Dundee Needs a Grown-Up: Open Appointments

At 62, the Dundee Baby has finally done what every durable public figure must eventually do: admit that he needs local management.

Project Dry Run is opening its first personnel file. The priority is finding a Dundee-based person or organisation capable of turning an unusually good, unusually strange idea into an organised and useful local project.

The practical appointment is Dundee Project Director / Lead Producer. The ceremonial title is Commissioner of Slightly Irregular Affairs. Use of the ceremonial title during serious funding meetings will remain discretionary.

We are also building a Dundee project roster for paid assignments that may become available as individual stages are developed and funded.

The priority appointment

The Dundee Project Director or Lead Producer will provide local leadership for Project Dry Run: the public feasibility study investigating whether Dundee can help design, test and prepare a genuine grown-up product while creating useful paid local work.

The role could suit a creative producer, community organiser, non-profit or social-enterprise leader, cultural manager, economic-development practitioner, or a small Dundee organisation with the right mixture of imagination and delivery experience.

An unconventional route into the work is welcome. What matters is the ability to build trust, organise people, manage promises and make things happen in Dundee.

What the local lead would do

• Translate Project Dry Run into a credible Dundee delivery plan.
• Build relationships with residents, businesses, makers, venues, charities and public bodies.
• Develop funded stages, practical budgets and fair paid opportunities.
• Produce community sessions, location activity, portrait days and the eventual public hearing.
• Recruit and support local workers, contributors and specialist partners.
• Manage permissions, access, consent and participant dignity.
• Report progress, spending, failures and local impact for the public file.
• Work with San Tropat while occasionally preventing him from becoming the entire agenda.

The first engagement is expected to be a defined, paid assignment rather than an immediate promise of permanent employment. The fee, hours, authority and reporting arrangements will be agreed in writing before commissioned work begins.

The developing Dundee project roster

Project Dry Run will need more than one grown-up. We also want to hear from Dundee people interested in future assignments across the project.

Possible areas of work include:

• Community engagement and research support
• Local interviewing, transcription and archive work
• Photography, film, sound and production assistance
• Events, performance, stewarding and visitor support
• Design, writing, printing and social media
• Model Citizen portrait days and exhibitions
• Accessibility advice and paid testing
• Location scouting and business liaison
• Making, packing, fulfilment and customer support
• Training, employment and organisational partnerships

The roster is a way to identify useful local people before each stage begins. It is not a promise of immediate work. An assignment becomes an opening only when its funding, scope, pay, dates and selection process have been published.

No free consultancy disguised as an application

The first application should be brief. Applicants will not be asked to prepare an unpaid campaign, funding strategy or delivery plan. Any substantial scoping or development work will have an agreed fee.

No particular degree, fashion background or continence-sector experience is required for the lead appointment or general project roster. Technical product, health, testing and regulatory responsibilities will remain with properly qualified specialists.

The project’s central rule also applies to employment and participation: the wearer is never the joke. The comedy belongs to the bureaucracy, the inflated titles and the provisional Model Citizen himself.

Put your name in the file

The application form can be used for the lead appointment, the project roster or an organisational partnership. A short, specific account of something you have helped make happen will be more useful than a ceremonial covering letter.

Apply or register your interest

You can also read the complete Open Appointments file or follow the Project Dry Run inquiry.