As we head into 2012, it’s a delight to be working again in both Cambridge and Liverpool, following successful earlier projects there.

In Liverpool, we’re working with FACT and looking forward to getting to grips with the numerous and diverse audiences that use the building.

Having written the Audience Development Plan for Kettle’s Yard’s successful Heritage Lottery Bid, we are back in Cambridge working across the group of University of Cambridge Museums. If you want to experience the quality of London museums without that dragging ‘museum legs’ sensation, then Cambridge seems to provide the perfect alternative. The collections are internationally recognised and have inspired some of the world’s greatest minds, but are housed in human-sized buildings. It’s a great place for us to start our new year.

2012 will bring inspirations and challenges to us all, and we wish all our clients, colleagues, associates and friends a very happy New Year and look forward to working with you in the months to come.

It’s Wafer Hadley’s fifth anniversary, and we’ve brought out the best china for tea and biscuits. Five exciting years: thank you to all our clients for instigating such interesting and productive work. As we celebrate, we’ve never been busier, working with an exciting group of museums and galleries, two of the UK’s great religious buildings, and a nationally important HLF project. If you’ve received one of our birthday biscuits, send us a picture of it in use, and we’ll add it to our high calorie Flickr set. In the meantime, cheers, or whatever it is you say over a cuppa.

We are delighted by the news that Kettle’s Yard, the unique house and gallery in Cambridge, has been awarded 2.32 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. We worked closely with the wonderful team there to create an audience development plan for the bid, that will create excellent new education facilities, a new cafe and gallery. Our research with a wide range of current and potential users of the site has ensured that visitor needs are put at the heart of this development. This is one of a number special places with whom we are working to fulfill their potential.

What on earth is art’s problem with advertising? I was lucky enough to be at the Liverpool Biennial last week. I was generally proud on Liverpool’s behalf, but I felt a bit puzzled by one of its sub-themes, called Re:Thinking Trade. Among other things, it featured a collection of Chairman Mao-style slogans against landowners, bureaucrats, capitalists, and other evils such as, gasp, advertising. The work complained: ‘advertising wants to convert our desire for a better life into a desire to buy something.’ Hmm. Is this sibling rivalry? Advertising the young brother, with the flash car and the bonus, enjoying the party and getting on with everyone, while Art sits in the corner moaning about how transparent and phony its brother is. Doesn’t advertising also hold a mirror up to society? Doesn’t it play with concepts and realise them visually? Doesn’t it suggest ways to live? It doesn’t seem so very different to art, it just has a different starting point, with its centre of consciousness in the public realm, rather than in the artist’s head. There is another difference too, sadly - the quality of realisation is sometimes so very much higher in advertising. Ironically, the advertising campaign for the Biennial is great - I guess it’s OK when we’re advertising something we approve of? I liked those wolves - and I got a free bag too. If only I’d had the chance to go shopping and fill it with counter-revolutionary materialistic rubbish.

Colleagues at the Museums Association have been doing a worthwhile job, kick-starting the advocacy effort that will surely be a feature of life in the sector over the next year or so. Clearly, it’s a reaction to current circumstances. But it’s also timely: a chance for everyone to re-evaluate and think creatively about how to play to strengths. I think this is the silver lining in the clouds overhead: while the forces at play will bring some change that is unwelcome, an aggressive questioning of culture will also make change possible, and some organisations will turn that to their strategic advantage… It’s important we don’t look at advocacy as simply talking about cultural activity in an engaging way. Alignment with local priorities is certainly a necessary first step, but there is also a developmental step to be taken, focusing on where the crossover is, and playing to strengths in those areas. It is more dynamic than simply ‘aligning’ and talking well. This MA roadshow seems to be covering a lot of ground – I mean in the geographical sense. From Glasgow to Woking! It’s good to see this part of the sector gearing up to communicate in the right way, with the right people. Even if we do feel that our hand is being forced…

Time to sing the praises of the Howard Assembly Rooms, which has had an exciting, and I understand, successful first season. You have to admire the programming: I’ve seen The Unthanks, (twice!), a magnificent performance by Bassekou Kouyate, and last weekend, a great dance piece for children by Fevered Sleep. It’s great to see niche programming find a suitable venue in Leeds - and it’s interesting that it’s an offshoot of a parent opera company, a kind of Stealth Opera North. Leeds is better for it.

The new Cultural Strategy for the City of Hull, Right Place, Right People, Right Time, is now moving towards its official launch. Wafer Hadley has developed the strategy for One Hull and Hull City Council, based on a thorough programme of consultation. The strategy sets out clear priorities for the city between now and 2015, showing how culture can change lives in Hull, how it can change the way people think about the city, and how partnership working can be developed to reach these ends. We think the resulting strategy is powerful and clear, and we are very aware that such a satisfactory outcome would not have been possible without the dedication of key individuals at Hull City Council and the LSP.The story continues as Hull and East Yorkshire develops their initial proposals for the City of Culture 2013, an opportunity to showcase the ambition articulated in Right Place, Right People, Right Time.

For a small company with a new office to furnish, and an environmental conscience to consider, the availability of ‘pre-loved’ office essentials is a real find. We are now the proud owners of a stylish meeting table and chairs with a satisfyingly small carbon footprint. Thanks Re-Work!

Some excellent news for one of our clients this week: Bentley Park in Doncaster has achieved an HLF first-round pass, moving towards the planned major refurbishment of park and pavilion. Wafer Hadley has provided research and audience development planning for the project, and we know how valuable this investment could be to the people in the neighbourhood. Well done everyone!

Any of this sound familiar? A mania for quick profits sweeps the stock market, driven by investors in the City and smiled upon by Government. Confidence collapses, leading to a huge crash. Parliament makes a big show of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, and then ensures that those chiefly responsible get away scot free. There follows a decade of suspicion of the Establishment, fuelled by the Press, looking for corruption and greed in High Places. Not the present day, but the 1720s, which also saw a flourishing of art, and particularly satirical art: Beggar’s Opera, Gulliver’s Travels. So we’ve got that to look forward to.