Organisational Development

Progressive social and cultural change often begins in the margins of society. But many innovative cultural organisations are starved of resources for Research and Development. Gerri aims to use her skills as a facilitator and her training in community building to help these organisations find time and space to review, plan and re-mobilise.

For example, in the summer of 2007, she worked for 2 days with the Steering Group ofTheatreLab, a radical and innovative Belfast based theatre company as they consolidated and clarified their artistic and organisational priorities.

Karen McFarlane of Theatre Lab says

‘In a very short space of time, Gerri managed to create a relaxed but productive atmosphere and had a remarkable intuition about the individuals in the group and how best to format the session, enabling everyone to participate fully and contribute creatively. I am really grateful to Gerri for the production of an ethos and vision for Theatre Lab and a set of guiding principles and practice which will ensure that all the work we undertake contributes to the overarching aims and objectives of the organisation. The Working Group has fused very successfully since the work with Gerri. It was also great fun working with her and I hope to continue collaborating in the future.’

Evaluation

Gerri has a commitment to evaluation, as a way of supporting personal learning and long-term organisational development. She is particularly interested in helping organisations develop their own evaluation systems, in the belief that this is more financially sustainable for them and more likely to lead to significant and positive results.

Alice Bradshaw, Head of Operations of Greater Manchester Music Action Zone, says

 ‘Gerri has worked with us as an external evaluator, facilitator and advisor for a number of years. Since GMMAZ was founded by Youth Music in 2001, Gerri has played an integral role in designing and implementing rigorous evaluation processes, which respond to the needs of multi-partnered educational arts programmes. From 2001-2005, Gerri worked as an independent evaluator for GMMAZ (then a consortium) evaluating the impact of the partnerships between consortium members and the content of projects. GMMAZ continues to refer to this piece of work when evaluating the impact of our programmes and we continue to place self-reflective practice at the heart of our activity under the guidance of Gerri’s models. In more recent years Gerri has taken the role of advisor and facilitator for us, supporting the organisation through stages of development and growth. Gerri’s support has been invaluable to the organisation’s success and we look forward to working with her again soon’.