Richard Olivier
A precious half-morning in the office and then up the motorway to Bruges for a seminar of the Directors. We kicked off over lunch with a pep talk delivered by yours truly. The roof of the terrace restaurant was canvas and rain rattled down on it as I spoke. Still, I made a number of observations, garnered from my many discussions with members, separately and together, about the need better to understand their attitudes to, and expectations of, the administration. In this context it is clear to me that we haven’t realised the full consequences of the last two waves of enlargement in terms of changes in administrative expectations and culture. After lunch, we were treated to Richard Olivier’s analysis of Henry V. I first saw this extraordinary performance (and it is a performance) last year at a strategic leadership seminar at Said Business School (Oxford). It is impossible not to be moved by the story nor by Richard’s analysis of the different types of leadership required in the journey from inception to heritage. If you get a chance to see Olivier (that’s right, son of Larry) doing this, grab it! Next, we had an internal discussion on the topic of a possible screening and peer review exercise. This spilt over into a more general discussion about procedures and processes and the optimal use of resources but was nevertheless rewarding for all involved, I felt. In the evening we had a lecture over our meal by professor Joos Vander Auwera, who is senior curator in the Royal Museums of Fine Art, Brussels, and lecturer in museology and cultural management at Ghent University. In a far-ranging and original account he spoke to us about the ‘economic effects of art’. His speech was intended as a spot of culture after a hard day’s work and in fact it was more than a spot! 
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