The Stove - update

The team of people working on The Stove project have been really heartened by the atmosphere of positivity that is gathering around the project - we seem to be forging a good working partnership with the Council and making creative links with other groups and projects around the town...fingers crossed that we are actually getting somewhere with this..

The Chamber of Commerce is now granting us regular access to the building to hold meetings etc and last night some of us: Hugh Bryden, Mark Zygadlo, Kim Ayres, Will Levi Marshall, Mark MacLachlan and Matt Baker met with the consultants who are developing a sustainable business plan for the project (apologies were received from Linda Mallett, Amanda Simmons, Jo Shennan and Colin Tennant).

I think this may prove to be one of the key moments in the whole project - the brief for the meeting was that we needed to hand over to Adam and Bruce:
a) our vision for the building
b) give them assurance that we were prepared to form a proper 'consituted body' (exact type of which to be confirmed) in order to further develop and subsequently deliver the project

Armed with these two things Adam and Bruce will be able to negotiate with the Council and Chamber of Commerce and (hopefully) arrive at an 'in-principle' agreement about the roles and responsibilities of each party in taking the project forward from here.

Our crew worked together brilliantly on these tasks (just the right mix of headstrong artistic integrity and organisational/'reality' experience)  - a compelling case was made for a truly 'open-access' and cross-artform space that will focus on giving opportunities for those interested in developing careers in the arts and bring some much needed vitality into the heart of the Town Centre.

Adam and Bruce are arranging for us to go on a visit to two examples of arts-led spaces in the North east of England - if anyone is interested to come on this trip, then get in touch via the blog or email.