Chamber looks to the future

From Matthew Shelley

The Fresh Start website is enjoying a final flourish after being temporarily resurrected to provide up to date information about the Chamber of Arts.

For me it’s a dear old friend, as I was part of the team which set it up during the consultation process which shaped D+G’s new arts structure.

Over the next few months I will be working alongside a small team, including local web designer RussellMilligan and photographer and video-maker Colin Tennant in developing the Chamber’s communications and branding. Stove founder Matt Baker is also lending his support.

There are lots of plans afoot, including for a bright and breezy new website that will help showcase the region’s creativity to a far wider audience. We hope to create a short promotional video too, which will underscore the region’s creativity.

We also need to come up with other ways of keeping people in touch with all that the Chamber is doing – its new and closer relationship with The Commonty is already helping on that front.

Communications should be two-way, so it’s also an ideal opportunity to find ways of helping practitioners and organisations to talk amongst themselves, cross-fertilise and develop new projects.

Ultimately the Chamber is what its members make it. Something I know many of them value very highly is the chance to network. It’s quite astonishing how much happens when people from across the region, and different areas of practice, come together.

The Chamber is also an increasingly important advocate for the arts and creativity, and is doing a great deal to shape and assure their role in regional life. So, if you want to help mould D+G’s cultural character, then it should be right up your street.

Membership is free just email me at MJHshelley@hotmail.co.uk and I’ll send you a form.

In the meantime, I’d just like to pass on my thanks to all those who took part in the recent Chamber branding workshop we ran at Gracefield.

It was an incredibly productive session and has done a great deal to help the branding team in its thinking – especially in creating a manifesto for the Chamber.

The idea is to have a clear declaration of its role and ambitions, capturing the spirit of the movement which gave rise to the Chamber and acting as a touchstone for its development.

While all this is going on, feel free to get in touch with me if you have items of news or information that you think might be of interest to Chamber members and I’ll try to pop them on the website.