Well, here we are in March and isn’t it a treat that the days are getting looooonger? We see you, equinox!
So, what’s going on behind the curtain?
Well, we have some super exciting events planned for our 20th anniversary celebrations. We’re planning the Mayven Festival, with a vibrant week each in Summer and Winter in my homeland Cornwall. We’re performing in Leeds and at Glastonbury. And we’re progressing with some of the work we mentioned last month around targets, measuring and monitoring. You might not think it the most exciting stuff in the world but we’re a company determined to make a positive impact – and as they say, if you can measure it, you can manage it.
But what is a Mayven we hear you ask? (We do, we do!)
Have you heard of the Maiden, Mother and Crone? This is considered by some to be a Triple Goddess, a model of femininity covering THE three aspects of a female life.
We’re a mix of mothers and not here at SLG (and as an aside, we actively support mothers coming back to work in rehearsals rooms, and we work with women during pregnancy, adjusting our timetables to allow mothers to work more easily – the lack of this support is a real problem in our industry) and while we are looking forward to being Crones (there’s a ceremony and everything) we’re aware that there’s a stage missing from this model. And that’s where Mayven comes in.
This is a stage of female life where power is high. It might coincide with menopause or perimenopause. It’s a maturing time, a time of self knowledge combined with vigour. Mayven is a woman who knows herself, and is living for herself. She is pursuing her own interests, understands her own power and is excelling.
Many of us in Team Scary are at this time in life and it’s fair to say we love it. Begone, youthful demons! (well, mostly..) Not yet the creaks of age…(well, mostly!)
Our Mayven festival will be a joyous celebration, covering two weeks, one in glorious Cornish Summer (please, the weather goddesses) and one in crisp Cornish midwinter.
Moving firmly behind the curtain now and into the Company Office, we want to tell you a little more about the targets and monitoring we mentioned last month.
As a company on a mission, we need to set ourselves targets to aim for. Some of the key ones we’re working on this year are these – would you have guessed these were things production hubs might do?
-Our Mayven Festival will present the work of 100 female creatives across the two weeks
-Our Salon de la Vie videos showcasing women will reach 10,000 people
-We will champion 5 working class actors from Cornwall
-90% of our employment will be for women
-60% of our employment will be for people with another protected characteristic
-We will provide 10 opportunities for emerging talent to gain early employment experience
-We are establishing our carbon baseline and looking at what we can do and how to mitigate that. This is a tricky one – we are DEEPLY DUBIOUS about carbon offsetting. But the first step is understanding our impact so that’s where we are starting.
-50% of each project’s production budget must be used in hiring, buying second hand, and upcycling
-We’re going to catalogue our kit and offer if to share with other Cornwall companies
-We want to create and sustain 5 school partnerships
-We plan to deliver 5 workshops with young people in Cornwall
-We plan to train 50 women or more in the use of remote digital technologies
We can’t wait to share the details with you as things take shape more and we do hope to see you at the Mayven Festival or one of our other performances. Remember, we want to hear from you if you’ve memories of us over the last 20 years – give us a shout here.
