Creative Community Builder (Secondment Cover)

London, England, United Kingdom

1/7/2025

Company Description

Role summary

• Job title: Creative Community Builder, Culture Within Newham
• Place of work: Community Links, 105 Barking Road, London, E16 4HQ (working at least 3 days per week in the office)
• Hours of work: Full-time (37 hours per week)
• Contract duration: Fixed-term to 31 July 2025 (to cover secondment), start date as soon as possible
• Salary/Grade: £33,550 pro rata per annum
• Reports to: Programme Co-Director, Culture Within Newham
• Responsible for: Sessional staff, commissioned artists, community producers, interns, and volunteers
• Level of screening: Enhanced DBS
• Annual leave: 28 days annual leave plus public holidays (pro rata)
• Application deadline: 9am on Thursday 23 January 2025
  
  

About Culture Within Newham

Culture Within Newham is an Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places (CPP) programme, based in the borough of Newham, in East London. Newham has a large proportion of young residents and is the most culturally diverse borough in the UK, which inspired its aim of becoming a more vibrant and cultural place and to realise the creative potential in every Newham resident. The mission of the Culture Within Newham programme is to inspire community-led change in Newham in how creativity, arts, and culture are accessed, made, experienced and enjoyed. By bringing arts to people’s doorstep we aim to radically redefine what culture means to the people of Newham – with its broadest definition of who we are, how we live, and what we do – as well as to deliver excellent and inspiring art.

Culture Within Newham is a co-created programme, which means that it is entirely shaped with rather than just for the people of Newham. By involving local people in decisions about their local cultural programmes, we ensure that we produce exciting, relevant, and impactful creative experiences. Our inclusive and welcoming approach also aims to draw in people who don’t usually engage much with the arts, building new audiences and investing in new generations too. Through this approach we aim to develop a strong and high-quality cultural programme that is fully tailored to Newham.

The programme was set up in late 2022 and aims to be experimental and innovative in its approach, even more so in its first few years. Our programmes, events and community relationship work offer an effective testing ground for new ideas and participatory practices.

About Community Links

Community Links is the grant holder and lead organisation on the Culture Within Newham consortium. The Culture Within Newham team is therefore based at Community Links in Canning Town. The other four organisations who make up the rest of the consortium are Jazanne Arts, the University of East London, the National Cricket League and Blossom Group. Together, they are responsible for leading the Culture Within Newham programme.

Community Links is a hub tackling health and social inequality in East London and beyond. We work alongside the community helping people of all ages reach their full potential. We take our local knowledge of what works to influence national decision making.

Community Links, in turn, is part of Catch22. Catch22 is a social business which designs and delivers services that build resilience and aspiration in people and communities. We believe that people can thrive when they have a good place to live, good people around them, and a fulfilling purpose. We call these our ‘3Ps’. All Catch22 services deliver at least one (and often all three) of these outcomes.

The Creative Community Builders, like the rest of the Culture Within Newham team, are employed by Catch22 and receive its respective benefits and support.

Where you fit in

You will be joining a dynamic and passionate team of five people (making up 3.5FTE together). The purpose of the Creative Community Builder is partly as a community connector who builds relationships with local people and inspires them to take ownership of the cultural offer in their borough, and partly as a project producer who organises, manages and delivers cultural activities and events. Together, the Creative Community Builders set up new partnerships, projects and programmes that help Newham’s cultural offer to flourish and develop.

Our arts programme consists of multiple elements, which you would be working across:

• A programme of cultural and creative commissions, activities, events and festivals held across the borough and often in partnership with other organisations. These events include high-quality art productions as well as outreach activities that invite people in Newham to get acquainted with arts and culture.
• A governing structure in which Newham residents of all ages have an opportunity to share in the decision-making about what culture means to them and their borough.
• Relationship management across cultural and non-cultural stakeholders across Newham to scope opportunities for collaboration and to build a more connected creative sector.
  
  

The Creative Community Builder will be line-managed by one the Programme Co-Directors of the Culture Within Newham programme. The team currently brings together experience around community engagement, artistic commission management, communication and social media. The team is embedded within the wider Community Links team, which runs programmes around health, advice, and education, which offers potential for learning from non-arts colleagues.

Job Description

Key activities and responsibilities

Community Engagement And Co-creation:

• To design, manage and deliver activities and events that engage Newham residents in making, experiencing, curating or learning about arts, culture and creativity and to manage the collaborations with artists and partner organisations that this involves. To design, manage and facilitate commissioning processes and methods of co-creation through which community members can take part in decision-making around commissioning and co-designing of activities.
• To lead on elements of the Culture Within Newham programme and to contribute to setting out the overall programme, strategies and ways of working.
• To build and maintain a network of external relationships with different community groups across Newham, including (but not limited to) community networks, business communities, local interest groups, resident groups, local schools and colleges, youth groups, children and family groups, faith groups, culturally diverse networks, etc. Many of the groups we work with encounter barriers to participation in culture or society more general, including as a result of language barriers or elements of deprivation.
• To listen to the needs and interests of local community groups and design activities and programmes in ways that fit these needs, in order to produce engagement opportunities that are welcoming, inclusive and accessible.
• To book, schedule and manage contractors, sessional staff, commissioned artists, community producers, and volunteers working on Culture Within Newham projects. To represent Culture Within Newham to external stakeholders at community meetings and events across Newham.
  
  

Community Empowerment And Development:

• To manage commission teams of artists, community members and/or arts organisations to develop their projects to the best quality and coach these team members to gain new experience and skills.
• To design and run workshops and events that empower participants to generate and develop their own ideas for cultural and creative projects in their neighbourhoods.
• To run and facilitate community panels and steering groups, designing democratic processes that allow them toto make informed decisions about the direction of the cultural programme for Newham.
• To support artists and arts organisations in working in co-creative ways that centre around community decision-making.
• To identify and contribute to increasing resources, opportunities, funding and partnership possibilities for cultural and creative engagement work across the borough.
  
  

Marketing And Evaluation:

• To locate and develop new audiences, as well as grow existing audiences, for Culture Within Newham’s activities and creative programmes through marketing, information sharing, and representing the programme externally.
• To commission documentation materials from communication contractors (e.g. photographers or videographers) and to work collaboratively with marketing team members and evaluators.
• To oversee the collection of evaluation data from audiences, partners and commissioned project teams about the events and activities held.
  
  

Project Management And Administration:

• To monitor project budgets and timelines, draft project contracts, oversee project evaluations, and manage all other necessary administration around event production and project management.
• To draft and prepare materials and planning for activities and events, as well as for community workshops and meetings.
• To log and report on project activity, keep project partners in the loop, and provide information towards Arts Council progress reporting.
• To contribute information or project data for funding bids or best practice case study reporting.
  
  

Other:

• To travel across Newham to meet partners and build networks across the borough as well as represent Culture Within Newham across the national Creative People and Places programme.
• To work within the strategies set out by the Culture Within Newham programme and comply with Catch22’s safeguarding, health and safety, equality, risk management, and GDPR policies.
• Any other duties as may reasonably be expected for the effective delivery of the project.
  
  

Qualifications

Click here to view the full job description.

Person specification

Skills And Experience We Are Looking For:

• Substantial experience of working with a diverse range of communities, ideally in cultural, community or charity contexts.
• Substantial experience of planning, organising and delivering public-facing, community and/or cultural events.
• Experience of delivering community consultation, participation or co-creation projects, or other projects that are shaped and informed by community participants.
• Excellent relationship-building skills in a variety of contexts, for example with partner organisations, community members, potential participants, volunteers, funders or other local stakeholders.
• Good working knowledge of the borough of Newham, its cultural and/or social landscape, and its geography, or alternatively, experience of working in areas of low cultural engagement and/or working with similar communities.
• Excellent communication skills, including good listening, negotiation and advocacy skills.
• Strong time-management and organisational skills, as well as a good understanding of administrative processes, such as monitoring budgets and/or payment processes.
• A good level of digital literacy, especially when using office-based IT programmes.
  
  

Personal Attributes We Are Looking For:

• A commitment to using cultural engagement to achieve social change in Newham or beyond.
• A positive and enthusiastic attitude towards new ideas and input from the community, which focuses on making things happen and is solutions focused.
• An enterprising mind-set that shows initiative and flexibility, can manage multi-tasking, and embraces change and development.
• An accessible and inclusive approach to community engagement that is welcoming and that relates to people from the community.
• A commitment to co-creation values of respect, equitability, diversity and kindness, as well as to equal opportunities.
• Availability to occasionally work flexibly, including on some evenings, weekends and bank holidays, as required by the events programme.
• Availability to travel around the borough of Newham as required for making connections, building partnerships, and delivering the events programme.
  
  

Desirable Criteria That Would Catch Our Attention:

• Experience of working with communities who encounter barriers to participation in culture or society more general, including as a result of language barriers or elements of deprivation.
• Experience of working with children and young people on engagement activities.
• Experience of working across multiple art forms.
• Experience of coordinating volunteers, artists, and/or casual or freelance staff.
• A good understanding of partnership working with organisations and individuals within and outside of the cultural sector.
• Knowledge of other languages besides English, especially those that are spoken by many in Newham (e.g. South Asian, African or Eastern European languages).
• Knowledge and experience of monitoring and evaluation, including writing evaluation reports.
• Knowledge of social media platforms and how they can be used to strengthen community engagement.
• Experience of and commitment to robust safeguarding principles.
  
  

We are keen for our team to be highly diverse, in every sense of the word. Therefore, we would love to receive applications from people who identify as working class, LGBTQIA+, deaf or disabled, care-experienced, young carers, and people from South, East and South East Asian heritage, African or Caribbean heritage, Gypsy, Roma or Irish Traveller heritage or Latinx heritage. We also particularly encourage people from Newham to apply.

Additional Information

How To Apply

To apply, please use Catch22’s Smart Recruiters platform to submit your application, by uploading your CV and including a cover letter in the ‘Message to Hiring Manager’ field. Your CV should list your relevant previous work history and experience, and your cover letter (max 4,000 characters) should address how you meet the person specification above and how this fit will help you to do well in the role.

If you have any questions about the role or recruitment process, you can email Loose Baker at [email protected].

Application deadline: 9am on Thursday 23 January 2025

Interviews: End of January

Start date: As soon as possible

The Creative Community Builder will be employed by Catch22 and receive its respective benefits and support.

See the benefits of working for Catch22 here.

Unless otherwise stated, interviews will be arranged as suitable candidates are identified, so early application is strongly advised.

At Catch22 we value equality, diversity and inclusion. We are wholeheartedly committed to the principle of equality of opportunity, both as an employer and as a provider of services. Diversity and Inclusion is part of what we do every day, working to deliver our vision to build a strong society where everyone has good people around them, a purpose, and a good place to live.

Catch22 is committed to rigorous safeguarding and safer recruitment practices; ensuring that every individual within the organisation has been safely and appropriately checked.

How To Apply

To apply, please use Catch22’s Smart Recruiters platform to submit your application, by uploading your CV and including a cover letter in the ‘Message to Hiring Manager’ field. Your CV should list your relevant previous work history and experience, and your cover letter (max 4,000 characters) should address how you meet the person specification above and how this fit will help you to do well in the role.

If you have any questions about the role or recruitment process, you can email Loose Baker at [email protected].

Application deadline: 9am on Thursday 23 January 2025

Interviews: End of January

Start date: As soon as possible

The Creative Community Builder will be employed by Catch22 and receive its respective benefits and support.

See the benefits of working for Catch22 here.

Unless otherwise stated, interviews will be arranged as suitable candidates are identified, so early application is strongly advised.

At Catch22 we value equality, diversity and inclusion. We are wholeheartedly committed to the principle of equality of opportunity, both as an employer and as a provider of services. Diversity and Inclusion is part of what we do every day, working to deliver our vision to build a strong society where everyone has good people around them, a purpose, and a good place to live.

Catch22 is committed to rigorous safeguarding and safer recruitment practices; ensuring that every individual within the organisation has been safely and appropriately checked.