Filed under: meetings | Tags: excellence, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, UK, volarts
On Wednesday evening I hosted the 2014 Epic Awards Winners’ Reception at Platform Arts in Glasgow. Delegates from the Voluntary Arts Scotland conference were joined by Epic Award winners and runners-up from across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The evening started with a performance of a song from the Commonwealth Games Songbook from local voluntary arts choir, East End Voices. The awards and certificates were then presented by the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop MSP, and the Chair of Voluntary Arts, Peter Stark. The four Epic Award winners each received special Epic Award 2014 trophies made for us by Maklab and GalGael. GalGael is a community-engaged organisation in Glasgow that offers vulnerable people the opportunity to learn practical skills in wood working and GalGael also made the baton for the Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton Relay. I read out personal messages of congratulation to the Epic Award winners from the UK, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland Culture Ministers. Details of all the winners and runners-up can be found at http://epicawards.co.uk. The evening finished with the presentation of the Peers’ Award for Excellence 2014, voted for by the shortlisted groups, which went to Foyle Haven Arts Collective in Derry for a creative writing project that gave the homeless and those struggling with addiction a voice in print and on stage as part of Derry/Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013. We were then piped out of Platform Arts by Scotland Epic Award runners-up, Lewis Pipe Band. Thanks to all Voluntary Arts staff, Board members, Advisory Group members and Voluntary Arts Ambassadors across the UK and Ireland for their help with the administration, shortlisting and judging of Epic Awards 2014. A particular thank you to Jemma Neville, Director of Voluntary Arts Scotland, who managed the Epic Awards scheme this year. Thanks also to everyone who sponsored Epic Awards and donated prizes – we really value your support. And thanks to Fiona Campbell for her calligraphy on the beautiful Epic Award certificates. The Epic Awards Winners’ Reception was part-funded by the Big Lottery Fund and Spirit of 2012 Trust ‘Keeping the Spirit of 2012 Alive’ programme. It was a moving and inspirational evening celebrating the extraordinary achievements of local volunteer-led arts groups.
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday I was at Platform Arts in Easterhouse, Glasgow for the Voluntary Arts Scotland Conference ‘Culture, creativity and you: why making matters’. Delegates were brought to the conference from the centre of Glasgow by bus with local historian Douglas McCreadie explaining the history and culture of the area. The Acting Chair of Voluntary Arts Scotland, Jim Tough, opened the conference and Jackie Shearer, Arts Manager at Platform, described the role the arts centre has been playing in urban regeneration in Easterhouse.
Richard Holloway speaking at the Voluntary Arts Scotland Conference ‘Culture, creativity and you: why making matters’.
Our keynote speaker was Richard Holloway, Chair of Sistema Scotland. Richard, a former Chair of Scottish Arts Council, spoke passionately and inspirationally about the how humans “represent the world back to itself” through art. He said “play is the fundamental engine of human evolution” and suggested that culture requires both conservatives who preserve traditions and radicals who break new ground. He spoke about the challenges of the modern world, suggesting “we have created a leisured class [the unemployed] with no capacity for using that time wisely”. He said “we’ve created a class that works too hard and a class that can’t get work”. Richard Holloway spoke about the success of ‘The Big Noise’ in Raploch, Stirling, saying there are now 12 children from Raploch in the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.
Crafting the Arts panel discussion at the Voluntary Arts Scotland Conference ‘Culture, creativity and you: why making matters’
After lunch the conference continued with a panel discussion, chaired by Caroline Docherty from Creative Scotland reflecting on the Voluntary Arts Scotland Crafting the Arts project (funded by The Big Lottery Fund). Gillian Harrison and Carol Stobie spoke about our learning from the project, the changes to local authorities and Third Sector Interfaces over the past five years and the achievements of our Voluntary Arts Ambassadors. It was great to see so many Voluntary Arts Ambassadors in the room and to have a chance to pay tribute to the wonderful voluntary contribution they have made to the work of Voluntary Arts Scotland.
Feltmaking at the Voluntary Arts Scotland Conference ‘Culture, creativity and you: why making matters’
Delegates then engaged in a ‘Cultural Crofting’ creative discussion, addressing the challenges facing local cultural infrastructure and expressing possible solutions through the medium of felt-making – with expert instruction and support from members of the International Feltmakers Association.
Chriistopher Silver and Patricia Ferguson discussing the Scottish Independence Referendum at the Voluntary Arts Scotland Conference ‘Culture, creativity and you: why making matters’
The final session of the conference saw us hosting what we believe to be the only public debate on the Scottish Independence Referendum to focus on the implications for the arts and culture. Christopher Silver of the National Collective represented Yes Scotland and the Labour Party’s Shadow Culture Minister, Patricia Ferguson MSP, spoke on behalf of the Better Together Campaign. They were joined by Andy Milne, Chief Executive of SURF, Scotland’s Independent Regeneration Network who provided a thoughtful provocation. The ensuing debate was thoughtful and polite with many areas of agreement between the speakers about the importance of the arts and culture in Scotland’s future and the need to encourage as many people as possible to vote in the referendum.
The Voluntary Arts Scotland was an excellent event in a great venue with a creatively constructed programme, interesting speakers and an attentive sell-out audience. Congratulations to Jemma, Kelly, Gillian, Carol, Jason, Cassandra and Harriet for a wonderful event.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: England, olympics, training, volarts, volunteering
On Monday I was in Birmingham to meet Nikki Enoch, the National Manager of Community Games (a legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games). Since January 2012 there have been 3,551 Community Games across England. Each Community Games has to be led by volunteers, needs an cultural element as well as sports and must have opening and closing events. Community Games is run by a partnership involving the County Sports Partnership Network and the YMCA, and is administered by Nikki who is a freelance consultant. To run a Community Games in your community all you need to do is register on the Community Games website at http://www.communitygames.org.uk/. You will then be contacted by your local County Sports Partnership and will receive a toolkit, access to e-training and a package of resources including bunting, banners, postcards and t-shirts that can be customised for your event. You get a page on the national Community Games website to promote your event and help and advice from your local County Sports Partnership. We talked about the potential to involve voluntary arts groups in providing the cultural elements of Community Games, the possibility of voluntary arts groups leading their own Community Games and the opportunities to link Community Games to Voluntary Arts Week. Community Games is an England initiative at the moment but has ambitions to spread to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Robin Simpson.
Last Saturday I was at the Questors Theatre in London for the start of our latest RSC Open Stages Skills Sharing Weekend. Questors, founded in 1929, is the largest non-professional theatre company in Europe and hosts a season of around twenty productions a year. Questors is the only amateur theatre company among the regional partner theatres supporting Open Stages and acts as a hub for the amateur theatre groups in London and the South East taking part in the current Open Stages project.
Michael Corbridge leading a voice workshop at the RSC Open Stages Skills Sharing Weekend at The Questors Theatre in London
On Saturday around 100 amateur actors from participating groups gathered at the Questors Theatre in Ealing to take part in workshops on voice, acting, movement and stage combat, led by the RSC’s team of professional expert facilitators. I’m always incredibly impressed by the standard of the amateur actors we see at the Open Stages skills sharing sessions. Invariably they tackle exercises used by drama schools and professional theatre companies with a level of skill, creativity and experience that makes it impossible to tell that you are not actually watching an internal RSC training session.
On Saturday we were joined by Erica Whyman, the Deputy Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Erica joined the RSC in January 2013 and works closely with Artistic Director, Gregory Doran, on all aspects of artistic strategy. She now has overall responsibility for the Open Stages project and the RSC’s programme of work with amateur theatre and this was her first experience of an Open Stages skills-sharing weekend. I talked to Erica about the origins and development of Open Stages and the RSC’s plans for further work with the amateur theatre sector beyond the end of the current Open Stages project.
Robin Simpson.
I was back in London on Tuesday to take part in the National Alliance for Arts, Health and Wellbeing national organisations meeting. Damian Hebron from the London Arts & Health Forum reported on the first meeting of the new All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts and Health. He said it was a really positive, well attended meeting which agreed that the main topics for its next three meetings will be dementia, parity of esteem and the role of the arts in engaging ex service personnel. We also talked about how we could all use the Alliance’s Arts, Health and Wellbeing website (http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/) as a repository of evidence and how we could work together to promote Creativity and Wellbeing Week in June, see: http://www.creativityandwellbeing.org.uk/.
Robin Simpson.
On Monday I was in London to meet Geraldine Collinge, Director of Events and Exhibitions at the Royal Shakespeare Company. We talked about the progress of our second Open Stages project which is currently involving 100 amateur theatre companies across the UK. We also discussed the possibility of further collaboration beyond the end of the current project and revisited some of the ideas we had originally considered that didn’t make into Open Stages.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I was at BBC Radio Cumbria in Carlisle to meet Jennie Dennett, our Up for Arts Cumbria Broadcaster. The Up for Arts Cumbria project is the newest of Voluntary Arts’ partnerships with BBC local radio and Jennie has made an exciting start with campaigns focussing on music and theatre (in collaboration with Making Music and NODA respectively). She is now turning her attention to the wonders of wool (in the woods) and has plans to put Cumbria’s cairns on the map in Voluntary Arts Week in May. Jennie usually works from the BBC Radio Cumbria studios in Barrow but had made the 2-hour drive to Carlisle to introduce me to the Managing Editor of the radio station, Mark Elliot. Mark emphasised BBC Radio Cumbria’s support for Up for Arts and praised the win-win nature of our partnership. I talked about the new Voluntary Arts Strategic Plan and the particular role BBC local radio might be able to play in our campaign for renewed national cultural policies to sustain and develop local cultural infrastructure. Find out more about Up for Arts Cumbria at: http://www.upforartscumbria.org and http://www.facebook.com/upforartscumbria.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: England, Europe, volarts, volunteering, Wales
On Monday and Tuesday I was at BBC Radio Merseyside in Liverpool where we hosted the latest meeting of partners in our European Grundtvig project, Culture Guides. Daniel, Laraine, Helen Jones and I were joined by colleagues from Denmark, the Netherlands, Hungary and Slovenia. It was very interesting to compare the contrasting approaches to developing the pilot volunteer programmes in each country. In the UK we are planning pilots in four locations – two in Wales and two in England where one of the areas will be Merseyside. We took the opportunity this week to show our partners how Culture Guides will build on our Up for Arts project in Liverpool, linking to the BBC local radio station and the existing ‘A Team’ volunteers. Helen gave our European guests a tour of the radio station and a presentation about Up for Arts. She also arranged a guided tour of Liverpool which was a big hit with our visitors. Two of our partners even ended up on the airwaves talking about their experience of visiting Liverpool. You can hear the pieces Helen recorded with Bente from Denmark and Matjaz from Slovenia at: https://soundcloud.com/voluntary-arts/bente-and-matjaz-are-up-for
Robin Simpson.
Last Thursday I was in Edinburgh for the final meeting of the Luminate Festival Strategy Group. This group of partners in Scotland’s Creative Ageing Festival (including Creative Scotland, Age Scotland, The Baring Foundation and Voluntary Arts) has overseen the first two years of Luminate but is now handing over to a new Board of Trustees as the Luminate Festival becomes a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. In our final meeting we examined the formal evaluation of the first two festivals produced by BOP consulting and identified key recommendations for the new Trustee Board to pursue. I then took part in the first meeting of the Trustee Board which looked at the governances and finances of the new organisation and the planned programme for the third Luminate Festival which will take place in October 2014.
Robin Simpson.
Cultural Playing Field 