In Leeds, UNION have been working with the Donut group; an informal network of small-scale venues located outside of the city centre who are all grounded in their local communities. And in October 2021 we will be launching a brand new programme—UNION Leeds. For more details about UNION Leeds and how to apply, go straight to the Programme page.

The Leeds Donut group have been working together for 5 years and have undertaken some initial research with Leeds University. The consortium is currently moving forward in three broad areas:

• Further Research
• Co-Programming
• Co-Training

And that’s where UNION fits in. We have been looking at how the UNION model for training could be adapted to create a programme for the Donut that takes on a cohort of workers, artists, activists, volunteers from the organisations in the donut.

And the good news is that we have Esmée Fairbairn Foundation have approved funding for us to develop the model over the next couple of years and look at how this fits in with plans for Leeds 2023.

We are recruiting over the summer. More information is on the UNION Leeds Programme page, and if you want to make sure you don’t miss any information, just sign up to our mailing list below…