Agenda item - Chairs Communications

28.1    The Chair gave the following communications:

            Tourism & Venues

28.2    Working with over 522 City partners engaged in tourism, in the last 3 months VisitBrighton had:

·         Continued to promote and support the Save Madeira Terrace Campaign

·         Hosted journalists that has resulted in coverage in: The Metro and The Telegraph

·         Hosted 30 press trips for journalists notably including: Meetings & Incentive Travel Magazine (UK),Olive Magazine (UK), Good Things (UK), Living @ Home (Germany), Gay Guide (Canada) and Mafengwo (China)

·         Seen 400,000 unique visits to visitbrighton.com

·         Engaged with 56k followers on Twitter, 22k friend on Facebook and 8k followers on Instagram

·         Handled 40 conference enquiries, confirming enquiries which will generate £2m on their arrival, most notably confirming:

-       National HIV Nurses Assoc Annual Congress – Oct 2018 – 400 delegates

-       Institute of Translating and Interpreting Annual Conference – May 2019 – 400 delegates

-       British Society of Immunology Annual Conference – Dec 2020 – 1000 delegates.

                        Living Wage Campaign

28.3    Brighton & Hove City Council had a funding agreement with Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce to deliver the Living Wage Campaign in the City. Its aim was to support and encourage local businesses to voluntarily commit to paying their employees the Living Wage. The Brighton & Hove Living Wage Campaign had been launched in 2012 and the number of businesses in the City signed-up to the campaign had been growing year-on-year. The previous week had been Living Wage Week - which had provided a great opportunity to celebrate the success of the Brighton & Hove Living Wage Campaign and to raise its profile. Over 350 businesses had now signed up to the local campaign in Brighton & Hove. The Living Wage was set independently and calculated based on what people needed to live and calculated according to the cost of living in the UK. As part of the Living Wage Week 2017 activities, the new UK and London Living Wage rates for 2017/2018 had been announced. The new UK rate was an increase of 30 pence to £8.75 per hour. Current Living Wage employers had until 1^st April 2018 to implement this new rate. 

                        Festival of Learning Employer Award

28.4    The previous evening, he had attended the award ceremony for the Festival of Learning Employer award for the Royal Pavilion and Museums (RPM) referred to at the last meeting of Committee meeting The award celebrates businesses that have used learning proactively to develop and utilise the skills of their workforce to improve productivity, raise morale, increase staff retention and enhance their business performance.  This workforce development programme at the RPM funded as part of the Arts Council funding pays to release front line staff to undertake different roles across the RPM.

            Brighton Museum and Art Gallery

28.5    He had also attended the opening for the House Biennial 2017 at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery recently. House Biennial in partnership with RPM had commissioned the artist Laura Ford to produce a sculptural installation ‘A King’s Appetite’ which took inspiration from caricatures satirising the life of the Prince Regent and imagery from the pottery collections.

28.6    The coming weekend would see a major new exhibition opening at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery Gluck Art & Identity exploring the life and work of the 20^th century artist, Gluck who was now also recognised as a trailblazer of gender fluidity. The coming weekend would also see the transformation of the Royal Pavilion for Christmas with festive decorations and glittering trees. Dragons, birds, flower and toys  were  intended to bring sparkle, glamour and Christmas cheer for all the family.

28.7    RESOLVED – That the contents of the Chair’s Communications be received and noted.