All been a bit quiet on the Blog for a while regarding progress with The Stove project. This is because a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes and we were asked to keep things under wraps for a while.
Significant moments of late included a group field-trip to a few artist-led spaces in the North-East of England - this was attended by Will Marshall, Linda Mallett, Mark Zygadlo, Colin Tennant, Matt Baker, Mark MacLachlan, Cathy Agnew and Lesley Rogers (please note all the activity we are talking about has been 100% voluntary - no one has been paid a penny). This trip helped galvanise attitudes about what we felt we wanted to achieve in Dumfries....in the main this was defined as NOT what we had seen on the trip - rather we were looking for a more experimental vision of an arts space working with a town rather than a glorified craft shop with studios attached for extra entertainment.
This realisation gave us the confidence to brief the business consultants hired by D+G Council to research some practical detailing towards the business plan we were preparing....leading from this was an extended period of re-working a document that would set out our vision in an appropriate manner for existing and potential project partners. This work was carried out by Will Marshall, Colin Tennant, Mark MacLachlan and Matt Baker.
A key part of this stage was drawing up plans for the building which made the spaces fully accessible for all people whilst also giving us the spaces necessary for the activities The Stove hopes to carry out. In this we were assisted by Smith Assc Architects who were commissioned to work with us by The Chamber of Commerce.
The business consultants Bruce Clarke and Adam Wellings have now completed their work (many thanks to both) on the project and were able to present The Stove project as a business plan to D+G Council last week. DGC have been hugely supportive of the vision for the project from the outset and are now able to use the business plan document to assist our group in preparing a detailed strategy for raising the necessary funding to deliver the project.
There is a lot of optimism and good energy around developments at the moment with synergy growing with other initiatives in the town (eg Moat Brae and Glasgow University) and key people and projects eg possible folk to run the cafe, creative tenants and projects (eg The Big Burns Supper)
posted by MB
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