Most governance trouble starts long before anyone notices it. A plan that has never been tested, or a constitution nobody has read since the day it was filed, looks fine until the moment it’s needed. On 2 and 3 November I’ll be at Governance Now 2026: Purpose & Place in Middlesbrough, the Cultural Governance Alliance’s conference with Clore Leadership. I’m running two sessions, each aimed at getting ahead of that moment.
Monday: the Culture Crisis Lab
From 2pm to 4pm on Monday 2 November, I’m running a taster of the Culture Crisis Lab. It takes the desk-based exercise that the emergency services, the NHS and government use to rehearse emergencies, and adapts it for cultural organisations. Our workforce is a mix of staff, freelancers, volunteers and trustees, and our buildings are workplace, venue and visitor attraction at once.
The scenario runs in turns. New information arrives, and the group has to decide and commit before the next development lands. Trustees, senior managers and staff work through it around the same table. Nobody fails: the plan might, but the people never do. The point is to find the gaps while the stakes are still imaginary. And, as with a real crisis, the subject stays secret until the session starts.
I wrote about why rehearsal matters, and why the cultural sector needs its own version of it, in Arts Professional.
Tuesday: Dump the Default
On Tuesday I’m co-presenting a session on the choices most boards never knowingly made: their legal form, and the model constitution they started from. The default is still a decision.
We’ll look at the forms on offer, from the charitable company and the CIO to Royal Charter bodies and community benefit societies. A guest speaker will explain how community benefit societies work and why they can suit arts organisations. Then I’ll turn to the model documents themselves: not what they say, but what they leave out. Delegation. Terms of office. Whether the chair has a casting vote, and whether anyone actually decided that. Two case studies will test the room, one on removing a trustee and one on paying one. The answer isn’t always in the constitution: sometimes statute decides.
We’ll finish with how to change things, starting with a step that’s easy to miss: checking whether a lender or funder has to agree first.
Two sides of the same question
The two sessions come at one question from different ends. A crisis tests whether your people and your plans hold up under pressure. A dispute, or a difficult board decision, tests whether your constitution says what you think it says. Either way, the time to find out is before you need to.
Two things to do now
First, get the copy of your governing document that is actually on file at Companies House, the Charity Commission or the FCA, and check it against the one you use. They don’t always match.
Second, at your next board meeting, take 20 minutes to walk through one scenario: the building is closed tomorrow, the systems are down, and the chair can’t be reached. Who decides what, and on whose authority? That conversation will tell you a good deal about your plans, and about your constitution.
If you’re coming to Middlesbrough, do come and find me: both sessions come with handouts to take back to your board. Tickets for the conference and the Culture Crisis Lab are booked through the same Eventbrite page, and spaces at the Lab are limited. If you’d like help reviewing your constitution, or rehearsing a crisis in your own organisation, do get in touch.
Sources:
Governance Now 2026: Purpose & Place (Clore Leadership) · Tickets (Eventbrite) ·
Are you good in a crisis? The case for rehearsing the worst (Arts Professional)
