Liverpool's Mayor appoints Chair of Race Equality Taskforce

THE Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson has announced that Tracey Gore, director of the City's Steve Biko Housing Association, will be seconded to the position of Chair for 6 months and has been invited by Mayor Anderson to lead the taskforce after he announced it back in June 2020. The taskforce will focus the Council, its partners and the people of Liverpool on the positive actions that can be taken to reduce inequality in the City around race and will then make recommendations on how these can be brought to life. Tracey has worked in the City's social housing sector since 1978, and was appointed as Riverside Housing Association's 1st black housing manager at the age of 27.

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson said:- "I know this will be challenging, but we must have these honest conversations with ourselves about how we can become a City that is able to support everyone who lives here to their fullest potential. I'm very pleased that Tracey, with her exceptional strengths, is willing to lead this taskforce, engage with the City and identify the positive actions we must follow to ensure our City can celebrate and honour our diversity."

After leaving Riverside, she worked at Liverpool City Council from 1998 until 2003, in the Regeneration directorate on many projects including the New Deal for Communities Programme. She then joined Steve Biko Housing Association in March 2003 as director which is1 of only 2 Black and Racial Minority housing associations on Merseyside. Tracey is also a board member of Granby Community Land Trust, a member of the CitySafe Partnership, chairs Liverpool's Strategic Hate Crime Group, is an advisory member to both Liverpool City Council's Employment and Skills Select Committee and Liverpool City Region's Fairness and Social Justice Board.

Tracey Gore said:- "I'm really pleased and really excited to be appointed chair of the Race Equality Taskforce. It's a tough challenge but the work needs to be done and I want to see a timeframe with deadlines for implementing the actions we decide. I commend Joe on setting up the taskforce. He recognised that there needs to be change and recognised that there are hard truths to be faced. There's no need to state the case for this work. It's now a matter of gathering what the barriers are and working out how institutions will bring those barriers down. I have got a lot of confidence that in the great City of Liverpool we can effect this change and embrace it."

Tracey was also a founding board member of Amadudu Women's Refuge and was chair of the Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre. She now also campaigns to rid the Toxteth community of guns and knives. Tracey's 1st job as chair will be to work with Mayor Anderson on inviting representatives from across the City's BAME communities to join the taskforce.  The taskforce will meet about every 6 weeks until May 2021 and will also be working with the Mayor's Slavery Street Names Advisory Panel.

Robbie Williams, Chair of the Steve Biko Housing Association, said:- "On behalf of Steve Biko Housing Association we are proud to be able to support Liverpool City Council in undertaking the Mayor's Race Equality Taskforce project. This, we hope, will bring about change and development across the City especially in the communities that have long suffered inequality around the issue of race. As a BME housing association within Liverpool we have for some 33 years strived to provide homes and communities without racism and we hope the secondment of our director Tracey Gore to this taskforce will help continue this work on behalf of the City of Liverpool. On behalf of the board I wish Tracey every success with this project."

LOCAL experimental collagraphic printmaker, Kate Tidmarsh, will be mounting an exciting new exhibition at the ArtHouse Gallery in Eastbank Street of her latest artistic exploitations using her versatile hand printing techniques that includes:- monoprint, drypoint, lino print and collagraph printing.  Kate explains:- "As an artist I use a variety of hand printing methods to explore my love of pattern and colour. I enjoy the practical processes of investigating and problem solving running alongside constructing and creating."

During the weeks of 'lockdown' Kate has also been investigating melting materials to create textured printing plates; which she calls:- 'kitchen litho plates' by using a recipe of cola, oil and syrup and operating a Dremel rotary power tool to personalize her textured and marbled gelatin plates. "I work in response to memories or my immediate physical environment. The juxtaposing of hand printed layers using folded, pleated and collage elements enables me to explore light and depth in a practical way."

Kate began her artistic journey many years ago working as a freelance woven textile designer, designing and selling to the contract furnishing fabric trade. Fast forward (through several careers) to a point in her life when she was eventually able to devote more time to doing what she liked best; exploring and creating with colour.  "Printing, like weaving, has a lot of problem solving and practical considerations, which I have always found satisfying. In parallel with this, I also enjoy the process of developing concepts or ideas, exploring variations and producing work in a series, which printing allows me to do easily."

Latterly, Kate has been increasingly drawn to documenting the journey she takes when pursuing her ideas through a personal cycle of exploration, process and response. She adds:- "The exploration of technique shapes an important part of my work, and I am naturally drawn to documenting this journey. This process is now of equal value to me as the final outcome. The immediacy of mixing a limited range of inks into a wide variety of colours, combined with exploring a new plate making technique, is my own idea of heaven. I use various relief and intaglio techniques as starting points and then I am very happy to investigate 'work rounds' - how to get a given result using materials and equipment that are easily accessible and ready to hand."

This exclusive month long showing is certainly not one to be missed. Kate's unique artwork will be on display, at the ArtHouse, Eastbank Street, from 1 August to 29 August 2020. The gallery is open Tuesday to Friday, from 10.00 to 15.00 and Saturday, from 11.00 to 16.00. In line with Government advice, the SCA team have introduced strict measures to keep visitors to the Gallery as safe as possible... There will be a policy of 2 visitors at a time, with social distancing once inside, and hand sanitize dispensers at the door to use on arrival.