Literature And Verbal Arts Manager
Community Arts Partnership, Belfast
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Position summary: Managed all aspects for the annual Poetry in Motion for Schools project, Poetry in Motion for the Community projects and the Seamus Heaney Awards (sole award in late Poet Laureate’s name). This included all regional projects for the largest community organization within Northern Ireland. Poetry in Motion is Community Arts Partnership’s innovative literary program for primary, secondary, grammar and special schools. Since 2001 more than 15,000 students have taken part in this project, and over 2,600 poems have been published. Poetry in Motion aims to develop the creative abilities and enable their poetic voice through language and image.Duties included the management, training, and mentoring of facilitators, facilitation of workshops, administration, budget control, event management, the editing and collation of audio and text based anthologies, supervision of the selection and shortlisting for the Seamus Heaney Awards.Achievements:• Appointed, trained, managed and mentored artist facilitators for school and community residencies and public events• Coordinated 60+ artist residencies in schools and communities per year• Developed, wrote and facilitated writing workshops on poetry, reminiscence and creativity.• Evaluated and monitored all LaVA programs for end of year reports• Managed annual budget of $50,000 and all financial expense tracking and processing• Coordinated and edited poetry submissions and anthologies for print and audio formats• Managed multiple large scale events (with up to 1,000+ attendees) each year• Promoted projects to schools and communities through development of relationships• Increased engagement with application process more than 200%• Press liaison & media management with local and regional press• Represented CAP, and presented, at national conferences• Managed the Seamus Heaney Awards for Achievement and for New Writing. Reviewed submissions, coordinated shortlisting, judging panel and adjudicated process.