Cultural Playing Field

On Thursday I was in London to meet Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of NCVO. Stuart is working on developing NCVO’s civil society agenda and is having a series of one-to-one meetings with organisations representing independent schools, co-operatives, housing associations, trade unions, universities etc. Having discussed the role of sports clubs in civil society with Tim Lamb from the Central Council for Physical Recreation, he was keen to have a similar conversation with me about voluntary arts groups. This fits well with VAN’s own vision of “an empowered, participative, fulfilled and healthy civil society” and  it was great to hear that Stuart sees the voluntary arts as a key component of civil society. It will be interesting to see how far NCVO can take the idea of a more collaborative approach to developing civil society in the period leading up to the next general election.

On Wednesday I was back at the Barbican for ‘Our Creative Talent: building local voluntary and amateur arts participation’ - a joint conference organised by Voluntary Arts England, Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The event was fully booked weeks ago and attracted delegates from voluntary arts umbrella bodies, several government departments, local authorities from across England,  voluntary sector agencies and lots of officers from Arts Council England as well as representatives from Scottish Arts Council and the Arts Council of Wales.

The main focus for the conference was to launch the report ‘Our Creative Talent: the voluntary and amateur arts in England’ - the results of research commissioned by DCMS and ACE and undertaken by the consultants TBR. Culture Minister Margaret Hodge opened the conference by revealing the headline statistics from the report:

• there are 49,140 voluntary arts groups in England
• between them they have a total membership of 5.9 million and an additional 3.5 million people volunteer as extras or helpers - that’s a total of 9.4 million people taking part
• the voluntary arts sector has an income of £543 million a year
• voluntary arts groups attract an annual audience of 159 million attendances
• 564,000 people have management roles in voluntary arts groups

It was very exciting for me to be sharing a platform with Margaret Hodge, Arts Council England Chief Executive Alan Davey and Feargal Sharkey. The Minister started by saying “I hope and believe that this conference marks a significant change in the way we think about the arts and what we call ‘the arts sector’”. She called the research “a significant new landmark in our  understanding of how and why people participate in the arts” and said “we have been paying too little attention to such an important part of the arts ecology”. Margaret Hodge said “I firmly believe that the health of our arts depends on both the professional and the voluntary sector - the two are closely and directly dependent on one another”.

In my speech I stressed the importance of moving beyond marvelling at the statistics and starting to work out how to unlock the enormous potential of the voluntary arts. I explained that what voluntary arts groups want and need is recognition, involvement, capacity-building and challenge. I finished by suggesting that this conference was possibly the most important moment for the voluntary arts in the 60 years since the establishment of the Arts Council - but added that it would mean nothing unless it was the start of an ongoing dialogue to realise the potential of the voluntary arts.

Alan Davey said “from an Arts Council perspective the voluntary arts isn’t a  footnote or appendix to the arts in England today: it is part of the core script”. He announced that in the coming months Arts Council England “will be working with Voluntary Arts Network to agree a plan of how we play a role in building on the strengths and successes of the sector by working with local government and other key partners”.

Feargal Sharkey speaking at the Our Creative Talent conference

The conference also included detailed sessions on the ‘Our Creative Talent’ research, Arts Council England’s segmentation model of arts engagement, the development of a Participation Manifesto, the VAE/Media Trust ‘Up for Arts’ campaign, local authorities and the NI11 arts engagement indicator and the 2012  Cultural Olympiad. There was a real buzz throughout the day and the feedback has been incredibly positive. It really felt like a significant turning point and it will be vital that we quickly build on the enthusiasm generated.

Copies of presentations, video, audio and much more will soon be available at www.vaengland.org.uk/events and you can see photos from the conference at www.flickr.com/photos/ourcreativetalent. The research report is available at www.voluntaryarts.org/uploaded/map7402.pdf
Congratulations and many many thanks to everyone involved in a wonderful day for the voluntary arts.

On Wednesday I was at the Cabinet Office in London to meet John Knights, Policy Manager- Volunteering at the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) to discuss opportunities for volunteering in relation to the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. We talked about how to ensure voluntary arts groups take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Cultural Olympiad, how the Olympic volunteering programme is being co-ordinated between LOCOG, OTS, DCMS etc, and how to realise the aim of the Games to leave a legacy of increased participation in the arts. We also discussed how OTS might be able to help us to work across other Government Departments to improve support for the voluntary arts and help to unlock the potential of the sector.

Last weekend I attended the ‘Amateo’ conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where we agreed the constitution for a ‘European network for active participation in cultural activities’ and elected the first Board for the new organisation. VAN is the UK representative amongst the seven founding members of ‘Amateo’. In launching the network, its first President, Villy Dall from Denmark, emphasised that the idea was not to duplicate what other European organisations already do: the main idea was to convince politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg that the application procedures for European funding schemes need to be made more accessible to amateur cultural groups. Amateo will press for an opening up of European funding to the amateur sector and will then develop support to help groups with the application process. Amateo aims to encompass not just the 27 countries of the European Union but all 47 members of the Council of Europe. Villy said that the most essential argument is that the amateur arts need to be recognised as part of the arts across Europe.

The conference was small but friendly and constructive. There were around 40 delegates with Robin Osterley from Making Music and me the only representatives from the UK or the Republic of Ireland. As well as the business of the conference we enjoyed a reception hosted by the Mayor of Ljubljana, a fantastic concert in the medieval coastal town of Piran, featuring choral groups from Slovenia, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, and the 39^th annual Slovenian Outdoor Choral Festival in the village of Sendvit.

This festival consisted of massed choirs involving nearly 4000 singers from across Slovenia as well as Portugal, Germany, Belgium and Argentina. An amazing event at which we were introduced to the Prime Minister of Slovenia. A very enjoyable conference and hopefully the start of a new chapter for the amateur arts across Europe. For more details see www.amateo.info

On Wednesday afternoon Reemer and I met the Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, in her office in the House of Commons. With the debate on 42-day detention going on in the background, we discussed last week’s seminar on ‘Excellence and the Voluntary Arts’ and the forthcoming joint VAE/ACE/DCMS conference, ‘Our Creative Talent’ on 2 July. We focused, in particular, on the need for more explicit recognition by the Government of the voluntary arts sector as an essential part of the wider arts continuum. Margaret Hodge was very keen to ensure that the sector realises it is now highly valued and appreciated by the Government and we agreed a number of ways to get this message across - both on 2 July and beyond. Exciting times ahead - please Gordon, no reshuffles in the next three weeks!!

This morning I was at Arts Council England in London to take part in the seminar ‘Excellence and the Voluntary Arts’ which looked at the applicability and implications for the voluntary arts sector of Sir Brian McMaster’s report ‘Supporting excellence in the arts - from measurement to judgement’.

Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, introduced the seminar, describing how it had come about as a result of her meeting with the acevo Arts, Culture & Heritage Special Interest Group in January. She revealed that the research DCMS and ACE had commissioned to scope the voluntary arts sector in England would show an incredible capacity which the Government wants to nurture and grow. She said that a lot of ‘excellence’ in the arts funded by ACE comes up from that voluntary arts activity on the ground. She was particularly interested in the role of culture in strengthening communities and defining place. The Minister challenged the seminar to address how the Government could better recognise the contribution of the voluntary arts sector.

We had a fascinating and wide ranging discussion lasting just over two hours which covered definitions of excellence, the relationship between diversity and excellence in the amateur arts, where amateurs sit with innovation and risk-taking, how new technology and digital media help, the relationship between excellence and the promotion of audience development, how the amateur arts and professional sector support each other and much more.

Some of the key points raised included:

• for art to be excellent it has to be relevant, rooted in the community in which it is operating
• the diversity of society is not fully reflected in the publicly funded arts
• in some cases the amateur performer can be better than the professional
• the amateur sector tends to judge itself against a variety of factors including engaging with its community – as well as artistic excellence
• diversity is a key driver of the voluntary arts
• McMaster’s definition of excellence as that which affects and changes individuals is absolutely what happens in participatory arts
• McMaster provides the opportunity for joining up – embedding the concept of creativity across every aspect of our lives
• innovation, risk-taking and excellence are relative not absolute terms
• DCMS, ACE and local authorities need to look at support for the voluntary arts rather than direct funding
• we all need to play a leadership role in encouraging innovation and risk-taking in the voluntary arts
• there is an important role for ACE to play in joining up relevant agendas across Government departments
• technology has driven the need for the creativity agenda: the skills needed to succeed in life today are creative
• DCMS and ACE could help to broker a relationship for the voluntary arts with local authorities

(This is just a short extract from a long and detailed debate.)

Summing up, Alan Davey (Chief Executive of Arts Council England, who chaired the seminar) said there is relevance to McMaster for the voluntary arts and it is very clear. He said we need to work together to articulate this more strongly. Alan said the DCMS/ACE voluntary arts research will give a strong research-based platform to develop working plans. Beginning with more explicit recognition for the sector is very important. He concluded by saying that the voluntary arts sector is very important: it goes to the heart of what Arts Council England is about – getting people participating and deepening their interest and engagement.

It felt to me like this seminar represented a very significant milestone in the growing recognition and involvement of the voluntary arts sector by the Government and Arts Council England. Many thanks to everyone involved – and particularly to Robin Osterley for his extensive work in developing and preparing the seminar.

You can read further comments on ‘excellence and the voluntary arts’ and continue the debate by clicking here.

On Tuesday I was at Highgate House in Creaton, Northamptonshire for the annual NCVO Board awayday. There was much discussion of the Conservative Party green paper on the role of the third sector which had just been released and which includes several proposals that NCVO had been pushing for (changing the Office of the Third Sector to an Office for Civil Society, establishing a select committee for the sector etc). As well as the usual business, the Board meeting looked in detail at NCVO’s environmental performance. You can see details of progress on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiHnvpY8WkA

Thanks to everyone who has posted comments on excellence and the voluntary arts ahead of the DCMS seminar on Wednesday 4 June. There is still time to join the debate - click here to read the latest comments and add your own thoughts.

The post above gives some background to the seminar that DCMS is hosting on June 4th. The purpose of this post is to start a debate about the kinds of discussions that might take place at the seminar.

A few years ago, Francois Matarasso defined quality in the arts in the following way. I hope he doesn’t mind me recycling this material: hopefully he will contribute to this blog if he has changed or refined any of his views:

• Firstly, technical competence. Not brilliance, note, nor virtuosic extravagance, but competence, in other words the ability to translate accurately the creator’s wishes into a performance.
• Secondly, originality. Something about the performance needs to be different from what has gone before.
• Thirdly, ambition. The performers must have a need to improve their performance and to constantly aspire to something better.
• Fourthly, a quality performance requires relevance. It must be something that has a shared meaning with its audience – he sometimes refers to this as resonance.
• And fifthly, which he admits is a bit of a cop-out, he requires “magic” – self-explanatory I guess.

OK these are by no means perfect, but might be a interesting place to start. How can voluntary arts be excellent (we all know it can be) without the degree of technical excellence displayed by professional artists? What does this mean? Is it simply about contextualising artistic activities within their community or is it about something else? Can we have excellent art without technical excellence? If so how? Does technical excellence always mean excellence (not many would subscribe to that one I suspect)? Indeed should we be debating this at all, or simply say that there are enough examples of technical excellence in the voluntary arts for this not to be a problem? These are the issues we want to explore - let’s get the debate going now.

The DCMS is hosting a seminar on the subject of excellence in the Voluntary Arts on June 4th. This post is to give some background to the seminar and to kick off a debate amongst delegates to inform the seminar’s discussions.

The background is that some of us having been thinking for a while about the issues of quality and excellence as they apply to the Voluntary Arts. The publication of the McMaster report has been widely accepted as a vitally important contribution to the debate about how the arts should be regarded in terms of excellence; and yet a search of the report yields no instances of the words “voluntary” or “amateur”. Thus our concern that excellence could simply be construed as the province of the professional arts sector was only exacerbated by reading McMaster, and our fears grew as it became clear that DCMS was taking McMaster very much to heart.

At a meeting of the arts, culture and heritage special interest group of ACEVO (the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations) some of us mentioned this point to Margaret Hodge. She seemed quite taken with the thought and suggested creating a seminar on the subject. Since this time, Robin Simpson and I have been working with Paul Blaker, Head of Arts Development at the DCMS, to make the seminar happen and it promises to be an interesting occasion. My next post gives some ideas about how we might proceed - please comment widely, frankly and interestingly!