RRTRBILITV D I ARY 1ARTABILITY' -A DIARY This is an attempt to put down chronologically the events surrounding the doomed Artability Conference which had been due to take place in Manchester 22-24th, September, 1986. Glossary. Coalit ion = Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People; an organisation of disabled people whose management committee and workers are all disabled. DPSG = Disabled Peoples Steering Group; this is a sub committee of Manchester City Council's Equal Opportunities Committee. Its Members are all delegates of disabled controlled organisations in Manchester, and as a body it makes policy on disability issues which are then carried out by the Equal Opportunites (disabled) workers in the council's Equal Opportunities Unit. BCODP = British Council of Organisations of Disabled People; both the Coalition and the DPSG are members of this national organisation which brings together all those organisations controlled by disabled people. Artability » as well as the title of the conference this was also the name of the planning sub-committee of the Carnegie Council. The Council had been set up by the Carnegie Trust following the 'Attenborough Report' on Arts and Disabled People, published after a committee of enquiry, in 1985. Numbers in brackets will refer to numbered documents. (1) 18 Oct 1985; Artability Committee meets at Palace Theatre, Manchester. I don't whether this was the first meeting of this committee. Of the 7 members listed, as far as I know none were disabled. An outline of the proposed dates and timetable for the conference was attached to the agenda, so obviously some work had gone into it already. Note that Manchester Council's representative was to be Chair of Social Services Committee, not a disabled representat ive. (2) 13 Nov 1985: 2nd meeting at the Palace of the Artability Committee. This meeting decided on the title 'Artability', and included a disabled person (Chris Davis from the Spastics Society). Knowledge of the accessibility of possible venues seems to be totally absent, and was left to 3 able bodied members of the committee to sort out. (3) 15 Dec 1985; Letter sent by Simon Goodenough, Chair of the Artability Committee, to Mary Elstow, one of the Equal Opportunities (Disabled) workers in the Equal Opportunities Unit. In line with Carnegie's policy of inviting individuals, the invitation to join the Committee is via personal recommendation and Mary's supposed 'special interest'. It is clear that by now the whole outline of the conference has already been decided and the committee is 'mainly concerned with administrative matters'. Tragically Mary died in a road accident a few days later. - 2 - (4) 14 Jan 1986: Artability Committee meeting at the Palace. Minutes make it clear that the programme was by and large in its final format. Some of the workshops intend to invite disabled people as leaders. A comment here from an internal memo of a London based group is relevant here:- 'A colleague of mine at for example was roped in to jointly run the seminar long after an able bodied woman with no particular qualifications had been invited to do it'. Note also that a limit was to be set on the number of wheelchair users going to the Gala Day and the conference as a whole. (5) 5 Mar 1986: Artability Committee meeting at the Palace. Councillor Kath Robinson (Chair of Social Services, Manchester City Council) appears for the first time,(on what basis?). Note 'Health Through Arts' forum, suggested use of Eddie Shah for publicity, display at Town Hall (Kath Robinson must be aware of its inaccessibility). (6) 14 April 1986: Letter from Anne Pearson of Carnegie to Councillor Robinson, Chair of Social Services. Again, usual tactics of personal contacts to get things done. Also, letter (1st May) from one of the Equal Opportunities workers to Anne Pearson saying the issue would be raised at the May DPSG meeting. (7) 29 April 1986: Town Clerks Memo informing various departments of Whitworth Art Gallery 'do' for 'Arts and People with Disabilities' Who approved this and why did it not go to the DPSG? (8) 13 May 1986: Agenda and minutes of Artability Committee meeting (a)(b) at the Palace Theatre. For the first time an Equal Opportunities worker (one of the admin workers, not disabled), and a member of the Coalition attended as observers. It is important to stress this as neither group had taken any decision on their attitude to Artability, though their suspicions had been raised by comments from London based disabled controlled groups informally. Notice the obsession on trying to get as many 'celebrities' to attend as possible. Concern expressed about getting HRH Prince Charles to attend. First mention of 'incendiary speeches' from plants in the audience. Maximum of 30-40 wheelchairs at Palace (see access report, item 18). Funding from City Council now agreed for Whitworth 'do' ( who decided?) and free hire of Wythenshawe Forum. Idea of 'Arts for Health' competition mooted by North West Regional Health Authority. (9) 14 May 1986: DPSG meeting, doubts about the conference were forcibly expressed. It was a close run thing whether to boycott the conference there and then, but eventually decided for Chair to meet with Artability and recommend further action - certainly not to join the Artability Committee as a representative. (10) 17 May 1986: BCODP meeting in London; Artability discussed at this meeting. Manchester's Coalition delegates were convinced that a decision was reached to 'Boycott and picket this conference' (later disputed by the Chair). (11) 6 June 1986: Coalition meeting; this meeting agreed to oppose the Artabiiity conference, based on the BCODP report and the report back from the member who attended the May 13th Artability meet ing. - 3 - (12) 18 June 1986: letter from chair's of Coalition and DPSG to BCODP making it clear that in no way were either organisation supporting or involved in the Artability Committee. (**) 20 June 1986: Meeting between 4 members of the Artability Committee and 4 from the Coalition and DPSG. I think this was originally to have been another meeting of the Artability Committee at the Palace, but at our request it was transferred to the Coalition offices. This was really the crunch meeting where two very different points of view clashed head on for the first time. Artability have produced minutes of this meeting but as these are disputed and need to be checked in line with our tape re cording of the meeting, they are not attached. At the meeting the arguments against the way the conference was being organised were put forward and Artability put their views forward. What did become clear was that the gala night at the Palace was in danger of being cancelled, not because of the access problems, but because not enough celebrities had agreed to come. No agreement was reached by the end of the meeting. (**) 24 June 1986: Rachel Hirst, Chair of BCODP attended the Carnegie Council meeting as an observer. From her verbal report on this meeting she was obviously given a rough ride and said that it was up to the Manchester groups and BCODP to make their own decisions about Artability. (**) 25 June 1986: Phone call to me at work from Geoffrey Lord, Sec. to the Carnegie Trust. This lasted for over 1/2 hour, and was fairly typical of a series of calls received by myself and Ken Lumb (Chair of the Coalition) over this period. I made notes of this call by the end of which I feltpummeIled since he made it clear that if there was any controversy in Manchester then "Trusts, Companies and Foundations will back away" and it would " affect a big fund for increasing access to theatres etc. from the Government". Also a £50m Department of Education Support Grant would be threatened. To think that a few of us handing out leaflets on a wet September evening could have such an effect! What was also clear from this phone call was that the whole basis of the way Carnegie operates was in terms of 'by invitation' membership of committees, with the emphasis on eminent persons. For example, he mooted the ideas of a post-Artability committee to be headed by Brian Rix who was soon to retire from Mencap. (13) 30 June 1986: Letter sent by Geoffrey Lord to both the Coalition and the DPSG. In this he offers to not use the Palace - not because of its bad access, but as a bargaining counter for us to withdraw our opposition. There was also a carrot of some free tickets for the big do! (14) I July 1986: Letter from Chris Davis, the only disabled member of the Artability Committee, arguing that we should support it. The counter arguments to this are summarised in Item (16). (15) 2 July 1986: DPSG meeting; after a long discussion about Artability, a motion was passed unanimously condemning the way the conference had been organised and calling on the City Council to withdraw its support for the conference. - 4 - (16) 4 July 1986: Coalition meeting; a similar motion against Artability was passed. This motion is included in the excerpt from the article appearing in the next Coalition newsletter. (17) 12 July 1986: BCODP Council meeting, held in Manchester. Again another long discussion about Artability, and a motion opposing it was passed with all delegates in favour except one abstent ion. (18) 16 July 1986: Equal Opportunities Committee, Manchester City Council; This committee fully supported the DPSG as can be seen from the motion, and also added condemnation of the pressure that had been put on disabled people to withdraw their opposition. This was thanks to the support of a councillor, Sheila Robertson who was a negular attender of the DPSG and aware of all the issues involved.