and understanding in the arts in the geographical area we cover; also supporting artists from the region to work nationally and internationally
Our mission statement is:
- To be artist-led and responsive to the community we serve.
- To invest in high quality work that shows ambition and clarity of purpose.
- To support all artists, at all stages of their practice.
Join our team
We invite expressions of interest from individuals who will:
- take part in 3 meetings per year (usually April, July and November, but this pattern sometimes changes in order to accommodate Trustees’ availability). When meetings take place in person, they are held in different locations around the geographical area we cover. However, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, we have been holding our meetings via Zoom for more than a year. In the future we expect our pattern of meetings to integrate a combination of in-person and online opportunities to come together.
- contribute to shortlisting and interview of Award applicants in the future
- share knowledge, skills and experience, and keep updated on developments in their specialist interest in the arts within the Foundation’s area of benefit
- take an active interest in the management of the Trust, contributing to decision-making between meetings where necessary, and, where appropriate, acting as an informal mentor to Award recipients
Successful applicants will be asked to sign up to a (renewable) 3-5 year term (length of term to be agreed with selected applicants). Trustees are unpaid, but travel expenses will be covered.
The St Hugh’s Foundation for the Arts recognises that our area of benefit is culturally diverse, and welcomes proposals from all applicants. We would particularly like to strengthen our team’s current working knowledge of visual art, theatre and performance, literature, marketing and PR. We are interested in considering collaborative working with other arts funders where our purposes align and would therefore be interested to hear from candidates with fundraising experience that might support this ambition. Additionally, we would welcome expressions of interest from people from minority ethnic communities, from people with a disability(ies) and from people living and working in East Yorkshire, Hull, North Lincolnshire, East Lindsey, Boston Borough and South Holland as these groups are under-represented within the existing group of Trustees. Please note that we are focusing our search on applicants from within our area of benefit but will also consider applications from those with a working knowledge of the area but who are based somewhere else.
As well as seeking to recruit new Trustees to our team, we are specifically looking for candidates who, having spent a year finding out more about the Foundation as a Trustee, would be able to take on the role as Chair from July 2022. This presents an opportunity to guide the Foundation through an important transition, in response to changes brought about by the pandemic, developing the impact of the Foundation’s work through collaboration with new partners, and preparing for potential commemoration of the Foundation’s 35th anniversary in 2026.
If you are interested in joining the Foundation, please supply:
- Your summary CV – no more than 2 sides of A4.
- An outline (no more than 1 side of A4 or alternative format as required) of your reasons for applying, telling us what you feel you can bring to the work of the Foundation (making particular reference to any skills you can contribute from the list of desirable knowledge/expertise outlined above) and what you would hope to gain from it.
Applicants may be invited to attend a short online interview with selected Trustees when we are considering applications.
Expressions of interest and any questions about this opportunity should be emailed to the Administrator at sthughscharity@gmail.com. We will consider expressions of interest on an ongoing basis, but applicants wishing to be considered at our next meeting in November 2022 should submit their applications by Monday 10th October 2022 at 5pm.