Chol’s Board Away Day: Ice Lollies and Strategy!

Last Friday, the whole Chol team sat down with our amazing board of trustees in Sheffield Workstation for our annual Board Away Day. It was a hot day at the end of a hot week but we were determined to bring the whole team together to take a look at where Chol is, where it’s come from, and where it’s going. 

I’m relatively new to the Chol team and had, until last Friday, never met our board before – I’d not even met Lauren (Schools and Education Lead) and Anna (Strategic and Development Lead) in real life yet! As someone who’s so far only been involved in a few specific Chol projects, it was so exciting to have a whole day to understand the strategy and planning behind the organisation.

With Anna’s expert chairing skills, we dug deep into Chol’s plan for the next ten years. We zoomed out and looked at where we sat in the arts and education landscape and how our work fit into the Yorkshire region. We got into the gritty details of what concepts like ‘arts education’ meant to us as an organisation. We considered what threats and opportunities lay ahead for Chol, not least what the new government might mean for those in the arts. We celebrated what we did well and examined what we didn’t.  

The day revealed to me how many different components, characters, and various contexts are involved in Chol. This is a strength of the organisation – we’re nimble and adaptive, work in various regions, are funded by multiple partners, and are experts at a variety of things across the arts and culture space. But it’s also why days like our Board Away Day are so necessary: it was vital we took a step back to see how all our moving parts could work best together to keep Chol thriving. 

The best element to the day was having (almost) everyone from the organisation all together in a room. It made complex strategic conversations easier to have and allowed everyone to get creative and ambitious when thinking about Chol’s future. It was especially brilliant to meet the board, hear their expertise and advice, and better understand what role they play in the Chol team. They’re a fantastically involved board and it was so fun to work with them and get excited about what’s next for Chol! The away day was a huge success, not least thanks to the ice lollies provided by the Workstation Station. I’m so excited for what’s to come!