On Friday Fiona and I were in Dunfermline to meet Martyn Evans, the Chief Executive of the Carnegie UK Trust and Senior Policy Officer Liz Macdonald who is responsible for the Carnegie UK Trust’s ‘knowledge and culture’ theme. We talked at length about the Carnegie UK Trust’s role in setting up the Voluntary Arts Network, the development of the Trust’s new themes (people and places, knowledge and culture, enterprise and society) and areas in which we might collaborate in the future. It was a very energising discussion and Martyn and Liz were extremely interested in the work of Voluntary Arts and the potential of the voluntary arts sector.
Robin Simpson.
I was in Edinburgh on Thursday where Fiona, David and I met four officers from Creative Scotland for an initial discussion about areas in which Voluntary Arts Scotland and Creative Scotland might be able to work together. It was a wide-ranging, enthusiastic and encouraging meeting. Although this was just the start of a planned series of conversations over the next few months I am extremely hopeful about the prospects for a productive long-term relationship with Creative Scotland.
Robin Simpson.
It felt very strange, on Tuesday, to be walking through the campus of the University of Birmingham for the first time since I graduated 22 years ago. I was on my way to the Third Sector Research Centre for a meeting of our Connected Communities research project steering group. We did some detailed planning of our consultative seminar, ‘Growing the Grassroots’, which will take place at Cecil Sharp House in London on Tuesday 18 October. We are going to use this event to launch the initial findings of our study into the role of grassroots arts activities in communities and to consult representatives of voluntary arts groups, umbrella bodies, academics, civil servants and other relevant agencies to inform our final research report which is due to be published in December. On Tuesday we also spent some time looking at the lengthy draft report from the literature review undertaken by our Research Assistant, Hilary Ramsden. And we started to plan an application for further academic funding for a follow-on research project.
Robin Simpson.
Cultural Playing Field 