With the start of another year, no doubt you have already promised yourself to make 2019 the most successful year yet and are brimming with resolutions and positivity! Looking towards the coming months, it’s an ideal time to refresh your Culture Challenge profile and consider revising your offer to schools for 2019.

This month we embark on our exciting Twinning project where Bedford based schools will granted over £1000 of Culture Vouchers to spend with Culture Challenge providers. Knowing that teachers will be browsing the Directory, there could not be a better time for refreshing your profile and making sure you’re presenting yourself in the best way possible. Also, why not join us for an exciting Speed Dating event on 26th February for your chance to meet with the schools participating in the project?

Beyond the usual text revisions, here are a few handy tips to help you begin refreshing your Culture Challenge profile:

Do you have any new images you would like to include on your profile? Where the temptation might be to include a gallery of your artwork, images of you working with young people are by far the best way to convey to schools what they will be getting when making a booking.

Are your contact details up to date? As well as the usual email, website and phone number, did you know that we can also link to your Facebook and Twitter profiles? If you are active on social media, this can give schools a great impression of what you are currently working on and some of the past projects you might have been involved with.

Do you have any videos of your creative practice hosted on You Tube? Now we can easily embed videos into your profile with a simple link to the video. Check out Skip Beatz and The Chellington Centre as examples of our providers already including this media-rich content.

Remember that you should have permission from the school and/or young people’s parents to use their image. Photos of busy hands or backs of heads are a great way round this problem, without detracting from the focus of your activity.

If you have any revisions you would like to make, please email The Culture Challenge Assistant Ailene (aileneg@bedfordcreativearts.org.uk) who will be happy to make the necessary changes for you.

Finally, we’d love to hear about any exhibitions or events you might be involved in, so when shouting about your work on social media, please tag us so we can retweet or repost to our network, which includes other creatives and schools across Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes. We’re @BedfordCulture on Twitter, @theculturechallenge on Instagram and don’t forget our Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/culturechallenge/.