Creative Business Mentoring Week

Glasgow Connected Arts Network CIC are delighted to be collaborating with architectural firm Hawkins Brown for a FREE business mentoring week in January 2023, to support the GCAN network members and beyond.

Kickstart your new year and spend some dedicated time strategically developing your small business as either an individual, collective, or small organisation. You can either sign up for one, or all of the following workshops which all take place in person at our hub at Civic House.

Tues 17 Jan, 10am - 12pm: Lean & Mean Marketing w/ Renee O’Drobinak

This session is aimed at those of you who don’t have time to promote what you do…but you know you should. We’ll talk through the basics like understanding your audience, identifying where they hang out, and simple, doable ways to keep your business on their radar. Welcome to lean and mean mar/comms. Also known as getting bang for your buck out of one of your most precious commodities: your time.

Thurs 19 Jan, 10am - 12pm: Writing an Effective Business Plan w/ Alastair Roberts

This session will look at business planning: what’s a business plan for, who is it for, what goes into a good plan, how to write your plan and how to use it in your business. Useful prep for participants: write a concise description of where your business is now and where you want it to be in 5 years’ time and bring this to the session. This session will include creating an effective elevator pitch, setting goals and financial goals.

Thurs 19 Jan, 1pm - 3pm: Fundamentals of Finance w/ Alastair Roberts

An overview of different financial / business structures, pros and cons of each, how to start yourself off in the right direction and how to get the right advice. Useful prep for participants: think about your long-term goals as a business and who your stakeholders are, and how these might evolve over time. We can’t give formal accounting / tax / legal advice if you have any questions specific to your business do submit these in advance so we can cover them at the session.

Meet the mentors:

Renee O’Drobinak

Once described in PR Week as the 'Japanese Slovakian-American performance artist', Renee hails from a pretty unusual mix of cultures and professional experience. As a Communications Manager at Hawkins\Brown, she works with area specialists to creatively translate project milestones (and scribbled ideas on napkins) into compelling narratives about the practice’s work, communicating them across a range of mediums. Renee is a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art and the London College of Communications. In the past, she has co-led creative workshops for the likes of Tate, Southbank Centre and Wellcome Trust and has guest lectured on art and print at universities in London, Denver and Oslo.

Alastair Roberts

Alastair has spent his career working in the creative industries. Since 2015 he has been Chief Operating Officer at Hawkins\Brown, an internationally-renowned architectural practice of over 250 architects, interior designers, urban designers and researchers with studios in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin and Los Angeles. Before joining Hawkins\Brown he spent ten years in the commercial television sector, working in strategy and corporate development roles at Channel 4 and Endemol, before becoming Managing Director of the commercial division of the Royal Opera House.

Venue Information

Civic House is a multipurpose building which hosts a number of different arts events and activities. This event will be held in their ground floor venue space which is wheelchair accessible. Please let us know if you require access support prior to the event so that we can arrange this with the building manager.

Accessibility

We wish to create a safe and welcoming event for all. Please let us know how we can make the event accessible for you by contacting us at [email protected].

Getting Here

The venue is accessible by public transport with the closest underground station being Cowcaddens or train station being Charing Cross or Glasgow Queen Street. There are a range of bus services which also stop near the venue including the 60 and the 17.

There is on street parking around Civic House which requires payment via metres or the ring go app. There are also bike stands.

Tickets

This event is FREE to attend thank so sponsorship from Hawkins Brown. However, we do ask that if you commit by booking a space, that you please let us know if you can no longer make it. Spaces are limited so this will allow us to offer the place to someone who may be on the waiting list. If the event is fully booked you will automatically be added to a waiting list and notified when a place becomes available.

Host or Publisher Glasgow Connected Arts Network