We recently had the opportunity to catch up with the Culture team at The House of St Barnabas, which is made up of Nadra Shah, Director of Culture and Alice Sewell, Culture Executive .

1. What types of events do you run at The House of St Barnabas?

The Culture Series is our cultural and social strand and is a mix of acoustic gigs, engaging conversations and talks.

We run a number of event series including Dirty Rotten Socials which focuses on all things social and looks at different ways to drive change, and 37 Things you Need to Know About Modern Britain, produced in partnership with the cultural consultancy BUG and forged from a mutual desire to affect positive social change by asking provocative, open-ended questions about life as we live it today. This year is the Year of the Independent Label, a celebration of great independent labels that have always been at the forefront of developing and growing dynamic, new and fresh talent.

Last year we produced Art Social 14, a first four day multi-disciplinary arts and culture festival for which we received funding from the Arts Council; a massive achievement. We are looking forward to Art Social 15 which will take place in September.

2. Why do you think The House of St Barnabas is such a popular events destination?

Our Culture Series is a platform to voice and share opinion, to listen and support new music and discover contemporary art. Above all it is open to everyone, accessible and relevant to the way in which we all engage with society.

We strongly believe that social and cultural inclusion go hand in hand so all our events are a reflection of the values of the organisation.

The programme is carefully curated to be unique and inspiring. The Culture Series provides an open forum to come together, be entertained and spark brilliant ideas.

We hold unique events in our magical chapel that challenge and disrupt expectations, take guests out of their comfort zones and ask them to roll up their sleeves and get involved. This tangibility has created a loyal following around the Culture Series.

3. How many events did you run in 2014, and are you planning to grow the numbers in 2015?

Lots! We held three Dirty Rotten Socials and Things 7, 8, 9 and 10 of 37 Things you Need to Know About Modern Britain, discussing topics such as ‘Do we get the Press we Deserve?’, ‘How to be a Man’ and ‘Is Money Ruining London?’.

In addition Richard Strange, actor and Founding Member of our not-for-profit private members club, hosts the talk series A Mighty Big If in our chapel, chatting most recently to musician Marc Almond. Previous guests have included actor Brian Cox, writer Damian Barr and Gary Kemp.

All of the above plus our Summer Jazz Series has meant a busy and diverse year.

Over the next year we will continue the series 37 Things and our Dirty Rotten Socials and very excitingly will be running the second Art Social, our multi-disciplinary festival.  So yes, we have many events already planned for the coming year with more to be announced – watch this space (and our twitter @HoStBarnabas) 

4. What are the biggest challenges that you have faced in running your events and what did you learn from them?

For us resource is always a challenge; we are a small team and our biggest struggle is to find the time and people power to bring all of our ideas to life. What this means is that it is only those ideas that we are truly passionate about that are produced, the events that we would definitely all buy tickets to ourselves. Essentially this is our quality control and ensures that every Culture Series event is unique and inspiring.

5. Do you have any tips on how to reach a bigger audience for your events?

Social media; it may seem obvious but it is a really great tool to reach wider audiences and engage people with an event both before and after it takes place. We encourage interaction and participation across the Culture Series and we actively seek to engage with our audience, Using social media, particularly twitter, allows us to continue the conversation following an event, ensuring that great inspiring ideas are not lost in the moment but live on and hopefully continue to have traction.

Secondly don’t stray from your creative truth, sounds a little out there but careful curation and not being afraid to say no are powerful tools.   We have built a reputation as “quality curators” by standing by what we truly believe to be the right way for The House of St Barnabas to present cultural experiences.

6. What is your favourite Eventbrite feature and why?

The monthly calendar of recommended events is great; there is such wealth and variety on Eventbrite and this enables me to find lots of really great things going on that I may not have otherwise been aware of.

7. What was your favourite moment from your recent events?

Our third Dirty Rotten Social, ‘Rise of the Business Geniuses’ produced some really fantastic ideas.

We divided the audience into groups with our “experts” in enterprise; Rob Forkan, co-founder of Gandys Flip Flops, Bejay Mulenga, founder of Supa Tuck, Ernestina Hall, Head of Strategy & Communications at Virgin Management and Michael Solomon, director of Profit through Ethics. Each group was asked to come up with a business plan that would bring back to life one or many of London’s disused phone boxes.

The task enabled the audience to work closely with the experts, to discuss how to create a genius business and to explore where the balance between commercial, ethical and social lies and where making money and being socially responsible collide.

The evening produced a ‘How To’ with golden nuggets drawn out by host Michelle Morgan, Managing Director of Livity, as well as some truly wonderful plans for productive, profitable and socially responsible ways to use the phone boxes. Watching the groups present these to each other was a really great moment as it demonstrated the power of group thinking and of our Dirty Rotten Socials to make real positive change and have a legacy. We are currently on the lookout for a telephone box to adopt so that we can put these ideas into practise and would be grateful to hear from anyone who knows of a contender! (Please get in touch – alice@hosb.org.uk) 

8. What are you most excited about for your events in 2015?

‘Year of the Independent Label’; it is a great opportunity to engage with a diverse range of music from some really exciting labels. We have worked with some of the curators before and know that they will create fantastic evenings that celebrate the fresh and exciting talent they support.

9. Where can people go to learn more about events at The House of St Barnabas in 2015?

We announce new events on Twitter @HoSTBarnabas, Facebook /HouseofStB and list all events on our website www.hosb.org.uk/our-culture

Images courtesy of Tom Dymond (info@tomdymond.co.uk | 00447825740400) and Tom Horton.