This update covers recent Screening Days activities, trustee recruitment results and new ICO staff and board demographic data.
Screening Days
In our Screening Days programme, we set a minimum quota of 30% of titles from Black, Asian and ethnically diverse and/or disabled directors, a number significantly above the average in distribution that our programmers are selecting from. In general, we have exceeded this quota, with some events reaching 50% or higher representation and always at least meeting it. We have also given priority in our audience development slots to titles within this area of focus so that cinema workers have more opportunity to discover how they can help these titles meet their possible audiences.
We have also continued to offer an open call opportunity for session proposals, delivering 10 slots from our wider networks that have helped us promote ideas that would not otherwise have reached our national audience. This expands our thinking and reduces our gatekeeping, as well as opens us up to a new audience as we promote the open call. We also have continued our Introducing… programme, offering attendees the chance to see emerging talent from people who have been otherwise excluded in filmmaking.
As well as what we show on screen, we are also looking closely at the contribution we make to who is within the workforce. We are piloting paying front of house workers from our host cinemas to join the event, knowing that they are often the most diverse category of workers within the organisation, can benefit from exposure to wider information about exhibition and also would otherwise struggle to attend the event without resource. We are also doing more to spend time in outreach to attract a more diverse audience for the events.
Finally, we have appointed three new members of our advisory board, who help us look at structural challenges to diversity within our organisation and the programme. Shanida Scotland, Joseph Harris and Jodie Wilkinson will help guide us and create interventions so we produce a representative and progressive programme.
Trustee recruitment
We invited six candidates out of the 14 we interviewed to attend their first board meeting in February. Beforehand, they were allocated a board and staff buddy and had meetings with both to support them in their new roles. They were offered the chance to attend a session with the ICO’s Head of Finance to go through the financial papers and reports that form a key part of every board meeting. They then undertook the National Council of Voluntary Organisation’s new Trustee course.
After the board meeting they were invited to formally confirm they wished to join the board and were added to our records on Companies House and the Charity Commission.
Read more about our new Trustees. As of May 2022, a number have joined several of the ICO’s board sub-committees – for example, Finance and HR & Personnel.
Updating demographic data for our current staff and Board of Trustees
In May 2022 we surveyed our staff and Board of Trustees for their demographic data again. Download the information.