Announcing Meeting the Moment, 26 Nov

The extreme right are taking to the streets. Genocide is taking place across the world. The EHRC ruling around toilet provision could change who feels welcome in our venues. Removing Disabled access support will impact who can make art. Climate change is battering our buildings.

We believe these times require cultural organisations to facilitate difficult conversations and champion brave art. But the funding environment, charity regulation, social media and general exhaustion can prevent us from doing it.

Meeting The Moment is a one-day event for the culture sector that will support leaders with the tools and resilience they need to speak up for what they believe in. 

Why are we holding this event?

Watershed is a values-led cultural organisation. In the past few years, we have worked to ensure our programme is relevant, inclusive and engaged with the issues of our age. In general our audiences have responded with love but we have also been targeted and criticised - for hosting April’s WECA Mayoral Transport Hustings, for championing toilets for everyone, and for hosting screenings about Palestine. 

Solidarity, knowledge sharing and the generosity of others has got us through. And in turn, we have been asked by others to support them in their values-led decision making. We believe it is time to scale that up. 

Meeting The Moment is for Senior Leaders and Trustees from organisations that want to participate in speaking up or making change but feel nervous or unsure about doing so. The emphasis of the day will be a mix of practical tools and sharing to nourish and empower each other. 

The day will cover the fears we have about speaking out, how to maintain our personal resilience and support staff, what we can and cannot do in terms of charity law, how to show up for communities being targeted and how to manage a communications pile-on in a crisis.

There are 100 tickets available and we have structured pricing to keep the day as accessible as possible. Find out more and book your tickets. The full programme will be announced at the end of September and ticket holders will be sent the line-up directly.

We are grateful for the support of The Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Book tickets for Meeting The Moment