Gosh is it that time of year again!

We are proud to announce Bristol's Top 50 Art and Culture Power List 2010.
Seventeen new entries, quite a few going up and quite a few going down! (2009 positions are in brackets).

And golly, 2010 has been busy for us at the Shy Pony stable. Business has taken off like a wild stallion!

We're sad to say (though tremendously happy for her, of course!) that Charlotte has moved on to pastures new. She's taken up a post promoting 'Sporting Bodies' the Olympics 2012 British Sporting Heroes Waxworks Tour (coming to the Arnolfini in March 2012).

A warm welcome to Jo Spurjohn who has just joined us from a stellar career in publishing. A digital whizzo, Jo has already blazed a trail overseeing our IT guys, who have helped on this year's list. Jo tells us they've taken every bit of text ever written about our top 50 and fed it into their powerful processors before calculating the results.

And the darling of Bristol's cultural elite this year is...(drum roll)...IAN HOLLOWAY. And by a blue glass mile in fact! Jo tells us that Ian's on the ball media magic and poise have placed him head and shoulders above the rest. But you decide - as always.

bestest

Suzie x :)

1. (new) Ian Holloway - Bristolian and Manager of Blackpool Football Club.

2. (5) Dave Sproxton CBE - Aardman, Co-founder & Chairman; Encounters Film Festival, Board member: Arts Council England, South West Council.

3. (-) Dick Penny - Watershed, Director; Bristol Old Vic, Chair; The Bristol Partnership, Chair.

4. (2) John Pontin OBE - Property Developer; Under the Sky, Chair; Society of Merchant Venturers.

5. (4) Tom Morris & Emma Stenning - Bristol Old Vic, Artistic Director; Bristol Old Vic, Executive Director.

6. (9) George Ferguson - Architect; Ferguson Mann Architects, Chair; Society of Merchant Venturers; Demos, Trustee.

7. (new) Cllr Simon Cook - Deputy Leader of Lib Dems, Bristol City Council; Bristol Cultural Development Partnership; Bristol Old Vic, Company Director.

8. (39) Paul Gough - Pro Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean, UWE Bristol.

9. (1) Robin Gunningham - Artist.

10. (44) Clare Reddington - Pervasive Media Lab, Director.

11. (new) Joe Spurgeon - Venue What's On Magazine, Editor.

12. (new) Phil Gibby - Arts Council England, Executive Director South West.

13. (11) Tom Trevor - Arnolfini, Director.

14. (new) Martin Connolly - Property Developer, Connolly & Callaghan.

15. (new) Oli Wells & Jamie Pike - Co-exist, Directors.

16. (12) Andrew Kelly - Bristol Cultural Development Partnership; GWE Business West

17. (43) Aldo Rinaldi - Bristol City Council, Senior Public Art Officer.

18. (new) Stephen Hilton - Connecting Bristol, Bristol City Council.

19. (23) Mariele Neudecker - Artist.

20. (17) Peter Lord CBE - Aardman, Co-founder & Film maker.

21. (-) Paul Barnett - Bristol City Council, Head of Culture.

22. (10) Nick Park CBE - Aardman, Film maker.

23. (new) Jane Willis - Willis Newson, Director.

24. (46) Chris Chalkley - Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft

25. (26) Heath Bunting - Artist.

26. (27) Geoff Barrow - Musician, Portishead

27. (31) Zoe Shearman - Relational, Curator.

28. (38) Mark Cosgrove - Watershed, Head of Programme.

29. (new) Claire Spencer-Cook - Brief Encounters Film Festival, Director; BBC Film Network; onedotzero.

30. (new) Helen Cole & Alex Bradley - Inbetween Time, Director.

31. (new) DJ Derek - DJ.

32. (-) Nav Haq - Arnolfini, Curator.

33. (35) Marie-Anne McQuay - Spike Island, Curator.

34. (18) Claire Doherty - Situations, Director.

35. (new) Motorboy - Artist, Curator.

36. (25) Paul O'Neill - Curator, Writer.

37. (new) Ralph Hoyte - Poet, Writer, Artist.

38. (19) Michele Farmer - Arts Council England, South West Council.

39. (37) Martin Lister - Academic, UWE Bristol

40. (8) Barbara Janke - Leader of Bristol City Council

41. (30) Dee Smart - Royal West of England Academy, Director.

42. (new) Nema El-Nahas - Arts Council England, Relationship Manager, Digital & Creative Economy.

43. (6) Caroline Norbury - South West Screen, Chief Executive.

44. (new) Lisa Panting - Picture This, Director.

45. (24) Wood and Harrison - Artists.

46. (new) Jan Winter - Circomedia, Director.

47. (40) Gillian Fearnyough - Architecture Centre, Director.

48. (14) Helen Dunmore - Novelist; Orange Prize Winner.

49. (new) Helen Legg - Spike Island, Director.

50. (33) Simon Morrissey - Works Projects, Curator.

Shy Pony's Haiti appeal to Venue Magazine

We didn't think we would be updating our 'Top 50' blog, but we have been really excited to see that our idea has been catching on in Bristol (where next we wonder!).

So we've decided to share the latest with you, our recent email exchange with Bristol's venerable 'what's on' guide - Venue Magazine.

We hope you find it as inspiring as we did!

Susie x

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from: Shy Pony
to: J.Spurgeon@venue.co.uk,E.Byrne@venue.co.uk,editor@venue.co.uk
date: Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:22 PM
subject: First Shy Pony's Bristol Art Power List, Now Venue have done one!

Dear Joe, Eugene and Mike

We were really thrilled to see Venue latching onto Shy Pony's idea of Bristol's Top 50 Art and Culture Power List, a month after we'd published our list.

It was fascinating to see the similarities in the two lists - even some of the wording was the same! And what a stroke of genius to place yourselves at number 5 - we'll be taking inspiration from you fun guys at Venue and placing ourselves in our own 2010 list!

We suddenly thought, isn't it crazy an established magazine like Venue is running out of original ideas, when we have so many!

Then, boom, another great idea popped up in the Shy Pony thought stable! Myself and the other girls in the office are currently spending our spare time doing bonkers stuff to raise money for the poor people in Haiti.

So here's our suggestion - for £1,000 (to be donated to the Oxfam Haitian Earthquake Appeal) we will supply Venue with another top idea for you guys to use in your magazine.

We've blind copied (now we don't want you stealing our mailing list too, some things are scared!) in our mailing list, including all the members of both Shy Pony's and Venue's Art and Culture Power List, just to spread the word on our appeal to Venue.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

bestest

Charlotte Lawson
Head of Campaigns
Shy Pony
email:shypony.top50@gmail.com
http://bristolculturepowerlist.blogspot.com

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from: Spurgeon, Joe - Venue
to: shypony.top50@googlemail.com
date: Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 6:04 PM
subject: RE: First Shy Pony's Bristol Art Power List, Now Venue have done one!


Dear Charlotte,

Thank you for your email.

I can categorically assure you that we did not steal, adopt, latch onto, or otherwise appropriate your list.

Venue has been publishing arts ‘power lists’ (and variations thereof) for over 20 years, long before your “organisation” cropped up in the blogosphere in November 2009, and the idea for this particular list was one we began work on last autumn.

We became aware of your list (and your invite to improve upon it) prior to the publication of ours, and saw that as no reason to prevent us doing, quite frankly, a vastly improved job.

There is no similarity between the wording of the two lists, mainly due to yours being arbitrary, ill-informed and in some cases, downright inaccurate.

It is also absurd and delusional to worry about us stealing your mailing list. Venue has been covering the arts and entertainment scenes locally since 1982. Ergo, we’re pretty well stocked for email addresses and phone numbers.

If you genuinely are a “new Arts Media Management organisation” (I couldn’t find evidence of your website, office or previous work anywhere else) keen on promoting healthy debate “about Bristol and its cultural impact, nationally and internationally” then let me suggest it’s a pretty dim idea to start off by levelling false accusations against the region’s biggest-selling arts magazine. A professional PR/arts media management rep, had she genuinely suspected plagiarism, would certainly not have taken such an ill-conceived, unintelligent and counter-productive approach.

I do not intend to dignify your disgracefully cynical and opportunistic charity challenge with a response.

Judging by the comments on your blog and those following your recent posting on Indymedia, I’d suggest a re-think in your approach to communicating your aims and campaigns in Bristol. Feel free to pass my response on to your mailing list, and if you can not and will not tell them you have made a mistake, then please do not contact us again.


Joe Spurgeon
Editor
Venue magazine
Bristol News and Media, Temple Way, Bristol, BS99 7HE
Tel: 0117 942 8491
Email: j.spurgeon@venue.co.uk

Venue Magazine – Bristol and Bath’s what’s on guide – out every Wednesday.
www.venue.co.uk