Get a plan

Get your front line staff to play Snakes and Ladders to find out more about how they see your ‘welcome’. Or if you are really bold – get your audiences to play too! Print out the Snakes and Ladders sheet and give one to each pair of players, with

When we played this as part of GAP, these are some of the ladders people mentioned:

• Have a friendly manner – in person and on the phone
• Smile
• Run ‘stepping stone’ events to get people used to coming to the venue in small stages
• Being down to earth. Accommodating, flexible
• Being jargon free
• Offering touch tours
• Having access info on out publicity
• Offering participation
• Offering free events and targeted bursaries to increase the range of people who come to our events
• Going to where people are (using their venues)
• Having a diverse programme – something for everyone
• Having a partnership letter – we spell out what is expected of our partners
• Doing our research so we know what venues etc can offer
• Asking for feedback and doing something with it (action or passing it on to the relevant organisation)
• Ensuring people selling our product have direct experience of it
• Good relations with gatekeepers

When we played this as part of GAP, these are some of the snakes people mentioned:

• Our opening hours
• Poor parking
• Our name!
• Poor public transport links
• Our location
• Lack of diversity in trustees can lead to a perception of the org as being undiverse
• Our tight focus could be seen as restrictive
• Lack of diversity in out FOH team, especially volunteers
• Poor expectations due to lack of research
• We are understaffed and this affects our welcome
• Get ‘in’ with gatekeepers more and try and get good relations with them so we can get through to people from different groups