DGU - State of Play

From Katie Anderson

Regular readers of the Commonty will be following with interest the development of the DGU structure, as it continues on its evolving and growing path into the fully functioning and amazing thing that we all hope it could yet become.

The Regional Arts Hub is currently made up from the area arts convenors, as well as representatives from the arts community in the form of those who received funding and support from the first round of funding from DGU (the Dumfries and Galloway Chamber of the Arts) back at the turn of the year. I sit on this hub representing the Stove Network and our Town Centre Regeneration Commission that was jointly developed by the council and the Chamber. Full details of who all currently sits on the Hub available here.

As the DGU structure looks to embed itself better within the regional arts scene, it has of course realised that some things aren’t working as effectively as they might, and to this end the Board of Trustees and the Regional Arts Hub met today to discuss the current state of play, and the way to move the structure forward so that it can better support its members (the DGU members being everyone who has filled in the form, details about how to join available here).

Round Table Discussions

The discussion focused itself around a few key points, including:

Formalising the structure of the Regional Arts Hub so that it can better communicate with the Board of Trustees, the council and external bodies to deliver more for the region. This will include exploring membership of the Hub itself as well as operational and constitutional requirements.

Communication – that big, dirty c word raises its ugly head time and again as everyone looks at the complex difficulties in communicating effectively across our wide region. There was some discussion of this below Belle’s post last week, and Matthew Shelley is hard at work preparing the new DGU website for release with the turn of the year. The Commonty will keep you updated as to when the website will become live.

Funds and Opportunities – as many may be aware DGU has been all deadlines this week, with closing times for the Regional Arts Fund, as well as admin and co-ordination posts over the past 24 hours. There was a recognition that more work needs to go into the processes of these funds, as well as developing our work with the council to improve form layout, scoring framework and selection panels, as DGU moves forward into the future.

The Regional Arts Hub also hopes to call a members’ meeting in the Spring 2015 to share and vote on these issues, as ever The Commonty will keep you posted – however, any questions, queries, thoughts or ideas are best brought to your area arts convenor – they are out to represent the voices of the regional arts scene, so make best use of them!