The Board of dgArts have now made an important contribution to the discussion by posting the following comment on the Commonty (for technical reasons that are beyond our ken the blog is refusing to accept the text as a 'comment' - hence why it appears as an independent Post here)....
Hi Matt, thank you for your comments and article on the
future of dgArts. Back at the beginning of this year the board of dgArts worked
many hours together to devise a new business plan for the organisation - a plan
which we felt would best utilise funding from the public purse. The board of
dgArts is committed to providing an independent arts organisation that services
the whole of Dumfries & Galloway, that supports the main art forms of
literature, performing arts and public art and that attracts major national
opportunities to our region.
We presented our new business plan to Dumfries & Galloway Council, our strategic partner, with much optimism and hoped that this was a strategy that stakeholders would buy into. If the new direction of dgArts isn’t what you and other stakeholders want then no problem but let’s not miss out on fantastic opportunities for this region which can be delivered by having a mobilised network - such as this - in place. Unfortunately the delay in recruiting a new director has been prolonged by those who are still trying to make up their minds about what they want for arts in the region but time is critical!
dgArts’ role is to consider communities’ arts needs on a regionwide basis. The company has shown what can be achieved when we collaborate – Homecoming, Burns Light and BigManWalking have been cited as recently as yesterday at the BigBurnsSupper information event. These were the sum of widespread individual and community efforts, and involved skilled coordination by the company. The result was a creation on a scale that merited national and international notice for Dumfries and Galloway.
Great opportunities lie ahead and, as you rightly point out, time is critical, not least to implement our accepted proposal to host a large scale event with UZ International to mark the Year of Creative Scotland in 2012 . We would hate to lose this massive opportunity as well as the valuable work dgArts supports in the region and we could lose out badly if there’s no infrastructure or capability here to support. Given the proven success of the work implemented by dgArts for the Year of Homecoming 2009 we know that this has impressed those who have approached us now for the next themed year. Let’s not forget how that project put Dumfries & Galloway on the national map!
So we need buy in from funders and stakeholders and you are absolutely right …… we need to work together and do it now -
The Board of dgArts.
Many thanks for this valuable contribution and for the recognition that practitioners and other organisations are important stakeholders in the operation of dgArts (alongside the DG Council).
ReplyDeleteWould you be prepared to share the proposed dgArts business plan with the creative community - maybe via a download from your own website....which we could link to from The Commonty blog?
It's great to have this statement from the dgArts Board, thank you. I wonder if you can be more specific about your 'accepted proposal to host a large scale event with UZ International to mark the Year of Creative Scotland in 2012.'
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an important and interesting opportunity for Dumfries. By whom has it been accepted? Is there a proposed date?
The UZ Events 'Meta' programme was trailed on the blog in June.... http://thecommonty.blogspot.com/2011/06/arts-company-awarded-38m-from-europe.html
ReplyDeleteRe comment on this post...the Stove folk have not managed to get around to talking to UZ as yet, so good news that dgArts have made a first move in that direction.
For sure there will be potential for a wider group from the region to be part of the thinking on this?
Lets deal with some real life. The national body charged with Scotland’s culture has delivered a damning verdict on dgArts - SAC/Creative Scotland have decided that the organisation is no longer worthy of their support.
ReplyDeletedGArts response to this seems to be to tell everyone that ‘Creative Scotland is wrong’ and continue to bum up their past achievements. Here is the rub – do people in the arts locally stand beside dgArts in rejecting the judgement of CS? I would be interested to hear contrary opinions, but I suspect that the answer is ‘hmm, not really’. Some wonderful work grew from what was the Arts Association, but since the retirement of Jenny Wilson the new dgArts has suffered from a lack of specialist arts leadership for the organisation or from the board.
Reading the ‘response from the board’ they seem to saying that they require a vote of confidence from DGC (ie continued funding) in order to develop into the new and dynamic force that the region needs.
This must place the Council in an impossible situation – are they just being asked to trust that dgArts can change and so regain the confidence of Creative Scotland? In recent years, Dumfries and Galloway Council have been relying increasingly heavily on dgArts to take responsibility for our cultural provision. So, were they to just pull the plug on dgArts then the gaping hole in their own cultural infrastructure will be all too plain for all to see.
continued from above-
ReplyDeletePerhaps what is required is a new ‘contract’ between the Council and the existing ‘creative community’ (as we seem to be called these days) of the region.
My first suggestion for how this could work would be to construct a 5 year plan for the region that pools the money given to dgArts with matched funding from other sources such as CS. The plan would be to devolve ‘arts development’ to 5 existing agencies/arts providers across the region eg Annan, Dumfries, Glenkens, Creetown/NS and Stranraer (with a small budget of say £20,000 PA to each organisation to fulfil a development brief). This would then require a new Regional Cultural Advocate for D+G who would coordinate the input from the devolved bodies and be the primary point of contact with Creative Scotland, DGC and other bodies eg SNH, VistScotland, Destination D&G etc about both region-wide strategy and local projects.
There would be a question about whether the Regional Cultural Advocate should be ‘independent’ or sit within the Council – my preference would be for an independent position but with a Steering Group that includes high-level Council representation.
Could dgArts transform itself into the Regional Cultural Advocate?
Yes, I believe it could; if it recruited a high calibre director, placed it’s other operations (eg ticket booth) with one or more of the 5 agencies referred to above AND transformed the Board into a Steering Group with (culturally interested) high-level representation from the key sectors in the region.
Bravo Fiona! I'm thinking that A'the Airts, Kirkcudbright Tolbooth etc might have something to say about your proposed regional bodies/locations, but the point is to have a STARTING point.
ReplyDeleteWould you consider a chat sometime to explore this further - I'll send my contact information to the Commonty and hopefully they will be able to pass this on to you?
Can anyone tell me why this very important discussion is going on via a blog with 40 members when it should be shared with the entire creative community of D & G - not least through dgArts' own website ?
ReplyDeleteDear Vivien - presumably the forty 'members' you refer to are the 'followers' of the blog (listed at the bottom of the right hand margin). This is by no means the complete list of people who are reading and contributing to the blog.....for instance, you yourself are not a 'follower' yet you are reading the blog and free to contribute without fear of censorship. The Commonty was set up following a meeting of 60 people from the arts in D&G in Jan 2011. Its purpose was to create an open and democratic forum for those in the arts to talk to each other across the region.
ReplyDeleteIt says 'members(40)' - I still think this discussion should be happening in the local and national newspapers because it's too important to be conducted anywhere but in the open.
ReplyDeleteLets not get enmeshed in the trivia of the labelling of cyberspace technology....the definition of openness is radically changing in the modern world - we now have a myriad of choices for where we get our information from and, equally, the choice of where we wish to see things made 'public'.
ReplyDeleteIf you would like to see this debate in the newspapers then you could send them information about it or write to their letters page?
Have you seen the invitation for us all to join in a seminar with the local Council and Creative Scotland about the shape of the arts in the region? Hopefully this will be a great chance for people to come together to talk face-to-face about how we build the best possible arts scene in D+G.
DGC asked us to publicise the seminar - here: http://thecommonty.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-for-diaryarts-services-in-dumfries.html
Hi Vivien,just had a check on the sites statistics page. We're currently sitting on an average of 5000 visitors per month. The mailing list goes out week to roughly 200 email addresses here in D&G and further afield. For a creative blog, we're doing exceptionally well in levels of reach and engagement.
ReplyDeleteThe 40 members you see are those members with blogs who actually follow us, naturally each of those blogs has followers of their own and the information here is distributed further.
I'd love to see the debate taking place in the local press and prompting greater engagement in the process. Please feel free to expand the debate.
cheers
Mark