•I am told the new chief executive of Creative Scotland will have a salary reduced around 10% from departed chief executive Andrew Dixon's renumeration of £120,000.
The post will be advertised soon, perhaps next week.
•This week Creative Scotland has introduced its 'Action Plan for Change', and much of the contents we have heard or read about before (which is not to say they aren't - at least - a welcome change in tone from 2012). The artist bursaries, perhaps coming with some shades of the Irish Aosdana system, look interesting as does the newly proposed Annual Conference, which has all sorts of potential (of various kinds).
• That Creative Scotland needs to even point out that "funding applications will be assessed by staff with relevant knowledge and expertise" is illuminating. You would have expected that from the get-go, surely.
• The document is clear and concise but of course, it is how these plans are actually put into action that is the key point. And who puts them into practice, which brings us to....
•....it is odd that the chief executive's role - or that of a chief operating officer - isn't mentioned at all. And what role they will specifically play, externally and internally.
• In regards to other news from Edinburgh, I mentioned on Twitter that Alex Poots, who knows Edinburgh well, seems to be doing a commendable job at the Manchester International Festival could be a name to connect to the CS chief executive job. But of course he would be far more apt as the potential successor to Jonathan Mills, who steps down as artistic director after his final big show, the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival.
•Speaking of which, this year's EIF programme, to be fully unveiled next week, looks like Mr Mills' most challenging but intriguing yet.
•This is an educated guess only, but what with the Glasgow 2014 Commonweath Games in his final year, and that year being the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, I can well imagine an 'Empire/Former Colonies/Commonwealth' theme for Mr Mill's final festival, and I know it is indeed a theme and subject very close to his heart. It is three-quarters programmed already.
•A more solid push for the Glasgow ticket buyer is being signalled in the staging of a festival launch in the city next Thursday, although customers from the west of Scotland are already on the increase at the EIF box office. Mr Mill's grandfather on his mother's side, incidentally, was born in Partick.
•The first Creative Scotland open session is next Friday, in Dundee. I look forward to attending.
•It was a good decision, albeit a tardy one, to stage an open session in Glasgow. Not to have one in the nation's biggest city - and where a lot of artists, creative people, and companies live and work - looked either a little bit perverse or a little bit scared. I am assured that wasn't the case, and it was hoped people from Glasgow would go to the Greenock event. I won't make any jokes about babysitting.
and
•I would urge the gentleman who called me late last year about a serious matter to get back in touch.
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