Artists and Director Sacked

But nothing is that simple. After meeting with the delegates on Monday afternoon, Knox had chaired a meeting of the WCAC in the evening. On Tuesday, a letter was posted on the board at the Arts Centre announcing that a charitable trust was to be set up to administer the SCAC, that all artists were sacked as from March 15; along with Graeme Nesbitt, the director.

The logic in sacking the person who has just toured Europe for six months at their expense to gain valuable information for the centre has yet to be explained to any of the Arts Centre workers.

Changes in the administrative line-up had been mooted for some time, but Knox had assured artists at a house meeting that they would be consulted before the changes were made. The members immediately sent a letter to the secretary of the WCAC, Mrs Edna Lankshear, expressing their anger at not being consulted and expressing support for the work Nesbitt had done since his return.. They demanded that a workers' representative assist in the selection of the Administrator and Artistic Director of the Arts Centre Trust.

When Knox was contacted by Equity he simply said that by sending this letter to the secretary rather than the chairman of the WCAC they had taken it out of his hands and Mrs Lankshear instead would be dealing with the subject.