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The hoot office will be closed from Friday 16th December and we will be back from Tuesday 3rd January 2023. Please leave any messages on our voicemail or email info@hootcreativearts.co.uk and someone will be in touch with you as soon as possible.

Most of our activities will be back from Monday 9th January 2023 but please check our Activities page to see dates for specific groups. 

Season's greetings and we hope you have a restful and enjoyable end to 2022. See you in the new year. 

Happy New Year!

We hope you've had a restful and enjoyable end of the year. We’re excited to be kicking off 2023 with 3 new workshops on offer here at hoot. 

Evening Singing Online for adults in Kirklees 

Our popular online singing group has moved to a new evening slot on Thursdays from 6:30 – 7:30pm. Free for adults living in Kirklees who want to do something to help look after their mental health.  

Absolutely no experience is needed, and your mic will be muted during the session however you will still be able to hear all parts being sung by our fantastic singing leader Jess. 

You will need internet access and a device that can use Zoom for the video call, but you can choose to keep your camera off if you’d like to.  

To join the sessions in January, sign up online here  

Dance & movement workshops for adults in Kirklees 

We’re really happy that dance and movement sessions are back at hoot in the new year. Free for adults living in Kirklees who want to do something to help look after their mental health. 

You don’t need to have any dance experience or expertise, sessions are all about moving your bodies and doing something creative to make you feel good. Why not give it a try? 

Sessions start Monday 9th January and will take place on Mondays from 11am – 12:30pm 

To join the sessions in January, sign up online here 

Speak our music: wellbeing sessions for musicians  

Speak our music is a series of wellbeing sessions for musicians and musical artists. Join us for an engaging and inspiring evening of non-judgmental discussions about our relationships with mental health and music in a supportive environment. Food and drink provided. 

This session hosted by Wilko Wilkes, alternative rapper, music producer and rap workshop facilitator from West Yorkshire. 

Wilko talks openly in his music about his struggles with depression and how music has helped with his journey of recovery. 

Witness live rap from Wilko before taking part in an open creative writing session and, should you choose to, taking the mic to perform to a supportive audience. 

Places are limited so secure your place online here 
Part of Kirklees Year of Music 2023 

hoot creative arts are thrilled by the news from Arts Council England that we were to remain within the National Portfolio of arts organisations in England (NPO) with a significant uplift to the funding we receive. 

Working in a Priority Place and with strong contribution to ACE’s Let’s Create Strategy with our focus on the mental health benefits of engaging in arts activities we were hopeful that we could get a good outcome…but you never know! 

The team at hoot have been working flat out during the Covid-19 pandemic to meet the increasing levels of need for services like ours, and to refine the changes that were necessary in our day to day activities to maintain contact and delivery with participants whilst keeping everyone safe. This funding will allow us to build some much needed additional capacity and relieve some of the pressures experienced by the team over the last couple of years. 

Highlights we are particularly excited to build upon include: 

• A successful partnership with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services to develop ‘Creative Space’ evening drop in sessions  (Huddersfield and Batley). 

• Partnership with Older People’s Residential services to deliver within care homes and develop the Creative Care Planning initiative. 

• Redesigning the dementia service ‘Breathing Space’ to ensure delivery meets needs post covid. 

• Funding secured to develop a service for people with Learning Disabilities in residential and community settings. 

• Kirklees Year of Music 2023 - Health and Wellbeing programme and legacy development. 

This growth across our projects will be accompanied by new core staff and leadership roles so keep your eyes on our website and social media for recruitment calls starting soon for a wide range of exciting new roles. 

We are proud to be part of a strong group of NPOs in Kirklees but are aware that many great organisations weren’t successful in applying for NPO status and we are keen to work in partnership and use our status as an NPO to bolster the creative health sector in Kirklees and beyond. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported hoot over the years, we are looking forward to what's next. 

hoot creative arts is looking for people with an interest in creativity and health, diverse voices and wide-ranging skills & experience to become trustees and help us to showcase how being creative makes us feel good. We are also looking for a new Chair to lead our board of trustees.

This is an exciting time as hoot embarks on the next stage of its development. Joining our board now is a fantastic opportunity to help lead and develop the charitable company as we celebrate our 20th anniversary and look ahead to the next 20 years. 

At this pivotal moment for hoot, we wish to strengthen and diversify our board. We recognise the beneficial impact that diverse voices and lived experience has on the work we do, and we actively encourage applications from individuals from all backgrounds and communities, especially from Black and minority ethnic communities and other groups who are under-represented in our sector. 

As a trustee, you’ll need: 

• Enthusiasm & interest in the creative arts and/or mental health. 

• To be a strong advocate for the charitable company.  

• Ideally, a specialism that will enable you to support hoot in a targeted area.  

• To attend quarterly meetings and other sub committees or time limited task & finish groups. 

As the Chair, you’ll need: 

• Interest in or experience of working at a board level or equivalent), ideally as Chair, in either the public or private sector 

• Be willing and available to spend time between meetings supporting and leading governance activities. 

• Leadership/management experience at a senior level and be willing and available to support the CEO and Senior Management Team. 

• To think, act and lead strategically 

• Be committed to the Vision, Mission and Values of the charity 

If you have some questions about whether becoming a trustee is a good fit for you, please contact us for an informal conversation before committing to applying: info@hootcreativearts.co.uk  

For more detailed information about hoot, our work and how to apply, please download the hoot trustee recruitment pack HERE

This is an unpaid voluntary role.

This is a rolling recruitment, and we will respond to applications as and when they come in so if you are curious please reach out. 

We aim for hoot to be a supportive and nurturing workplace where you can feel able to explore and grow your professional practice. Read about our commitment to inclusion, diversity and equity in the arts. 

‘If art is the act of making and sharing meaning and thus defining the human experience, then, self-evidently, it is, or should be, available to everyone.’ (A Restless Art – Francois Matarasso)

Inclusion Diversity and Equity in the Arts IDE(A) : Is a prism through which we will view all of our work and that has driven a brave and uncompromising internal discussion.

During 2020/21, prompted by the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter protests globally we have been holding regular discussions amongst the staff team around Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in the Arts, what we at hoot have called the IDE(A). We have challenged our individual behaviour, practices and unconscious biases and this continues professionally in our recruitment (of staff and participants), programming and marketing, outreach and audience development. These discussions have been really useful and are on-going, but we have agreed we must now move into an action phase to address IDE(A) across all our operations and IDE(A) will be a priority from this point on so that our practice and the systems that support it change. We encourage everyone associated with hoot to raise questions and challenge as this is the only way we will make real progress as an organisation, as individuals and as a community.

With IDE(A) at the heart of our thinking we recognise that ethnic minority communities are insufficiently represented across both the cultural sector [6] and the charity sector [7] We commit to ensuring our Board, employees, freelance contractors, membership and stakeholder groups are representative in terms of ethnicity, as well as Disability, socioeconomic background, sexuality, age and all recognised protected characteristics. We commit to amplifying Black voices and the voices of ethnic minority communities through our website, bulletin and social media. 

To this end we are now moving from focusing on inequality to building equity and will prioritise Inclusion, Diversity and Equity as a central theme throughout our work in 2021-22 to build equitable internal systems for the long term :

• In programming and delivery methods group and 1:1 (digital / in-person /off line/ Spectrum)
• Of participants (based on local demographics & communities we are not currently reaching ethnicity / geography / protected characteristic)
• The referral routes (self and from partner organisations from community & voluntary sector, public sector)
• In identifying needs (adults, people with dementia & carers, older people, children & young people, secure settings, health inequalities  etc)
• In devising a Sourcing Strategy for recruiting a more diverse  workforce & governance team(ethnicity / gender / artform / location/skills/educational attainment). 
• In appropriate funding sources (grants / investment / earned / commissions/donations) and what those funders are engaged in.
• Our project development pipeline (eg. initiated by empowered communities, co-production models)
• Developing new and existing partnership and collaboration (local, regional, national & international)
• Diversity in working practices and staffing structures (agile, remote, office based)
• In marketing and promotion of the projects hoot offers

We are not a funder, but as a charity working within arts and mental health, two sectors with historic record of discrimination and inequity we find the Association of Charitable Foundations model of nine pillars a useful way of thinking about the steps we should take:

1. invests time and resources in understanding and defining diversity, equity and inclusion
2. produces and reviews strategies that will implement DEI [diversity, equality & inclusion] practices
3. collects, tracks and publishes DEI data on its own practices and performance
4. has a diverse trustee board and staff team, both in terms of demographics and experience
5. reflects and implements DEI practices in its funding activities
6. expresses its DEI commitment, policies and practices publicly
7. makes itself accountable to those it serves and supports
8. uses its own power to advocate for and advance DEI practices
9. collaborates with others to promote and implement DEI practices

‘Culture is the expression of beliefs and values in the everyday conduct of life. Art is the toolbox that enables people to interfere with their own culture.’ ( A restless Art – Francois Matarasso)

We’re really chuffed to be welcoming you to our brand spanking new website where you can discover how being creative makes you feel good. Things are looking pretty different around here but we’re still the same hoot team you already know. 

If you’re new around here, welcome! We’re hoot and we’re dedicated to championing the benefits that being creative has on our mental and physical health, and well-being. 

Ready to get stuck in? Head over to Activities and to see all the creative activities on offer right now. You can sign up to join our online hub hoot from home, or get creative booklets delivered right to your door (sounds good, right?)

This site is fresh from the oven so if you do spot a bug or an error let us know at info@hootmusic.co.uk

Ta'ra for now - the hoot team