The Rise of the NDA

 I mean it sounds like a Stephen King novel doesn't it? Like some odious triffid-like creature that threatens the mere existence of us mere mortals. Before you correct me I'm aware that it was John Wyndham that created the triffids, but I obviously went for the writer more easily associated with horror stories. Anyway. . . back to the point of the blog.

NDAs or Non-Disclosure Agreements to give them their full legal title have been around around for decades, they came into their own in the 1970s, however, it wasn't until the 80s that they started being de rigueur in legal settlement agreements. When they originated (and indeed even today really) they made sense. Companies dealing with valuable intellectual property wanted to protect their knowledge and innovation, and so wanted to ensure that employee X couldn't just nick their ideas or indeed sell their ideas to other companies.

Interestingly enough most of us became really aware of NDAs through court orders designed to protect abusers. An affair here, an out-of-wedlock baby there, maybe even some criminal activity, all shrouded in secrecy by the perpetrators being financially able to pay their way out of a scandal, with a cheeky NDA thrown into the deal to guarantee that the story didn't come out, thereby ensuring that their "perfect public image" remained intact.

More recently our industry has seen an explosion of NDAs being used, predominantly for castings eg it's not unusual now if a performer is auditioning for a major production they are first required to sign an NDA. In a way, like the origins of the NDAs, this makes sense - there can't be that many creatives around who haven't seen one of their informally discussed creative brainwaves be turned into a show by a bigger, more resourceful company before they could ask for loose change for a reading. I completely get wanting to protect your idea.

However, there is a huge concern that the use of NDAs is being exploited by companies with the resources to gag and isolate performers. In fact, so much concern that Equity have now issued guidance on it. Then there's the thing that completely floored me when I first heard about it - drama colleges getting people to sign NDAs, indeed not only drama colleges, universities too. This is seemingly so much of a big deal that even the government have stepped in to stop it happening. When all the various horror stories were coming out about the systemic abuse and racism in certain colleges, it was striking that people were too afraid to speak out because of this NDA culture.

When discussing NDAs with some friends quite recently I discovered that it's now considered normal to add some sort of NDA into a termination of a contract package. . . not, I should quickly add for the protection of the person leaving the job, solely to protect the reputation of the organisation that they're leaving.

Which leads me to this conclusion - why has it become the norm to silence people that might have something incredibly important to say? When did this sub-culture start to emerge in the UK which basically says that those with money have the right to silence those that need it? We're not talking about intellectual property, we're not talking about trade secrets, we're talking about a culture of silence designed to protect those people and organisations that know they've done wrong. It's like legal blackmail - if you want the financial settlement either at the end of a contract or as compensation for some wrongdoing, you have to sign away your right to speak out. They are legally preventing people from implementing change, meaning that those toxic environments & indeed toxic people can simply move on to their next fodder.

Seemingly I'm not the only one to think that this is corrupt and indeed immoral, back in 2020 Forbes published this take on the situation, and there is currently a lot of talk within the UK of NDAs not being enforceable when they have been used as part of a golden handshake (surely that should be handcuffs), or when the power imbalance is such that the person felt compelled to sign the order.

Money should not buy silence when there has been wrongdoing - and do you know what would work better? A radical idea I know but I'm going to run with it. Treat people properly then you don't have to buy their silence.

People Watching - Social Media style

Since the first lockdown, I've been fascinated by the work of the conspiracy theorists that have worked solidly for nearly two years now to portray themselves as enlightened, whilst nicknaming all the rest of us mere mortals as sheep. As a Welshie I've got no issue with being linked to the Bovidae family - it comes with the territory.

I wrote about my experience at the time here. I enjoyed the sport of chatting and challenging these people. To be clear I don't condone trolling, so my interactions were always respectful as in truth I felt concerned for a lot of the people holding onto the drivel that some of these conspiracists came up with. Then after reading a bit more I became interested in how these people were monetising their hate. A Just Giving account here, a Patreon account there, the monetization of successful youtube channels - it quickly adds up to a healthy income.

What I quickly discovered is that there were known "leaders of thought", people that portrayed themselves as helpful but in reality, were feeding the anxieties of their followers with their various "concerns". As the pandemic continued you could see that some of these people were loving their newfound celebrity status, whilst also professing to have been forced into the limelight as "somebody had to stand up for all the injustice" These people were operating outside the realm of the known right wing media like Toby Young, Allison Pearson, Peter Hitchens et all, but were building followers of thousands.

After the college FB account got attacked by some anti-maskers over our panto "Covidella and the Masked Ball" I took even more interest in these groups. I couldn't understand how a simple stupid online panto was suddenly being accused of being a propaganda tool for the government.  I mean I know that it was a pandemic but we were talking about covid here, not some mind-altering virus, as if I'd be hired as a propanda tool for the Tories. Hell at one point somebody had a go because even the mice in the cartoon postcard were masked! On a FB ad we were getting trolled left, right and centre, with the most used words and phrases being that we "should be ashamed of ourselves", we were part of the government's "propaganda" machine, and the most popular word. . .paedophiles. Literally we were accused of being padophiles for "abusing children". To clarify. . . all because we said 'masked ball' and the cartoon characters on the promo were masked. 

It was then that I discovered that right wing groups consciously looking to divide and rule were deliberately infiltrating alternative medicine groups, spiritualist groups and groups focused on holistic wellbeing. So they were targeting people who already had an issue with "big pharma". Most of the ground work was already done for them. Of course fast forward a couple of years and there is the much held belief that the origin of all this nonsense was just part of the new online war with Russia. Divide and rule. . . whichever way you have to do it. What was also really evident from the people that fell for this nonsense was that these dangerous messages were really hitting their target with people that had known mental health susceptibilities. It was fascinating to watch friends and acquaintances falling down the rabbit hole.

When challenged they would all helpfully tell me that I was being manipulated by MSM (Mainstream Media). They would link me to "facts" that were always so easy to disprove. I learned more about covid and the ONS in a 3 month period than I would have thought possible. Through the joy of social media algorithms I quickly found a group of people like myself that would call out this nonsense. It was a lovely feeling of community at a grim time. 

When the answer to every probing question is "you're being manipulated" it becomes a dangerous narrative. Their followers really were like sheep (ironically), all stating the same "message" like loyal followers. At the time my nephew was working on the NHS front line up in Liverpool. Pre and post pandemic he's a geriatric consultant, but like many in 2020 he suddenly became a 'covid doctor', and like many on the front line would tweet about his experiences. As I read his tweets with pride, I was bemused by how many people would call him a fraud, claim that he wasn't a doctor, accuse him of being "in" on the conspiracy. It's when you see the truth being distorted like that you understand the magnitude of the problem.

One of the people that really fascinated me was the journalist Anna Brees. A few of my friends had sent me clips of hers in a bid to convince me that covid was not real. However that's all I saw was the smoke and mirrors of somebody that had found her niche. I would regularly challenge her narrative, always politely - then one day she sent me a DM stating that "(your) comments on some of my posts recently are very negative" Her message went on to tell me that if I "constantly questioned (her) journalistic abilities" then she'd block me. I wrote back informing her that it was social media ie we could all interact, I mentioned that I was curious as to why she was trying to silence me. She declared me to be toxic and blocked me, not before taking a screenshot of the blocking and posting it to her thousands of followers claiming me to be "dangerous". Cue a social media pile on of her followers, like the gangs from your playground memories, they'd blindly play "follow my leader". Increasingly I noticed that the people shouting the loudest about protecting our "freedom of speech" were only looking to protect their own freedom.

I've continued to follow this group of people as I've been interested to see what they go for next now that the "loss of liberties" created by the pandemic has subsided. One of Anna's mates was the recently convicted stalker Alex Belfield.  They would appear on each other's feed tantalising their followers with the prospect of a joint channel (though I think to be fair that was just Anna angling for that - Belfield was far more successful than her, so she was hoping to nab a few more followers). 

Belfield's persona was clearly to play up to his right wing audience. Like all the rest he claimed that he was simply executing his "freedom of speech", but unlike Anna his venom was very much on display for all to see. How anybody could watch one of his phone ins and not just feel utter contempt at his style is beyond me. 

So this is when my "hobby" of SM people watching finally collided head first with our industry - as Belfield loved a "showbiz story", and he also loved going after people in our industry. For somebody looking for notoriety in a Trump like fashion he's just found the ultimate accolade - the first person in the UK to be sent to prison for online stalking.

It is well known that Belfield went after countless people in our industry, and many of them have spoken out recently. However I was struck yesterday by Ben Hewis' post about the impact Belfield's campaign had had on him and his family. I remember when Belfield turned on Ben, and watched the escalation online. Reading Ben's account though this was clearly just the tip of the iceberg. 

Knowing the connection I nipped across to see what Anna had to say about her "mate's conviction".  True to form she's currently framing it as the "establishment" out to get Belfield. Her follower's are back to talking about paedophiles, but this time in a bizarre whataboutism as they try to compare the perceived severity of Belfield's sentence with the perceived leniency of a paedophile. 

Those seeds planted in 2020 have been watered, nurtured and propagated like a good 'un. Empathy of anything outside of "the fight" doesn't exist. Today I was reading how Right Said Fred like Brees and the rest loving a bit of misinformation, accused Ben of being upset by some "hurty words", implying that somebody should just accept being stalked by somebody who is clearly unwell. Zero empathy.

This court case might make others think twice about selling hate - then maybe we'll all find out if these people are deluded, ill, or merely opportunists looking for their next Patreon subscriber.

Changed For Good

 When covid hit and we were faced with the bizarre reality of being confined to our homes none of us could have guessed quite how long those "strange times" would last. When the theatres went dark in March 2020 it's hard to recall now that there was a belief that they'd be closed for a couple weeks, whereas of course in reality those weeks quickly turned to months. I remember the excitement of taking my children to watch a drive-in Dinosaur show after months of nothing. As my children looked on in amazement and wonderment I distinctly remember sitting in the driving seat shedding a 'happy tear' just to watch a company of actors being able to work again.

Even though this is very much our recent history it already feels like a lifetime ago that I was in my kitchen doing the homeschooling with my eldest prior to rushing online to check in with the college. I remember telling one of my students who was struggling with the lockdown that once it was all over, it would be like returning home from touring - it would be like we'd never been away. Normal life would just trundle on as it always does we'd just be a bit more knowledgeable about ourselves, as anything away from the ordinary is bound to influence our future self.

As I've said before I'm writing a book about The MTA at the moment, and it's fascinating sketching out the pandemic chapter - how quickly we all adapted and changed in a bid to ensure that no time was lost.

Of course, the reality is that covid is still very present, whether it's a random positive test, a reminder to wear your mask in certain settings, or for so many people the debilitating legacy of long covid symptoms lingering on like a bad memory unable to be 'filed' away as finished. Recently I was chatting to someone that was telling me quite how many friends they've lost recently, friends that prior to covid were young and healthy. For many the explosion of sudden deaths fits nicely into the anti-vax rhetoric, it feeds the paranoia that the pandemic left the world with. Of course in reality (and according to multiple peer-reviewed papers now), the reasons for the excess deaths are somewhat complex. A mixture of a global population that was exposed to a deadly virus (it was never a bad cold), leaving more people than we realise with ticking time bombs as the virus goes for one more mutation, plus a global population that stopped routine appointments, meaning that early warning symptoms have been missed.

2 years on our industry is struggling to find its way forward as I wrote about a few months back. Pre-covid the thought of a show being cancelled was just unthinkable. The adage "the show must go on" was our lived reality, post covid though there are no such guarantees. Even at the college level of producing shows it was terrifying how quickly things could change.  All of The MTA's shows since March 2020 were hit in one way or another by a covid outbreak and each time it gave me sleepless nights trying to work out the logistics. . . and that's without the pressure of needing to break even, so hats off to all producers muddling through this strange time.

As the UK lurks from one crisis to another though there's one thing that's struck me recently - how so many people and indeed so many organisations didn't actually "evolve" during the past 2 years, and how right up to the government there appears to have been a naive belief that we would all simply recalibrate back to a pre-pandemic time.  I'm bemused how so many people have missed the evolution and therefore have failed to plan for it.

Take our industry - the constant cancelling of shows has a profound knock-on effect on our audiences. Even as somebody in the industry I hesitate now to book a ticket too far in advance, I'd rather wait and take my chance on the day that I want to go, yet in making this choice I'm also mindful that there are producers needing to see an advance ticket sale. I'm assuming that time and time alone will restore a much needed equilibrium to this, but I also wonder whether from hereonin the show won't go on? 

Whilst our perceived reality pre-2020 was that things were somewhat fixed eg you'd book a holiday and assume that your flight would happen, we now find ourselves in a world full of uncertainty, and I'm curious how that permeates throughout society. 

Speaking recently to some business owners I was struck by their optimism that things would "soon get back to normal" but they seemed to have missed the point entirely that normal in 2022 has a different complexion from normal 2019. It should be noted that not all the changes are bad, take zoom life for example, the fact that the pandemic normalised video conference calls as opposed to traipsing here, there and everywhere for meetings that often took a fifth of the time to travel to places is revolutionary for personal time management. As a parent of young children the normalisation of hybrid working is a game changer, but I can also recognise that this change has the potential to change the city landscape for good.

We lived online for over a year - that is bound to change us all. I've definitely noticed that my concentration span is much shorter these days. I sense myself metaphorically scrolling through information said in person to me with a sense of undue urgency. With online life comes the pros and cons of social media, the artificial divide that's created when we all unwittingly believe a truth just because somebody wrote it down and posted it.

What will it mean for the training industry this fast-scroll life that now exists as a shop window to dance and drama training. Well I think that we've already seen a shift. It's no coincidence that some of the newer colleges that hit the ground running with their brilliant social media campaigns of commercial videos have done considerably better than the "old guard" colleges over recent years. The rapid growth of quite a few of them has been fascinating to watch. As with all these things only time will tell if they're actually any good. It'll be interesting to see their stats over the next few years to find out the quality of that growth. Alternatively of course there's my other theory that elite training is on its way out, and bulk "life training" is on its way in. When training hundreds at a time there will always be enough clickbait to mute the fact that the majority of students don't do that well. 

As for waiting for things to settle down and go back to "normal" though. . .we all have to accept that "normal" has always been a moveable point.

We all live in glasshouses

It's been a wee while since we've caught up with the Trinity "case". In the past couple of weeks we received the result of the external arbiter's investigation, plus a defiant letter from the Chair of the Board, which once again threatens me with legal action if I discuss my experience with Trinity, and indeed my concerns about the entire process. However last time I checked we still lived in a free country (I mean, thanks to the Tories, only just) and I am completely entitled to publicly discuss my concerns, just as I am entitled to state that I've received additional information, so these constant threats of legal action are clearly designed to shut down a dialogue that I'm completely entitled to have. It should be noted the level of detail that I consciously go into in these blogs - I do this to justify clearly and rationally why things just don't add up, and why maybe another narrative that has been disclosed to me. . . does. Anyway. . .to continue

So the story so far from Trinity's perspective can be traced here, here, here,  and here. I feel that it's vitally important for you to read things from their perspective, after all opinions and thoughts are formed when we have all the information.

You might have read in The Stage that the arbiter did uphold our complaint with regard to the process taking so long, however, they didn't uphold our other concerns, concluding that Trinity "operated with appropriate due diligence as a validating body". As you might imagine I don't necessarily agree with that conclusion. If we hadn't pushed our initial complaint Trinity considered our case closed after complaint No 1. However we did escalate it, and our complaint was upheld, therefore is that due diligence? Of course, the counter-argument is that the organisation had a safety net in place which allowed us to proceed with our complaint, however, I would still argue that the complaint should have been taken seriously from the beginning. We had 6 pages of corrections on a 9 page report - is that due diligence? It should also be noted that the majority of these corrections were upheld. We have evidenced some serious concerns which have not been fully investigated - is that due diligence?  

The new narrative from the organisation appears to now be around a complete U-turn on original thoughts after an assessor watched one of our shows. A show incidentally that they had made positive verbal feedback about on the day. According to their records this assessor had clearly gone away and rethought their original praise which of course they are completely entitled to do, and on reflection felt that the show didn't meet the correct standard, these revised views were, we were told shared by our main assessor, however, they've never explained how he actually came to share these views, as he didn't come to see the show? So when did he watch it?  Given that this one show is pivotal to one of our "issues" surely this is a critical point? It would be great to have a straightforward answer to this given that so many things seemingly changed on these observations. 

Such was the level of their concern the narrative now is that they "diligently" watched additional material online to get greater clarity, oops sorry, that's now turned into sampled additional material online. The wording changed after we called them out on their original claim that they had watched our productions. Was there an expectation that they would have watched all the shows that they had asked us to send to them - of course not? Life is far too short. Do I think that you can judge the dance standard of a college by watching 6 mins of a show, 2 mins of which is a couple of title screens, 3 mins of which is a whole college dance piece expertly choreographed by Jreena Green as a piece designed to show the true origins of jazz dance, deliberately using set moves to trace that history? As an aside, this piece was part of our commitment after BLM to operate with an anti-racist policy. So the moves that they deemed to be "too simplistic" were an accurate, authentic re-enactment of the origins of jazz dance from the black history perspective! So do I think that they can form an opinion of a standard based on those 3 mins? I think that you can guess the answer. Then let's not forget at this point that in the classroom observations there were no concerns about the standard.  Is it any wonder that we still have questions?

Anyway. . .back to the concerns, it was noted in the arbiter's report that on 15th March there appears to have been a handover document between our assessor and the person that would eventually deliver the report to us. Just as an aside it should also be noted that this was the exact day that the original assessor wrote to me apologising for the delay in getting our report to us, stating that the other person (that'll be the other person that was involved in the handover) had been off work ill with covid for 3 weeks, and they were hoping to return soon. So was it usual practice for handovers to happen when people were off sick? I'm aware that the assessor was waiting to discuss some things with the other person. . .though interestingly nobody has flagged up those specific questions anywhere? Even more interesting to me as they were issues that I had flagged up given that we were the first accelerated programme to undergo a validation process. Anyway, back to the "handover document" it was in this document that the concerns around the standard of dance were documented, having "diligently" sampled more of our online work, but here's the thing. . . the online stuff wasn't "sampled" until 8th June. Our main assessor was on "sick leave" from at least 25th March. On 9th June they came to assess a show and assessed that all students had reached the standard required in all 3 disciplines? The dates just don't add up for the level of concern that was seemingly raised.

They've used this perceived "concern" over dance to explain away the absence of any observations from the singing and acting classes on the day of the pre-validation assessment. Of course, this is quite key to our belief that the notes from the main assessor were not handed over in their entirety. The suggestion now is that the report "helpfully" focuses on the area of concern. They weren't concerned about our singing and acting so they didn't bother including any classroom observations. So why pop in an observation report about the voice class - that wasn't an area of concern? Or could it be as we've always suggested that two assessors watched that class? The only observations missing are the classes observed solely by the main assessor.

Trinity have created a strong narrative around us needing to put in a structure for formal assessments, and how this would have been a cultural shift for us, but erm. . .via our shows of work and via our productions, we had shifted to an assessment structure back in 2020, the main assessor was aware of that, he had seen the schemes that we were using. The arbiter quite rightly noted the adjustments that we would have had to have made if we were a college that didn't already have these systems in place eg they asked where these assessment points could come in our calendar, who marked them, what would be the marking guidelines, what grading systems would we be using, how could the feedback be given and in what timeframe. . .all extremely valid points, except that if they'd checked the student handbook all that information existed. Literally, the only thing that was recommended for us to change around assessments was the marking criteria. In fact, what they had asked us to do was far easier than what we had done previously. From 9 subsections of marking looking at personal development as well as industry-readiness their recommendations allowed us to just give 3 marks. We couldn't believe our luck.  The recommendations made had already simplified our infrastructure. As for when these assessments happened. . . that information was in the handbook too. Our students got marked twice a term - once for technical studies and once for performance. Who marked them (according to the criteria that was clearly set out), the heads of department for the technical studies, and our guest creatives for the shows. When was the feedback given. . .every last Friday of technical studies via four 1:1 tutorials, covering all core disciplines. Zero restructuring needed, and no big cultural change required.

As I've kept stating that zoom conversation was predominantly taken up with a conversation around Guided Learning Hours and moderation. The moderation of the course took up the bulk of the meeting, not the change of assessment criteria.  We chatted around various options as in fact, this stuff did have the potential to force us to change the course, and the discussion was around the fact that I wouldn't risk the integrity of the course for a simple box-ticking exercise.  To both of the assessor's credit, they agreed with me, and we worked hard to find a solution that we could agree upon. A system that was so simple to implement that we were already running it 4 weeks later. A system that I was informed in the July zoom meeting that they had failed to understand as the other assessor ended up being confused by it? So where were the notes from the main assessor??

I can 100% see how this can be viewed through the lens of the "distraught" Principal, unable to understand how their course could have any faults, maybe acting out of character due to the upset of them losing their college and of course their income as a direct result of this report (whilst also noting that there was another contributing factor). After all, as the arbiter noted, back in Feb & March we did feel that we were home and dry on this one. For the first time ever we could see a clear, attainable route to secure government funding streams for our students. A game changer. However, as a large number of my friends & colleagues have noted often with a wry smile - this is not out of character for me.  Name me the college principal that has shouted louder or more frequently about the need for greater regulation in our industry. . . I'll wait. I mean here's the piece that I wrote for The Stage just last year on this very subject, or scroll through the blog to note the recurring theme.

Am I upset that the college has closed? Of course, I am - it would be bizarre if I wasn't. Am I distraught by it - no. Life moves on and I'm excited to see what the next chapter holds for me. Am I hugely concerned to discover that this entire process is not regulated by anyone? Yes. I'm curious as to why in all their statements Trinity state that they're regulated and bound by the rules of OfQual, but omits to say that the process to get validated is not regulated by anyone. So what "if" my whistleblowers are correct, what "if" we somehow fell through the cracks of some systemic issues at the only organisation that can open up government funding streams at Level 6? "If" I'm right - how can we as an industry guarantee that this won't happen to another college?

Shouldn't the response to this quite simply be - look things went wrong, there are major loopholes here, let's investigate properly (and by that I mean an external investigation which looks at the process as a whole, with the key people involved in our case all being at least approached to be interviewed etc) silence these rumblings, and then put things in place to ensure that these questions need ever be asked again. Two charities looking to protect their reputations. . .working with total transparency to get to the truth. If that had happened back in July I would not still be blogging about it. Why do simple, reasonable questions get met with threats of legal action? Why have I acquired a Trinity troll on twitter? An account clearly attempting to discredit the college and indeed me? Why would somebody respond to reasonable questions by creating an anonymous profile? 

Transparency was one of the central tenants of The MTA. I guess that these blogs and again the level of detail that I go into in them is indicative of how much importance I put on that value.  Of course, it makes me hugely vulnerable - but by posing questions publicly I'm also allowing myself to be challenged.  For quite some time we've been very clear that whistleblowers had come forward to us, Trinity has made it very clear now in both letters to us and indeed to their staff that this sort of dialogue is not welcomed. I find that interesting, as for every single "event" in this day and age of social media forensics, there are people eager to find out the truth. We had it ourselves years ago when that vexatious grievance was made about the college and a certain blogger was publicly asking to speak to students to "find out the truth". Whilst of course I had feelings about it, I wasn't anxious as I had nothing to hide, and more importantly, if there was something going on then we needed to address it.  As brilliantly described in a podcast that I listened to the other day, organisations have to understand that they no longer operate within a "black box", thanks to social media we are all living in glasshouses.

It can't be wrong to ask these questions. The concerns noted above are valid concerns which have still not been adequately answered or investigated. I believe that the external arbiter did a great job with the information made available to them but I'm still curious why the remit of that investigation did not extend to interviewing the only person that could really answer our accusations - the main assessor. 

Given what was lost as a result of the pre-validation assessment. . . wouldn't you want to know the full story? Similarly, students, colleagues, and staff - all of whom have seen every bit of documentation that's been passed between the two organisations are equally entitled to ask questions. That's not a campaign - as one student wrote in a thread the other day - they are questioning things of their "own volition", because it wasn't "my" college, it was "our" college. Over 300 people were directly impacted by the closure of The MTA, it's just that only one of us blogs ;-) 

The Right To Reply

All I wanted to do was to run a small drama college, when things went tits up last year I took time to process it all and then just move on, and in truth whilst I've found this year's closure announcement harder, it's only because of the way that it's come about. Now, simply by standing up for the college, the course, the staff and the students, I've unwittingly found myself embroiled in some ridiculous battle for the truth.  

This week I was accused of embarking on a social media campaign against Trinity, with Trinity emailing me with an ultimatum of removing my blogs, publishing this letter, or run the risk of them setting their lawyers on me.  Now as regular readers will know for the past 7 years I've used this blog account in an attempt to raise awareness of certain issues, a place where my voice can be heard unedited, after all, I am only ever writing my truth. So given the ultimatum and the contents of the letter, I was delighted to share it, even though it was worded to raise questions about the validity of our concerns.

In their letter they once again attempted to address our complaints. I mean I have some observations about some of their statements. Let's start at the beginning - by noting that we had a well-publicised campaign to fundraise back in 2021 in order to stay open, they're sowing the seeds of doubt as to whether or not we were financially viable.  This is because we've been very clear that two things would have saved us - one being the validation, and the other a private benefactor. Both together would have been exquisite, but having just one of them would have potentially saved us. 

Moving further down I'm curious about this sentence when discussing our main assessor how he'd "reflected the view of his colleague that the performance which she attended in early March was strong in material and acting, but the dance numbers were basic and overall the work seen did not fully demonstrate appropriate Level 6 standards." I'm a massive fan of John Gardyne our main assessor. I could talk for hours about the conversations that we had which bore no relationship to what they're claiming were his private concerns, but of course that would come down to my word against theirs (or indeed for some of those statements, our word against theirs, as both students and staff heard a very different version), so I won't bother going into it all again, however I'm really curious about how John came to the same conclusions that the other assessor allegedly came to over the show, as he hadn't seen it. Only one assessor came to watch SOSN and that was Brenda Garrett-Glassman. 

In this situation I'm always curious about what people don't say eg in their response, you'll note that they failed to mention that the assessor on our final show clearly named that all of our students did meet the right level in all 3 disciplines? Anyway, I'm sure that they just wanted to keep their statement brief? I mean they also agreed that the short film that they did watch met the standard too, even though it was cast with 1st years. So in August the students met the criteria, in January when they were with us they did, somehow it went wrong in March, but got back on track in June? How odd.

The letter did for the first time say that our main assessor "withdrew" from our assessment, so you guys found that out at the same time as us. Lucky you!  As far as we were concerned until that statement was sent John went off sick with covid sometime around 25th March and never returned.  When we chased the report we were told that we'd have to wait for his return, so really interesting to now hear that he withdrew from it all. Of course, we've tried to track John down, after all, he was the person that we'd dealt with, unfortunately, when we contacted him he told us that he'd left Trinity and therefore couldn't speak to us. 

I think that the wording of the statement was interesting eg when discussing watching online performances which is one of the areas that we think is contentious they said this: "Trinity has never represented that it watched in entirety the hundreds of hours of recordings that you submitted." See that's really interesting to me as that makes me sound a bit mad doesn't it? Like I've been sending them hours of recordings? Why on earth would I have been doing that? In reality, John asked me to send all of our archive performances from Dec 2020 - just 7 shows in total. They literally received the shows that they requested, so not hours at all. In fact, John had been monitoring our shows since June 2020 and had already watched some of our online work prior to the 2021 stuff, as he wanted to be sure that our work was meeting the correct standard before agreeing that we should apply when the criteria changed.

I find it interesting that they attempt to discredit me again when they write about me not understanding the validation process. It's like they hadn't received a handover of the 90 mins conversation that John, Brenda and myself had when they were giving me their original recommendations in a zoom, as if they had there was no way that they could have made that statement after all that zoom discussion wasn't an informal chat, it was part of our formal assessment procedure, they were literally giving me their report recommendations? 

Similarly, their stuff around funding is somewhat muddied, for sure the EFSA allocate the DaDAs but you must be offering a Trinity Level 6 Diploma in order to be considered. As for "other ways for in which your students can access ALAs" (I think that they meant ALL) well at Level 6 there isn't, and our course operated at Level 6. What I find fascinating is how all the assessors that we dealt with had such pride in the Trinity Diploma, all of them were pleased that we had elected to take this route to student funding as opposed to a degree route, yet here it's like Trinity themselves don't understand the value of their course?

To add a bit of authority to their response they make out that they're regulated by OfQual - but fail to point out that OfQual's regulations don't apply until you've been validated. At the point of entry they're not regulated by anybody.

Anyway - their letter (I'm mindful to keep sharing it, as I want all of you to read exactly what they're saying) was clearly designed to scare me, the threat of the lawyer and all that. Of course, you can't involve lawyers if the person making the statements that you feel are harmful to your organisation are true. I mean you can. . . but you really run the risk of being exposed. I would be bloody stupid to be fighting this report if I wasn't sure of my facts. For me, the reputation of my college, students and staff is every bit as valuable as the reputation of a global organisation such as Trinity. The MTA is closing in 2 weeks and I'd like the final word to be the report that John had written, not a report cobbled together with huge inaccuracies. 

Of course, things are even more interesting now as 2 whistleblowers have come forward from Trinity. The definition of a whistleblower is "a person who informs on a person or organisation regarded as engaging in an unlawful or immoral activity". I've discovered that Trinity staff were sent an email warning them not to talk to us (or the press), once again being advised that Trinity "do not tolerate personal attacks on their. . . staff" so I'm hugely appreciative of the people that have come forward. 

For obvious reasons I'm not going to divulge what we know as that would be dumb right? We were hoping that OfQual would have investigated for us, but see note above. Our concerns are still sitting with the Charity Commission so we'll wait to see what they do. As a result of the new information, we are now also taking some legal counsel to see what our position is.

Meanwhile, in line with the ethos of The MTA to always be transparent I've shared all the information that I was given with the wider college community, and I guess IF the Trinity external arbiter fails to uncover the truth then it'll be down to me to get the truth out. However we're a way off that, as it seems only fair to let the Trinity internal investigation run its course, and I'm looking forward to chatting to the arbiter.

You see we all have a reputation to protect, and just because some charities are bigger than others, it doesn't make their reputation any more valuable. I spent 14 years building a college on a foundation of integrity & transparency, and that is the relic that I want to be leaving as a legacy.  In the meantime though. . . keep reading their letter