Curious Minds

Chris May - Chief Executive, Curious Minds

Chris May - Chief Executive, Curious Minds 

With the greatest sadness Curious Minds have to announce our colleague and friend Chris May (Curious Minds' Chief Executive) passed away on Thursday 28 April from a sudden heart attack. Chris was on leave and had spent the day in the company of his family.

Chris was an exuberant figure, full of life and passionate about his work. He was immensely proud of the achievements of Curious Minds, our team and our partners, believing strongly that Curious Minds should be an organisation centred on a moral purpose and making a real and lasting difference to children's lives. He drew pleasure from his collaboration and dialogue with others and hugely enjoyed working alongside the education, cultural and community sectors right across the North West and beyond.

Since graduating from the Drama Department at Bristol University in 1981, Chris May worked as an artist, teacher, youth worker, project manager and consultant in a diverse range of educational and community settings. With over thirty years experience of working in the arts, he was passionately committed to developing the capacity of disadvantaged young people to realise their creative potential and campaigns to place culture and creativity at the heart of learning and community renewal.

Moving to Lancashire in 1989, Chris worked as an arts management consultant throughout the North West, helping organisations develop their practice around learning, evaluation and change management. In 2003 he joined Arts Council England, North West as Social Inclusion Officer and moved to Creative Partnerships East Lancashire as Creative Director in 2005. During 2007/8 Chris worked with Creative Partnerships National Office as Interim Director of Schools Programmes, returning to Lancashire in January 2009 to lead the establishment of Curious Minds – a new charity and social enterprise committed to enabling creative collaboration.

Curious Minds aims to enable children and young people realise their creative potential and currently works principally across Lancashire and Merseyside, delivering the Creative Partnerships programme in over 170 schools. In addition, Curious Minds is developing a growing portfolio of projects and commissions undertaken with a broad range of partners, maintaining at all times a focus on improving the lives of children and young people through active participation in arts and culture.

Over the past year, Chris and the Curious Minds team worked tirelessly to extend the reach of our work and vision and from April 2012 Curious Minds will be one of ten new national Arts Council England "Bridge Organisations".  Our role will be to make a rich range of arts and cultural experiences more joined-up and accessible for children, young people and their families across the North West. A vision and legacy all here at Curious Minds are fiercely determined to keep with the momentum and vision that Chris engendered alive.

We feel sure you will join us in our sympathy for Chris's partner Kate, their son Gabriel and Chris' family.