Member Article

Bradford legal expert is ‘well read’ when it comes to new management role

The managing partner of Bradford’s leading law firm, LCF Law, has been appointed to the management board of the Bradford Literature Festival (BLF). Simon Stell, is a winner of the prestigious Yorkshire Lawyer of the Year Award, and has worked at LCF Law in Bradford for over 21 years. Last year the firm provided advice to the BLF relating to the creation and installation of four commemorative stones across the region to celebrate the work of the Brontë sisters. The Brontë Stones Project is a unique celebration of the legacy of the famous sisters that has seen four new, original works of writing by Kate Bush, Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay and Jeanette Winterson, engraved onto stones in different locations connecting the Brontë sisters’ birthplace in Thornton and the Brontë family parsonage at Haworth. Simon said: “I am delighted to be invited to be part of the BLF’s advisory board and the newly formed management board as the Festival continues expanding. The Board’s priority is to focus on supporting Festival Director Syima Aslam and the Festival team providing structural governance and linking strategically with the advisory board. I look forward to working with Syima as well as the other board members.” Running from 28th June – 7th July, the Bradford Literature Festival has been hailed as one of the most inspirational festivals in the UK. With over 500 events packed into iconic venues across 10 days, it celebrates the written and spoken word in all its wonderful forms. Every year it invites world-renowned authors, poets, musicians and artists to visit the spectacular city and share their expertise and passions. Last year the BLF was named as Yorkshire’s Tourism Event of the Year, and took home the Education trophy at the Raising the Bar Awards. Festival Director, Syima Aslam, won the H100 award for Publishing and was also named Professional of the Year at the Yorkshire Asian Business Awards. Syima said: “The much-anticipated festival starts next month and we have a packed schedule of awe inspiring events for people of all ages. Since its launch in 2014 the festival has grown beyond our wildest dreams, attracting thousands of people and really helping to put Bradford on the map. A cultural and literary extravaganza, we are passionate about education and inspiring a love affair with words. Every volunteer from the box office operators and festival co-coordinators to our new management board and the advisory board – which we are hoping to expand – play a vital role in the delivery of the festival and we are all grateful for their commitment. Simon and LCF Law have supported us since the beginning, so it’s a real honour that he has agreed to join our management board.” BLF is an international festival which was formed in 2014. It has grown from an audience of 968 attendees to over 70,000 in just five years. The festival has been hailed as one of the most inspirational in the UK owing to the breadth of its programming and diversity of its speakers and audiences. In 2018 BLF attracted a 52 per cent Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) audience, with 42 per cent of all speakers also coming from BAME backgrounds. The 335 public, and 132 schools events of the 2018 festival, attracted an audience of 70,349; a 40% increase on the 2017 audience of 50,158.

This year, over 500 speakers in more than 400 sessions feature in what will be the fifth edition of the festival, celebrating the written and spoken word in all forms and showcasing the intimate relationship between words and other art forms such as theatre, music and film. New works launching at this year’s festival include One Way Out by Bradford crime writer A.A. Dhand, and Meetings with Mountains by Peter Sanders, the world’s pre-eminent photographer of the Muslim world. Syima added: “Bradford Literature Festival is about meeting an urgent and vital public need for space in which the extraordinary times we live in can be explored, interrogated and better understood, as well as acknowledging and celebrating that there is still much that is beautiful and hopeful in the world. “This year, for the fifth time, Bradford Literature Festival is proud to deliver a programme which celebrates diversity, empathy, and artistic excellence, offers platform to marginalised voices, and will lift the spirits of audiences and visitors from our local communities and across the world.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Mortimer .