Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, funding, politics, DCMS, England, vcs, ace, arts, heritage
On Monday I was in London for a meeting with Heritage Link and the Central Council for Physical Recreation to discuss the Conservative Party’s proposals to change the distribution of National Lottery funds. A Conservative Government would increase the proportion of Lottery money distributed by Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England by reducing the proportion currently channelled through the Big Lottery Fund. The intention is that this redistribution would cut grants to statutory bodies by the Big Lottery Fund without reducing funding to the voluntary and community sector, though it may be difficult to achieve this so neatly in practice. We were keen to stress that a significant number of voluntary and community sector organisations currently secure Lottery funding through the arts, heritage and sport distributors – and could therefore potentially benefit from the proposed changes. (Indeed the vast majority of arts, heritage and sport Lottery funding goes to third sector organisations.) We also discussed the implications of last week’s announcement by the Shadow Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, that a Conservative Government would seek to merge English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Robin Simpson.
On Tuesday afternoon I was at the Community Media Association in Sheffield for the first meeting of the CMA Arts Project Steering Group. CMA Arts Co-ordinator, Tamar Millen, updated us on her progress to date and we discussed her first draft of the new CMA Arts Strategy. I agreed to set up a meeting for Tamar with a range of voluntary arts umbrella bodies to start to discuss how voluntary arts groups and community media organisations might collaborate.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, funding, education, youth, England, vcs, ace, training
On Tuesday I was in Sheffield to visit the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action. NAVCA is the national umbrella body for local third sector infrastructure in England and represents 344 local councils for voluntary service and similar organisations. In a series of quick one-to-one meetings (that felt a bit like speed dating!) I talked to a range of NAVCA staff, got a good overview of the work of the organisation and identified a number of areas in which we might be able to work together. I discussed with NAVCA Chief Executive, Kevin Curley, the role NAVCA members could play in the model for local delivery of capacity-building for voluntary arts groups that we are currently working on with the Arts Council England Amateur Arts Partnership Development Programme steering group. Carrie McKenzie, NAVCA’s Sport Partnership Adviser, told me about the work she has been doing (funded by Sport England) to embed a culture of collaboration between sport and the wider third sector and we discussed how we might develop a similar approach in relation to the voluntary arts. Every Child Matters Adviser, Angela Barnes, explained the work NAVCA is doing (funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families) to support young people, disabled children and the extended schools programme. I talked to Barney Mynott, Policy & Communications Manager, about how we might work together on advocacy and information services. Helen Oparinde told me about NAVCA’s SKILD project (Skills and Knowledge for Local Development) which provides training for development workers supporting front line third sector organisations. Finally I met Terry Perkins, Public Law Training Officer, who explained how the Public Law Project is allowing third sector organisations to influence decisions made by public bodies. It was a very interesting day and I came away determined to encourage voluntary arts groups to make more use of the wide range of (often free) services available through local Councils for Voluntary Service: to find your nearest CVS go to: http://webdb.navca.org.uk. Many thanks to Kevin, Carrie and everyone at NAVCA.
Robin Simpson.
Also on Thursday I met Clara Goldsmith at Arts Council England to hear the latest about the Arts Council’s planned public engagement campaign, which is due to launched in April 2010. Clara confirmed that the campaign is definitely still about increasing both audiences and participation. We talked about online mechanisms for signposting to arts participation opportunities and I suggested Clara contact the team at YouthNet who are developing an online channel for volunteering opportunities inspired by 2012. I also advised her to talk to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about the informal learning portal proposed in the ‘Learning Revolution’ white paper. One significant development is that Clara is now planning a series of events in shopping centres around England next year – very much modelled on the Voluntary Arts England/Media Trust ‘Up for Arts’ festival at the Metro Centre, Gateshead, in 2007. I was reassured and encouraged that the ACE public engagement campaign will provide exciting opportunities for voluntary arts groups to raise their profile and attract new members.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DIUS, England, olympics, OTS, volarts, volunteering
On Tuesday I was in London to meet Claire Easterman, Fiona Jamieson and Katie Jackson at YouthNet to talk about their project, funded by the Office of the Third Sector, to develop the national volunteering database (‘do-it’) to create a single place to bring together opportunities to participate inspired by 2012. There are three specific areas of focus for the project, one of which is culture and the arts. YouthNet plans to work with membership organisations to develop and advertise volunteering opportunities for people inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I wanted to check whether the project is still to include both formal volunteering opportunities and arts participation: YouthNet is still keen to realise this goal but, because of how the project has been funded, the main focus has to be on formal volunteering. Also, although there are hopes to link to databases in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the project will have to concentrate on opportunities in England. We talked about how to link the YouthNet project to the informal adult learning ‘portal’ being developed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the online aspects of Arts Council England’s forthcoming national campaign on arts participation – all three of which should provide voluntary arts groups with the opportunity to advertise for more members. YouthNet is keen to work with ACE and DBIS and I am optimistic that we will be able to achieve a solution that means voluntary arts groups only have to enter their details once.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DCMS, education, England, olympics, volarts
I was back at DCMS on Tuesday where Reemer and I met Mandy Barrie, Nick Pontefract and Stephen Darke from the arts team. We talked in detail about the Arts Council England Amateur Arts Partnership Development Programme – particularly the actions on ‘regional networking’ and ‘capacity building’ that Voluntary Arts England is leading. We also discussed informal adult learning and progress in relation to several aspects of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills white paper ‘The Learning Revolution’. We updated Mandy, Nick and Steve on the planned launch of the Participation Manifesto and our various initiatives to encourage voluntary arts groups to get involved in the Cultural Olympiad.
Robin Simpson.
On Monday I was at DCMS in London for a meeting of the Opportunity and Excellence Programme Board. This Board oversees the department’s progress against two of its four ‘departmental strategic objectives’ and brings together senior civil servants with the Chief Executives of Arts Council England, English Heritage, Sport England, the Museums Libraries and Archives Council and the National National Museum Director’s Conference. On Monday we discussed the set of indicators that will be used to track progress against the ‘excellence’ target (DSO2). I stressed the need to look at how we can collectively encourage excellence in those parts of the cultural and sporting sectors that do not receive public funding. We also spent some time discussing barriers to participation (in relation to the ‘opportunity’ target (DSO1)). Research shows that the common barriers (across the cultural and sporting sectors) are lack of awareness, practical difficulties, personal difficulties and psychological fears. The last of these seems to be the most significant in relation to arts participation with lack of confidence and perceived lack of skill being the most common reasons for not participating.
Robin Simpson.
