About Us
Celf fel Newid Cymdeithasol yng Nghymru Wledig
Art as Social Change in Rural Wales
Co-creation is at the heart of how SPAN Arts decides what to do, where to work, and who to work with/ for.
Building on the past 30+ years of community practice, we seek out the marginalised voices within the community, as well as key partners to work together to create the change they wish to see.
We aim to create work that has local relevance and global resonance.
Everything we do is defined through direct creative conversations with our community and artists. We work through open calls for ideas, community response to needs, and artist-led creative solutions.
We co-create work that:
- Challenges inequality
- Champions diverse voices
- Celebrate the Welsh language
- Challenges stigma around mental wellbeing
- Engages the community in the climate conversation
Where we work
SPAN has an office base in Narberth but works across the county of Pembrokeshire and into West Wales.
We take our work and engagement to our community and audiences, rather than expecting them to travel to us. Focusing on animating and redefining our relationships with the outdoors, community spaces, and both digital and shared spaces as creative places, our work mostly takes place outside traditional arts infrastructure. We use community halls, school rooms and youth spaces, forest floors, and car parks, as well as online, taking our work to the heart of our community across the county.
In place of a booking fee, we ask for a small donation today to bring the arts, community celebrations and engagement to people across Pembrokeshire for years to come.
We provide opportunities for a wide range of people to gain skills, experience and take part in the community. This can be a vital lifeline for many isolated and/or vulnerable individuals living in rural areas.
SPAN ARTS does not exist without the artists and creatives we collaborate with. We work to ensure we pay out artists fairly, value the work that they do, and support their continuing development in the county.
We aim to engage artists and creatives in every level of our thinking and planning from our Board membership to our commissioning processes.
Meet the Team
Staff
Creative Collaborators
Trustees
SPAN has a strong board of Trustees who help guide the charity to achieve our mission of Art as Social Change in Rural Wales. We are always looking to ensure the board is representative of the communities we serve and has the mix of skills, lived experience, and connections needed to help drive our work forward.
If you are interested in getting more involved in the future of SPAN and want to find out more about what being a trustee means you can download the application pack for Board Membership.
SPAN Arts are actively and publicly anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-homophobic, and anti-transphobic. This unmovable core principle shapes who we partner with, who we approach for support, who we employ, how we work, and who we work with.
We embrace the social model of disability and cultural model of Deafness and expand this understanding to include the fact that systematic structural barriers are at the core of discrimination and lack/loss of access.
SPAN Arts of today recognise that we, and the wider arts sector, have historically not done enough to challenge and change the systematic inequality and discrimination. The causes and effects of the Black Lives Matter and We Shall Not Be Removed movements, the rise of antisemitism, transphobia, and homophobia for instance have sparked many into action, some into guilt or inaction. These societal failures are not new, they are systematic, institutional, and constant. SPAN Arts commits to doing better. This is not an add-on to our programme, but one of our core values.
We understand that diversity of lived expertise across all levels of our charity is core to ensuring good governance, good management, and creating relevant work.
We hold ourselves to account and commit to making public our annual engagement demographics, including the makeup of our staff, Trustees, and artists that we work with.
2022/23 Demographics
2023/24 Demographics (pending)
SPAN Arts Equalities & Diversity policy
SPAN is a proud bilingual organisation with Welsh-speaking staff, board members, volunteers, artists, and Welsh and Bilingual programming. We understand the importance and place the Welsh Language has within our community and our cultural offer.
The strength of our work to support our community’s access to culture in the Welsh language has been recognised by being awarded the Cynnig Cymraeg recognition by the Welsh Language Commissioner.
As laid out in our Welsh Language Strategy and Development Plan, SPAN is committed to the fundamental right of everyone, who wishes to do so, to have access to services through the medium of Welsh and strives to follow this principle when delivering our work.
We commit to ensuring:
- Our website is available in Welsh and English
- Most of our social media content is in Welsh and English
- Event advertising is in Welsh and English
- The static content of our social media sites is in Welsh and English
- Most of our signage at events is in Welsh and English
- Our vacancies are advertised in Welsh and English
- SPAN offers Welsh language events as part of its artistic programme
- SPAN works with and supports Welsh language artists to develop new work
- We encourage all staff to learn Welsh utilising the free resources suggested by the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Hybu Team and the Arts Council of Wales.
Alongside these commitments, we ensure that Welsh speakers voices are represented at all levels of our decision-making, from our Trustee Board, team members, volunteers, and in the cocreation sessions that inform our work.
SPAN Arts works in co-creation with a wide range of communities or interests and identities across West Wales, and partners with third-sector, public, and private organisations who share our aims.
We are commissioned and tender to deliver specific project work that is complementary to our wider programme. We also work with partners to apply for funding to enable ideas and projects to happen.
If you are interested in working in partnership, commissioning, or sponsoring SPAN Arts please contact Bethan Touhig Gamble, SPAN Arts Director director@span-arts.org.uk
SPAN is working to make our events and creative opportunities as accessible as possible, from accepting alternative formats as part of our standard recruitment and open calls to artists to committing to only booking physically accessible venues.
As a non-venue-based organisation we use lots of different spaces across the county so don’t have a standard access map. We are working on how we share access information with our audiences and participants for each event and activity.
If you have any questions about accessing any of our activities you can speak to Bethan Morgan our Community Producer via email info@span-arts.org.uk, or you can call the SPAN office Monday to Friday 9-5 pm at 01834 869323 to speak to a member of the team.
SPAN Arts is committed to reducing our carbon footprint to net zero by 2050. The environmental impact of our work is considered as part of our programme development, and budgets and projects are designed to make sure we do not have to comprise this.
In 2022 we will measure our annual carbon footprint for the first time to allow us to measure both our impact and as a baseline for improvements.
2021/22 SPAN carbon usage:
- Units Conversion Factor CO²e kg Scope
- Purchased electricity 1974 0.2556 504.6 2
- Gas 13134 0.18385 2414.7 1
- Staff miles 1794 0.27901 500.5 3
- Volunteer miles 9152 0.27901 2553.5 3
- Electricity Distribution 1974 0.0217 42.8 3
Total: 6016.1
Total CO²e is 6016.1 kg, though 3096.9 kg (51%) of that is Scope 3.
To improve this SPAN commits to:
- Consider the ethical life cycle of our resources:
- Shift to a full green tariff for electricity suppliers
- Prioritise local suppliers and promote community and public transport options to reduce food and travel miles
- Support hybrid working to maximise efficiency and reduce unnecessary travel to work
- Programme hybrid and digital participation work to allow for remote engagement
- Recycle across all office, event, and participation activity
- Co-create work that raises awareness of climate emergency such as our Love Stories to Nature commissions
- Develop an Environmental Action Plan with the support of the board, team, and our artists by 2025, and review annually thereafter
