Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, health, politics, UK, volarts, volunteering, wellbeing
On Thursday and Friday I have been at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to take part in ‘Cultures of Health and Wellbeing’ – the first national conference organised by the new Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance. The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance is the national organisation representing everyone who believes that cultural engagement and participation can transform our health and wellbeing. It has more than 3,700 individual members and Voluntary Arts is one of 70 organisations who have become Strategic Alliance Members.
The opening keynote presentation at the conference was by Errol Francis, Chief Executive of Culture&, who discussed definitions of ‘culture’ and the difference between ‘culture’ and ‘creativity’. I then attended a breakout session on Democratising Our Practice, in the nearby Northern Stage Theatre, which featured a presentation on shifting power, drawing on the experience of Bait – the South East Northumberland Creative People and Places consortium.
The second keynote presentation was by Neil Churchill, Director of Experience, Participation and Equalities at NHS England. He talked about the NHS Long Term Plan and its targets to double the number of volunteers in the NHS in three years. He also spoke about the commitment in the NHS Long Term Plan to social prescribing. There will be over 1,000 trained social prescribing link workers in place by 2020/21 and 900,000 people will be referred to social prescribing by 2023/24. Neil Churchill explained the intention to make small grants available locally to volunteer led groups to become involved in social prescribing. A panel session on social prescribing emphasised the importance of signing-up to the Social Prescribing Network. The Social Prescribing Network consists of health professionals, researchers, academics, social prescribing practitioners, representatives from the community and voluntary sector, commissioners and funders, patients and citizens. Members of the Network are working together to share knowledge and best practice, to support social prescribing at a local and national levels and to inform good quality research and evaluation. Over the past year regional networks have been established around England, Ireland and Scotland. See: https://www.socialprescribingnetwork.com/
The keynote presentation on the second day of the conference was by Lord Howarth, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts & Health and President of the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance. Lord Howarth summarised progress on the recommendations in the APPG’s ‘Creative Health’ report, that was published in June 2017: https://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/ Lord Howarth said he was optimistic that Arts Council England will identify health and wellbeing as a key element of its new 10-year strategy. He spoke about Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s speech to the King’s Fund in November 2018 as a landmark moment. The Secretary of State had said he wants the NHS to move from patient-centred care to person-centred care. He had emphasised the importance of personal creativity and said he saw social prescribing as central to prevention, and prevention as central to the NHS. Lord Howarth said we need to do all we can to ensure this is not a flash in the pan and that social prescribing is firmly established and embedded in the overall culture across government and across health providers. He said it will not be edicts from on high but a change of culture that will make the difference and it will be the health and social care professionals who will ultimately determine whether this opportunity is taken. Alan Howarth also spoke about the need for a Creative Health Centre, led by the sector, to take on responsibility for driving progress. He said “we are at a tipping point for arts, culture and health” and noted a “growing realisation that to pathologise unhappiness doesn’t work”.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I was at the Martin Harris Centre at the University of Manchester to take part in ‘Cultural Democracy: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ – a symposium organised by Alison Jeffers and Gerri Moriarty to mark the launch of their new book ‘Culture, Democracy and the Right to Make Art: the British Community Arts Movement’. Opening the symposium Alison Jeffers suggested that the term ‘cultural democracy’ “seems to be having a bit of a moment”. It is a term that seems to have come back into fashion.
In the first panel session we looked at what we can learn from the histories of cultural democracy. Cathy Mackerras, Sophie Hope, Stephen Hadley and Owen Kelly reflected on UK culture policy’s close encounters with cultural democracy from the 1930s to the 1980s. There was much discussion of moving beyond deficit models of participation and the democratisation of culture toward a more direct engagement with cultural democracy. Owen Kelly talked about the development of the 1986 Community Arts Culture and Democracy Manifesto, noting that “we thought cultural democracy meant equal access to the means of cultural production” but that “the means of production turns out to mean the means of distribution”.
The second panel session asked ‘What is the current state of cultural democracy and what are the possibilities for the future?’. Andrew Miles discussed some of the early findings of the Understanding Everyday Participation research project and asked “why are some activities valued a culture whilst others are not?” He suggested “there is no such thing as a cultural non user” and that “there is nothing special about the arts”, saying most participation is about the social aspect rather than the particular cultural activity. Andrew also noted that the Brexit vote demonstrates the clear ways that social and cultural divisions have re emerged. Nick Wilson and Jonathan Gross spoke about the Get Creative Research Project and their report ‘Towards Cultural Democracy’, explaining their evolving Human development and capabilities approach in which they use ‘cultural opportunities’ to mean “the freedom to give form and value to our experiences”. Finally Steve Vickers, Project Manager for The Agency – a leadership programme developed by Contact in Moston and Harpurhey in Manchester, gave some practical examples of working with cultural democracy.
It was a fascinating day which provided much food for thought and it was encouraging to see so many people engaging with the issue of participation and cultural democracy.
Robin Simpson.
At the end of 2014, at the weekly meetings I took part in to develop the Get Creative campaign with the BBC, Deborah Bull from King College, London, was adamant that we must build in a robust evaluation of the campaign from the start. Jointly funded by the BBC and the Cultural Institute at King’s College London, the Get Creative Research Project ran alongside the Get Creative campaign from its launch in February 2015. The research was led by Dr Nick Wilson from King’s College and had two overarching aims. Firstly, to provide a rigorous evaluation of the Get Creative campaign; and secondly, to investigate key questions raised by the campaign regarding the ‘landscape’ of arts practice and participation.
In May 2016 the Get Creative Research Project’s interim report, ‘Get Creative: Opening Our Eyes to Everyday Creativity’ celebrated the successes of the first year of the Get Creative campaign but also surfaced a number of underlying problems and issues and made a series of recommendations. This led directly to a clarification of the aims and objectives of Get Creative and the establishment of a Get Creative Steering Group with formal Terms of Reference.
This week the Get Creative Research Project published its final report, ‘Towards Cultural Democracy: promoting cultural capabilities for everyone’, written by Nick Wilson, Jonathan Gross and Anna Bull. ‘Towards Cultural Democracy’ uses the learning from the Get Creative campaign to call for a radical but pragmatic new approach to understanding and enabling cultural opportunity. It argues that cultural opportunities are comprised of a far broader range of freedoms than access to already existing publicly funded arts – the primary focus of current cultural policy. Everyone has cultural capability – by ensuring there are more cultural opportunities for people to realise their own creative potential it would be possible to move towards cultural democracy: “an achievable future in which the substantive freedom to co-create versions of culture is enjoyed by all”.
‘Towards Cultural Democracy’ makes 14 recommendations, starting with the suggestion that “Promoting cultural capabilities for everyone (cultural democracy) needs to be made an interlinked policy objective, across a range of national government departments and agencies” and including a recommendation to “Develop mutually beneficial relationships with local radio as a key channel for the promotion of everyday creativity” which specifically references Voluntary Arts’ Up for Arts projects.
On Wednesday afternoon I was at Somerset House in London for a workshop to explore the recommendations from ‘Towards cultural democracy: Promoting cultural capabilities for everyone’. Discussing the background to the research, Jonathan Gross talked about the conclusions of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value, which recommended celebrating everyday arts, and the critiques of the traditional ‘Deficit Model’ which had emerged from the Get Creative Research Project. He spoke about the rising interest in everyday creativity in recent years, indicated by the rise of Fun Palaces, 64 Million Artists, and Get Creative itself. Jonathan also referred to the increase in academic research in this area, citing studies including the Understanding Everyday Participation Research Project being led by the University of Manchester and Helen Nicholson’s research into amateur theatre.
Nick Wilson stressed that everyday creativity is not new but suggested that the ‘Towards Cultural Democracy’ shows how we are now understanding the interconnections with the subsidised arts much better. He described the idea of thinking about cultural opportunities and cultural capabilities, rather than just mapping existing cultural assets and restricting debates to access to publicly funded arts. Nick called for reframing of decision-making across cultural policy to recognise the role played by creative citizens and pillar organisations.
Our workshop also included seven short presentations about how we enable cultural opportunities, featuring speakers including Jo Hunter from 64 Million Artists, Kunle Olulode from Voice for Change and me.
On Wednesday evening Damien and I attended the formal launch of ‘Towards Cultural Democracy: promoting cultural capabilities for everyone’ at King’s College, London. Inspirational speeches from Deborah Bull, Nick Wilson, Stella Duffy and Lizzie Crump emphasised the importance of the report and the momentum that appears to be gathering towards a significant shift in policy to recognise the importance of everyday creativity. The evening concluded with a cultural opportunity to allow us all to demonstrate our cultural capabilities as Alex and Flo – featured in the report as one of the portraits of people co-creating their own distinctive versions of culture – taught us all some the basics of ‘breaking’ (better known to the uninitiated as break-dancing). The sight of many of the most influential cultural leaders, activists and policy-makers spinning around on the floor of King’s College will live long in my memory!
You can download the report ‘‘Towards Cultural Democracy: promoting cultural capabilities for everyone’ from: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/Cultural/-/Projects/Towards-cultural-democracy.aspx
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, England, funding, Northern Ireland, Scotland, UK, Wales
On Tuesday Damien and I were in the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House in London for the launch of Culture UK – a new partnership between the BBC, Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Arts Council of Wales and Creative Scotland.
BBC Director-General, Tony Hall, said the aim of Culture UK is “to excite the nation about the arts, opening up funding to a range of arts organisations to make content which can be shown on the BBC, developing UK-wide cultural festivals that can reach new audiences, creating opportunities to showcase emerging and diverse talent, and making the most of technology to inspire new experiences in the arts.”
Tony Hall said “culture makes us believe in the future”. He spoke about the importance of inspiring people about the arts, saying “there are communities we simply don’t engage with: that has to change”. Culture UK will have a development team from across the UK (modelled on that created for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad) which will work towards three big landmark moments a year. Culture UK was launched with the announcement of 26 new commissions. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/culture-uk?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_press_office&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=corporate
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: diversity, excellence, Republic of Ireland, UK, volarts
On Sunday I was at Sage Gateshead for the 2017 Epic Awards Ceremony, hosted by BBC Radio 3 as part of the Free Thinking Festival. The Voluntary Arts England team were supporting the Free Thinking Festival throughout the weekend, with local voluntary arts groups running a range of participatory activities in the foyer of the Sage, including calligraphy and lace-making. Centre of attention was our giant Paint by Numbers – a picture by the artist Geoff Tristram reflecting the Speed of Life (the theme of this year’s Free Thinking Festival) which drew a constant stream of participants painting the numbered sections to produce a stunning final image. Many thanks to Geoff, Laraine, Jennie and everyone who helped with our contribution to the Free Thinking Festival.
On Sunday evening we held the Epic Awards Ceremony in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall. Representatives of the Epic Award winners and runners-up had travelled from across the UK and Ireland to receive their awards. The ceremony was compèred by the poet and BBC Radio 3 presenter, Ian McMillan. He was a brilliant host – funny, passionate and genuinely awestruck by the stories of the winning groups. The ceremony also featured performances by 2016 England Epic Award runners-up Harps North West and local Northumbrian pipers Robson Choice.
All of this year’s Epic Award winners and runners-up were inspiring examples of the extraordinary achievements of local volunteer-led arts organisations. It was great to have the Patron of Voluntary Arts, our former Chair Peter Stark, present the new Epic Award for Celebrating Diversity to Rotherham Ethnic Minority Alliance for the Love is Louder project which worked with people from across Rotherham and engaged with over 75 different organisations to challenge intolerance and division through creativity. It was also wonderful to see the Peer Award for Excellence, which is voted for by all the groups shortlisted for Epic Awards, go to the RE-Tune Project from Glasgow – the brainchild of David McHarg, a social worker for almost 20 years who became disillusioned with the impact his profession was having and set up the project to help those suffering from mental health difficulties, experiencing isolation and loneliness – and in particular, ex-service personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Run by volunteers, The RE-Tune Project offers people with mental health difficulties the chance to make, and then play, their own stringed instrument. For a third year running the winners of the Epic People’s Choice Award, which is voted for by the public via the Epic Awards website, appeared on the Breakfast programme on BBC1 the morning after our ceremony. This year’s winner, Roscommon Solstice Choir, is a 120-strong community choir which has raised hundreds of thousands of Euros for charities.
You can see full details of all the 2017 Epic Award winners at: https://www.voluntaryarts.org/news/epic-awards-2017-winners-announced and you can get a flavour of the ceremony by watching this video filmed by the England Epic Award winners South Devon Players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXNd8l49WTE
The 2017 Epic Awards Ceremony was a very special occasion and I think everyone present had an incredibly enjoyable and inspirational evening. Many thanks to all the Voluntary Arts staff, Trustees and Advisory Group members who helped with this year’s Epic Awards – but particular thanks to Laraine, Damien and Kelly for making the ceremony such a successful event.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, diversity, funding, research, UK
On Monday I was in London to take part in a meeting of the AHRC Connected Communities Advisory Group. The Arts & Humanities Research Council has now confirmed that the Connected Communities programme, which funds innovative collaborative research undertaken by partnerships involving academic institutions and community organisations, will continue until 2020. In Monday’s meeting we discussed the ‘Utopias’ programme of activities supported by Connected Communities to link to ‘Utopia 500’ – which commemorates five hundred years since the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia (see: http://www.utopia500.net/). The Utopia Fair at Somerset House in June showcased the creative outcomes from 25 AHRC-funded projects. These projects brought together local community groups, researchers, activists and artists across the UK to explore how utopian ideals can be used to benefit the environmental and social future of our communities. Representatives from contemporary Utopian movements from all over the UK took up stands in Somerset House’ courtyard, celebrating the pockets of utopia that are flourishing around the country from Newcastle to Merthyr Tydfil, Sheffield to Scotland, Brighton to Doncaster plus a range of London sites. There is a video summary of the Utopia Fair at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2k8U_fYJGw. I was interested to learn about links developed by the Utopias programme to ‘Like Culture’ – a cultural network of European cities and regions: http://www.likeculture.eu/. In Monday’s meeting we also heard about ‘Common Cause’ – the new Connected Communities BAME project which aims to strengthen and extend the existing network of university and BAME community collaborators working in the arts and humanities. Common Cause is an 18 month project, supported by Arts Council England and the Runnymead Trust, and I was delighted to learn that Voluntary Arts BAME Advisory Panel Chair, David Bryan, is now part of the team delivering the project for Connected Communities.
Robin Simpson.
On Monday afternoon I was at Kings Place in London for a meeting of the working group for the ‘A Choir in Every Care Home’ project. This was the final working group meeting, as the initial scoping phase of the project comes to an end. The Baring Foundation, which funded the project, had asked the project partners (led by Live Music Now!, SoundSense and the Sidney de Haan Research Centre) to address two key questions in relation to developing a choir in every care home: what could we do without any more money?; and what could we do if we had limitless money? The project has surveyed 150 care homes and 100 musicians who work in care homes – and Making Music has surveyed amateur music groups about working in care homes. Working papers have been used to document the basic activities within the project and to explore key issues, eg quality. A substantial review of existing research has been completed and 29 case studies have been generated. The resulting project documentation now amounts to 350 pages in total. Stephen Clift reported back to the working group about the research review. He said there had been a remarkable expansion over the last 15 years of projects around singing and health. There is something about singing that is hugely powerful for many people in contributing to their wellbeing. The working group looked at how we might develop a national campaign to encourage singing in care homes, modelled on the Sing Up campaign which reintroduced singing to 80% of primary schools. It was good to talk to David Cutler from the Baring Foundation at Monday’s meeting and I hope this is the just the starting point for a much larger project to turn care homes across the UK into ‘singing homes’.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, excellence, Republic of Ireland, UK, volarts, Wales
Cardiff Castle
On Saturday I was at Cardiff Castle for the 2016 Epic Awards Ceremony. It was a wonderful event – fantastic venue, great weather and amazing winners and runners-up from across the UK and Ireland. In the afternoon I hosted a seminar at St David’s Hall called ‘Creating Epic Places’ which looked at the effects creative cultural activities have on local communities. This provided an opportunity for the representatives of the groups arriving in Cardiff for the evening ceremony to meet each other and find out more about the various Epic projects. Voluntary Arts Board member, Hamish Fyfe – Professor of Arts and Society at the University of South Wales – led a fascinating discussion about the links between creativity and place.
The Banqueting Hall, Cardiff Castle
On Saturday evening we assembled in the splendid banqueting hall at Cardiff Castle. John Furnham from Cardiff Castle gave us a brief history of the building and reminded us that the banqueting hall had been used for the 2014 NATO Summit, pointing out which of us was sitting in the seats that had been occupied by President Obama, Chancellor Merkel et al. The Epic Awards Ceremony was slickly compered by Nicola Heywood Thomas from BBC Radio Wales. We began with a performance by the newly appointed Young People’s Laureate Wales, poet Sophie McKeand. Afterwards Sophie wrote a great piece on her blog about the experience of being involved with the Epic Awards Ceremony, calling it “a brilliant light in this liquid blackness” and noting that “some of the UK’s most dedicated, humble and generous people converged in Cardiff Castle’s banquet hall to receive awards and, importantly, recognition for their work” – see: http://youngpeopleslaureate.org/on-beginnings/
Young People’s Laureate Wales, Sophie McKeand
The Epic Awards certificates and specially commissioned Welsh lovespoons were presented to the winning groups by the Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Wales, Nick Capaldi, and the Chair of Voluntary Arts Wales, Hamish Fyfe. As always, the winners and runners-up were each amazing stories and their representatives were funny, passionate and incredibly inspiring. You can see full details of all the winners and runners-up at: http://www.voluntaryarts.org/2016/04/02/epic-awards-2016-winners-announced/
People’s Choice Award Winners, Strike a Chord – a South Wales choir for stroke survivors – provided the emotional climax of the evening with one elderly member of the choir in floods of tears as I announced their award at the end of the ceremony. Immediately afterwards we drove two of the choir’s representatives through the night to Salford to appear on the BBC Breakfast sofa, live on BBC1, on Sunday morning. The choir’s conductor, Ali Shone, told the nation “Voluntary Arts, who set up the Awards, they’re fantastic: what they do is brilliant”.
Cardiff Castle
Epic Awards 2016 has been a huge success and we are indebted to all the applicants and to Voluntary Arts staff, Trustees and Advisory Group members across the UK and Ireland. I would particularly like to thank Gareth Coles and Damien McGlynn who were both involved in running Epic Awards for the first time and helped to make this one of the best years yet. The 2016 Epic Awards Ceremony at Cardiff Castle is one of the stand-out moments of my ten years at Voluntary Arts.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: politics, UK, vcs, volarts, volunteering, Wales
The Welsh Language Commissioner, Meri Huws
On Thursday afternoon Gareth and I were at the House of Lords for a reception organised by the Welsh Language Commissioner and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) and hosted by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. This was an event for UK-wide third sector organisations operating in Wales to discuss the need to work through the medium of Welsh. Each organisation had been asked to bring two representatives – their UK Chief Executive and their Wales Director or equivalent. The Welsh Language Commissioner, Meri Huws, spoke about the implications for third sector organisations of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, emphasising the principle that people in Wales can live their lives through the medium of Welsh if that is what they wish to do. She said the third sector needs to think in different ways to move forward with dignity for people in an increasingly bilingual nation. WCVA Chief Executive, Ruth Marks, said that Welsh language, culture and identity is fundamental across all our work. She spoke about the current legislative and policy environment (including the effects of the new Social Services and Wellbeing Act and the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act). Ruth also discussed the Welsh Language and volunteering as well as good governance and quality systems (including Investing in Volunteers and PQASSO). She explained that there is now a Memorandum of Understanding between WCVA and the Welsh Language Commissioner and a WCVA Trustee has been appointed as the organisation’s Welsh Language Champion.
Robin Simpson.
Cultural Playing Field 