Agenda item - Chairs Communications

68.1      The Chair provided the following Communications:

“In the last 3 months VisitBrighton has worked with over 545 City partners.  They have generated 300,000 euros worth of press coverage in Germany and over £200,000 worth of coverage in the UK including Meetings & Incentive Travel Magazine, The Telegraph, Ideal Magazine, Yahoo and Suitcase.  Alongside this VisitBrighton ran a ‘Where Else’ social media campaign to mitigate the Mainline Rail Closures.

The Brighton Centre has submitted proposals for 37 conference enquiries which have the potential to generate £14m of economic benefit.  There are confirmed bookings for 15 new meetings and events including POMS Conference (200 delegates), Head & Neck Cancer Conference (250 delegates), International Radioactivity Congress (400 delegates) and TUC for September 2022 and 2024 (2000 delegates).  475 bednights of accommodation for conference clients has also been booked generating £4k commission.

The Royal Pavilion, BAi360 and Sea Life Brighton have been jointly promoting a rebranded multi venue Explorer Pass with support from VisitBrighton which was launched just before February Half Term.

January saw the opening of the Elaine Evans Archaeology Gallery at Brighton Museum which has been receiving positive feedback from visitors.  It has been developed in collaboration with schools to provide a resource for the delivery of early history and the Brighton & Hove Archaeology Society. One teacher has said “My Year 5 class were really buzzing when we visited the exhibition. We were in there for an hour and it retained their interest the whole time”.

An exhibition of hats by milliner Stephen Jones can be seen in the Royal Pavilion until 9^th June which includes designs worn by Lady Gaga and Diana, Princess of Wales. The Royal Pavilion has long been an inspiration to Jones and many of his hats reflect the wonderful, whimsical, radical nature of the Royal Pavilion, specifically his Spring/Summer 2012 collection Chinoiserie-on-Sea.

Material Practices 2 Painting and Printmaking opened at Hove Museum & Art Gallery which is an exhibition of final year students from the BA Fine Art Painting and Fine Art Printmaking courses at the University of Brighton. This is the second time that the Museum has been showcasing students’ work and can be seen until 29^th April.

The Booth Museum celebrated International Day for Women and Girls in Science with a free Discovery Day:  The Wonder Women of STEM (Science, Maths, Engineering & Technology) on Saturday 16^th February.  This attracted nearly 400 visits and included a performance inspired by the collections by Hertford and Carden Junior School children.

At the Royal Pavilion and Museum a local young person has joined for a one year traineeship to learn about digital skills in the museum sector. This is part of the Museum Futures scheme run by the British Museum on behalf of the Heritage Lottery Fund.  RPM is offering work experience placements to 8 young people from Longhill as part of a cultural hub with Our Future City, Samesky, the Dome and Fabrica this year, as well also offering placements to Patcham, St Johns SEN School, and Seahaven Academy. These will take place in June/July.

I have attended with Cllr Platts a positive meeting on improving access to the beach. Those present included representatives of the Scope supported project team and Possibility People together with council officers.

Whilst everybody acknowledges the challenges that the beach terrain presents with regards to accessibility, there is a strong desire to make improvements where possible. The priorities of the stakeholders have been identified from community research and now structured into development phases. The meeting agreed a number of key actions in the first instance which will then be reviewed at the next meeting. These actions include a review of the use of the beach wheelchair, an assessment of the feasibility of a viewing platform in a quieter area, development of a seafront accessibility map and signage, an access and an engineering audit to be undertaken of the seafront and an initial investigation of potential funding sources, beyond that which can be accessed through internal council resources or via Scope’s Local People Programme.  This work will now be progressed and a report will provided to this Committee at a later date to ensure that there is oversight of this important issue.

Following the success of the bid for Brighton & Hove to be a host city for UEFA Women's European Football championships in 2021, it is great news that the England Lionesses’ match with New Zealand will take place at the Amex Stadium on June 1^st at 1pm.  The game is England’s final warm-up before they leave for the Women’s World Cup in France. The match will give fans the chance to see the country’s top players and give them a good send off to the World Cup where they will meet Scotland, Argentina and Japan in the group stage.

Finally, I attended the Brighton & Hove Area Cricket Hub on Monday of this week and it was good to meet everyone involved and inspiring to hear of the work being undertaken on youth cricket participation and inclusion, particularly the promotion of female participation”.