We sat down with Richard Noble, COO of The Aspers Casino Group, to find out his thoughts about community projects in Newham, working with Rosetta Arts and his experience of the Mindful Art programme.
How has Aspers been involved with community projects in Newham?
When we opened our casino in Stratford East London back in 2011, we also set up a good causes fund that had the sole objective of providing support for community projects within the Newham Borough. It was established as part of our commitment to help local residents build confidence and skills, create an inclusive cultural awareness of the arts focussing on areas such as dance, music, youth, sport, health and of course….art.
It was through this initiative that we had our first encounter with the team at Rosetta Art. At the time, we had been talking internally about investing in a partnership with an organization that would be able to provide a range of engaging activities for our own colleagues on-site in our east London property as part of what at the time was our new Mindfulness Programme initiative.
What was the aim of Aspers’ collaboration with Rosetta Arts on mindfulnes and art?
In the casino industry we are known for being innovative with our products and services and we like to extend this innovative approach beyond the casino floor – to our workforce. Our end goal was that the Mindful Arts programme (whatever form it eventually took) had to be diverse, inclusive and fun, free to all the Aspers family and incorporate to some degree the concept of mindfulness – at that point we hadn’t found a natural fit to meet this wish list. So, you could say we met Rosetta at the just the right time!
What has it been like working with a small arts charity?
After initial discussions with the Rosetta Art team, we had a mutual spark of excitement at the prospect of developing a concept that would potentially meet our requirements. Their professionalism, values, passion and energy mirrored our own; all vital ingredients for a solid and long-lasting partnership. Through this collaboration, we developed a unique fusion of mindfulness with creativity that we now refer to within our business as the Mindful Arts module of our Mindfulness Calendar of events.
As a business, we have never been afraid to try new things and this is one of the values we also shared with Rosetta. Our philosophy has always been ‘better never stops’, so we launched the programme with both parties fully acknowledging that this was just the beginning of our journey. There was no blueprint to work from, so we launched the Mindful Art programme fully anticipating it to quickly evolve.
Did you have any concerns and how did you overcome them?
Concerns expressed ranged from:
Will anyone turn up?
Will they get it?
Does it sound too good to be true?
Have we got the marketing creative campaign right?
The only way to find out of course was to go for it and the Rosetta Art team was fully behind us in our approach – both of us wanted this pilot to work no matter what!
Once the word got out, we had several curious colleagues come along to the workshops to find out more and then (to our delight) return the following week with a fellow colleague in tow! Soon we had our ‘regulars.’
What was it like working with Rosetta Arts?
The Rosetta Art team were always mindful of the added complication of our 24-hour operation and we worked together on a suitable programme schedule, with small compromises on both sides to ensure the schedule worked for their team as well as well as our own. The pact was made at the beginning for open lines of communication to create an adaptable product/service for our diverse environment.
Rosetta did an excellent job to put our colleagues at ease, creating an informal ‘drop in’ format whist empowering attendees to develop their own bold and creative responses, with a conscious mix of contemporary and diverse artists to focus on. At the end of each session there was no right or wrong outcome, this was never about producing a masterpiece, just the journey of each individual having some much needed ‘me time’ whilst discovering their own style, thoughts, ideas .. fully in the present moment.
Sharing our belief of always pushing boundaries, the Rosetta team worked hard to gather honest feedback from those that attended, and collectively after each block round of workshops we committed to review, analyse and improve the opportunity for attendees. These included extending the sessions from 1 hour to 2 hours, running the sessions in blocks of 4 consecutive weeks rather than 18. We also ensured the room was conducive to the needs of the sessions – with enhanced privacy – away from the vibrant hustle and bustle of the casino. We also looked at improving the amount of natural light within the room during Winter months – something we hadn’t fully considered initially.
Did your employees see any benefits from participating in the programme?
We saw almost immediately the social benefits of the programme with new friendships being formed solely through attending the same workshop. Just to put it in context, we are a BIG casino, everything from our bars, gaming tables and slot machines is on a grand scale. We have a diverse workforce of almost 600 colleagues at our East London casino and as I mentioned earlier we operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; we are constantly busy – morning, noon and night. So you can imagine that many colleagues never even cross each others path during a normal working shift – despite working for the same business. The small and friendly workshop format facilitated a unique and calm environment for colleagues to meet like-minded individuals from other areas of the business for a few hours a week and share in a common interest.
How have these benefits added value to the business?
It’s been rewarding to see the value the programme has added to our business, this includes an increase in employee engagement and satisfaction with several attendees discovering new skills and talent they never knew they had, opting to progress this interest further outside of the workplace.
How will Aspers continue working with Rosetta in future?
We started our journey with Rosetta Art with no real concept of where it would end up or how it would evolve over time. Now in its 3rd year, our professional partnership and commitment with Rosetta clearly shows that big and corporate can stand comfortably side by side with a small independent organization – so long as the same values, passion and work ethic is shared and this year they will hopefully feature twice in our Mindfulness Calendar as we are in discussions about supporting the ever growing calendar of mindfulness events with sessions on Meditation Mindfulness.
There is a lot of untapped potential that can be explored by working with dynamic art organisations like Rosetta Arts and we look forward to continuing our professional partnership – who knows where this exciting journey will take us next.
Why is the Rosetta Mindful Arts programme so important?
From my experience, working with Rosetta is an excellent way to invest in the local creative community whilst supporting diversity. Earlier this year we were delighted to win awards in both Diversity and Corporate Community engagement categories at the National Casino Awards – of course our partnership with Rosetta Art featured heavily as a case study in both entries which spoke volumes of our commitment within these areas to the judges.
