Who we are
Culture Works directors are Anne Allen, Jane Shaw and Judy Seymour
Anne Allen
As well as being a co-director of Culture Works, Anne trades as Bowman Solutions. She originally studied archaeology and is a member of the Museums Association.
Amongst her recent portfolio of work is the conversion of a car showroom into NeST, studios, gallery, cafe and work space for digital and creatives in Barnard Castle. She is currently working on the development of the Witham, a community & cultural centre in Barnard Castle.
Durham County Council (August 2007 – March 2013) research, development and delivery of 20 year vision for Barnard Castle, working with partners in public and private sector and reporting to a Partnership Board.
Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council (May 2009 – April 2011) Demand Study and Feasibility for Creative Industries Centre in Redcar; Demand Survey for Digital Fellowships; and Demand Survey for new green and creative business workspace in South Bank. She has just finished a contract as Interim Creative Advisor growing digital and creative businesses for a new £6 million HUB building on Redcar seafront due to open in 2012.
Jane Shaw
As well as being a co-director of Culture Works, Jane is company director of People into Enterprise Ltd. Jane has an MA in Entrepreneurship from Durham University, is an associate of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at Durham University, the enterprise advisor to Newcastle College and was Entrepreneur in Residence at Newcastle University in 2008.She is a fellow of the RSA, a mother to four children and is studying for a degree in costume construction at Cleveland College of Art and Design.
Jane has over 25 year experience of working within enterprise development. Having established her first business Tandem Dance, a company delivering community dance projects to a diverse range of groups across the County Durham in her early twenties, Jane is currently working on a range of entrepreneurship projects across the region including business start up programmes for women, those working in the creative sector, social enterprise development initiative, animation and ideas generation events and training for trainer programmes.
Judy Seymour
Initially trained at the Royal Ballet School, Judy graduated from Birmingham University with a degree in Drama and Theatre Arts before working in France for three years with Tretaux Libres, a company using physical theatre techniques to mount large scale events and happenings. On returning to England she founded Them Wifies Community Arts. She became fascinated by how people learn, completing an MA in Education and then moved to Northern Ireland where she was Director of an organisation working with grass roots women’s groups, supporting their involvement in the peace process – ‘an amazing experience’. The north east beckoned however and after ten years, she returned to take up post first of all as Director of Northern Cultural Skill Partnership and then to set up Culture Works.
Her recent work includes successfully bidding for resources and subsequently, co-ordinating the delivery of the north east Cultural Leadership Programme; temporary editor of the Arts Research Digest, and a consortium member of making it_ an enterprise start-up programme for recent graduates recruiting strongly from arts related courses.
She is trained in Social Return on Investment methodology, is a member of the SROI practitioner network and is inspired by ‘things that are fun and contribute to social justice and sustainable ways of living’.