Oban Times opens up debate on state of the arts in Argyll
published this on 1:51 pm, Friday, 7th August, 2009Business| Local Government| News| Tourism activities | Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping |
This week’s Oban Times (6th August) headlines with an exclusive interview with Catherine Gillies, Project Officer with the Dunollie Preservation Trust and Chair of the Argyll and Bute Museum and Heritage Forum.
The stimulus for the debate
The focus of the piece is that Ms Gillies is leaving – in 6 weeks time – because, in her words, ‘I can’t go and sit on my own in Dunollie and try and push this elephant up the hill any longer’. In her interview she indicates that she is aware of a chain of others in her field who have already taken the road out of Argyll.
She says that:
- ‘as a cultural professional, there is nothing here for me’.
- ‘I’m only the latest. There’s been a brain drain and a talent drain’.
- ‘It’s not a situation replicated anywhere in Scotland’.
- and talks of exhausted volunteers who do not have the back-up of Argyll and Bute Council.
Catherine Gillies’ argument centres on her own specific experience of being unable to persuade Argyll and Bute Council to contribute £500,000 to an exciting development at and around Dunollie Castle and house and the significant MacDougall clan heritage.
This is, unconsciously and perhaps unfortunately, a red herring. There is a very real issue around everything to do with the way the arts in Argyll is managed and grown. The situation is complex and one where it is easy to obscure a genuine disease with a flurry of quotes from satisfied (eg funded) clients.
The disease in the system
The heart of what is wrong in the management and strategic development of the arts here is not funding – and indeed if more money was simply thrown at the arts in Argyll it would disguise the degenerative illness in the system.
The heart of it is the most profound inadequacy – where it matters – in interest, attitude, energy, confidence, attack, innovation, informedness, development – all leading to policy and strategy. No policy will have the vision it needs and no strategy can be carried through without the right interest, attitude, energy et al.
Note where we put ‘informedness’ in the batting order. This is not the sine qua non tradition expects. The capacity to be fundamentally excited by creative expression in any form and to be curious and seeking is the real engine. Informedness can be learned on the job – and there is wide-spectrum expertise in Argyll’s arts and cultural community to be consulted.
Informedness itself, though, can often be a straight jacket, confining experiment, repeating the familiar and defensible and providing a ready – and lazy – put down for the enthusiastic, the new and the untried.
What is utterly essential is a commitment that is driven, inventive and energetic; and the generation of an atmosphere where ideas and innovations are welcome and recognised as the life force they are.
Not one of the elements of the picture painted in the sentence above is present in the current management of the arts in Argyll. This is what is wrong. This is what must change – must be changed.
It is not, however, the single cause of degeneration.
The disease in the arts community
A parallel disease lies in arts practitioners themselves and, to a degree, has been created by decades of being undervalued. People have got so used to fighting their own corner for sheer survival that they cannot lift their eyes to the horizon and see a bigger picture in which they and what they do may not be central.
There is a general failure to understand – and this applies far beyond the world of the arts – that the better the health and vitality of the body, the better life is for the limb. Someone else’s success – in funding and acclaim – will raise the profile of and interest in the entire sphere of creativity and its relation to its audiences. The more numerous the successes, the more vigorous and expansive is the climate created for all those who play the game.
Virtually any meeting of representatives of the arts and culture – not just in Argyll but anywhere – descends rapidly into the subjective, the acquisitive and the whinge. This is tedious and unconstructive.
Somehow, those in the arts community must find the ability to set vested interest aside and consider the big picture that would transform Argyll. Once that picture is there, it will drive policy and that policy will trickle down into a strategy for delivery.
The wider benefit
A major argument, which Catherine Gillies repeats in her interview with The Oban Times, is that today arts and culture are a significant economic driver. They are. The evidence is there – everywhere. Who’d ever heard of Hay-on-Wye until the Book Festival?
Since this article was published, Dorthy Bruce from Cowalfest emailed us this photograph she had taken of a sign at Hay-on-Wye – which says it all.
The little town boasts 30 bookshops – so who’s worried about competition? Hay-on-Wye gets it that the more activity there is, the better for everyone.
Then there are metal bookshelves around the town full of volumes people have finished with. You can browse endlessly for hidden gems and drop donations in honesty boxes.
The fact that this works can be seen from the sign in the photograph. As Dorothy says, a population of 1,450 is little more than some small Argyll towns yet Hay is attracting half a million visitors a year.
There is a tipping point where the level of real achievement and excitement becomes a magnet and money follows. The question is how to get to and cross that tipping pont.
Solutions and sacred cows
The venerable sacred cow
The biggest sacred cow has already been named and shamed above – informedness. The arts, as with any protectionist elite, majors on the exclusivity of expertise. This is the killer disease. People outside this often pretentious, high-altitude environment, have long been taught to regard themselves as unqualified to engage and to comment.
Most damagingly of all, people do not see the value in their own spontaneous responses. They are schooled to look for what they are expected to feel and think and they devalue themselves when, as is very often the case, their genuine reactions differ widely from this.
This is the fraud the arts continue, as a whole, to perpetrate on their clients. This has to change – and from within as well as without the arts community. Why should people pay to be patronised by those who, in many cases, have a narrower perspective than their audiences? Perspective is truth.
Some solutions
Key questions are obvious and will lead to solutions. They include:
- Personnel – are the right people in the right jobs in the Council?
- Are those jobs valued by the Council – in respect, inclusion and influence as much or more than in budget?
- What do we want and what have we got? How do we find out and where do we start?
- Are the support mechanisms to enable and develop activity the most productive they can be? (And this incudes but is not dominated by funding.)
- Might there be a job dedicated to going out hunting for money for the arts in Argyll – and being inventive and proactive in doing so?
- Should the customer not have a stronger voice?
- What partnerships have we got?
Unless its funding base changes, it is unrealistic of anyone to expect that Argyll and Bute Council will be able, from its own resources, to raise its game in arts development. Its responsibilities are too complex and its funding is far short of what it needs to fulfil them.
That is why we suggest the creation of a job for a hunter gatherer for the arts here. That might be affordable, even at the initial expense of some current subsidies. Prune to flower.
Waiting for the next EU scheme to come along and simply managing it is not what we have in mind. Argyll needs a much higher level of energy, initiative and stamina than this.
And look at Dumfries and Galloway. They have created lively partnerships with bodies like Forestry Commission Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage to drive not only activity in the arts and culture but to innovate and to excite new audiences.
They’ve got the right people. They’ve got the right attitude. They’ve got the right support. They’ve got the energy and the will to make it happen.
None of these are beyond achievement in Argyll. We have to go get them – and not copy but take a lead.
And here’s a spaceshot ...
Why not have an election for Argyll’s art supremo? Let’s have nominations, manifestos, hustings, campaigns and online voting. That would crank up the profile wouldn’t it? Go on suggest some folks in the comments below …
The photograph above is of Dunollie Castle, is by copyright holder Jjhake and reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation licence. And yes, we are aware of its symbolic relationship to the topic.
Related Posts
The Latest News from ForArgyll delivered via email, weekly or daily. You know it makes sense!
Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping | | Print This Post
Loading...
August 7th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Twitter Comment
RT @ForArgyll [link to post] > Oban Times opens up debate on state of the arts in Argyll > well worth reading
– Posted using Chat Catcher
August 9th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
This is a debate that needs to take place, vigorously and honestly now as next year is set to be extremely difficult, not only for councils and other funding bodies, but also for festivals and events. Argyll & Bute has no major events and festivals funding for next year, so we’ll all be scrabbling for a small contribution from the limited local leisure development pot.
The value of events and festivals in attracting visitors is widely recognised. Just look at the whole thrust of Homecoming, built around an array of events and festivals with both international, national and regional importance, all being heavily promoted by Homecoming Scotland to increase tourism and bolster the Scottish economy. Next year many of these innovative and exciting new festivals will hope to continue, along with those longer established. More festivals and events – less, much less funding.
In a debate on Scotland’s festivals in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 18th June, Culture Minister Michael Russell said festival events attracted 3.1 million attendances and an estimated 1.4 million trips to Edinburgh. These “generated output of about £170 million in Edinburgh, £40 million of new income, support for 3,200 jobs and new visitor expenditure—an increase in income of £31 million for accommodation and £22 million for bars and restaurants.”
He maintained the festivals provided very good value for money. Forty-eight per cent of the Edinburgh International Festival’s income comes from private funding. In 2009-10, these festivals received £3.1 million from the Scottish Arts Council and £3.3 million from the City of Edinburgh Council, plus money from the expo fund – so far the children’s festival has received £350,000, the film festival £110,000, the jazz and blues festival £100,000, the art festival £100,000, the Edinburgh International Festival £180,000, the book festival £55,000 and the fringe £460,000, and the mela will receive £30,000. The storytelling festival, the winter festival, the science festival and the tattoo also look set to benefit from this fund. The Scottish Expo fund has been described by the Minister as money designed “to maintain the global competitive edge of what is still the world’s leading Festival city, while showcasing Scotland’s immense creative talent.”
Whilst we all recognise the significant benefits these festivals bring not just to Edinburgh but to the image of Scotland as a whole, we do need to consider whether in the current climate feast for some whilst starving others is the best way forward. Cowalfest, and I’m sure most other rural festivals and events, is repeatedly told by our public funders that we need to be sustainable, yet the Edinburgh Festivals clearly are not. And whilst most of us cannot claim to attract very large numbers of visitors, Cowalfest, like so many other small events, punches above its weight in other areas with a tourism focus. Edinburgh has a wide range of businesses of a size to contribute as sponsors to its festivals and who gain handsomely from them, whereas a limited number of small businesses in many of our rural towns struggle to contribute to local events accepting their need to help attract visitors in an ever more competitive tourism marketplace that is now international even at local level. Sadly, many of these areas also suffer from little marketing of their attractions, compounding the problem.
Dumfries and Galloway, which you mention, has been highly successful in attracting arts funding. I understand there are 14 publicly funded staff working on arts events and festivals. The Scottish Borders, which recognises and values such events, has for some time had a strategy to grow events and festivals, and has at least three European funded staff working to help local organisations access funding from all available sources.
Events in Argyll are certainly set to experience even stiffer competition for a shrinking pot of funding. The private sector is experiencing its own problems, and, despite the great support given by some businesses, there is still a feeling out there that events should be significantly if not entirely publicly funded. So a shift in attitude and perception is also required. The private sector needs to pick up more of the bill if it wants to retain these events and the ensuing benefits.
And in pleading the case for local events and festivals I would finally point out that those in rural areas are often the only means of engaging people with the the arts. Where there is a lack of museums and galleries, difficulties for many in accessing national collections or those of Glasgow, the work done by local arts organisations is invaluable in widening experiences and horizons. This is also the nurturing greenhouse for growing the Scottish talent that the Minister is so keen to showcase in Edinburgh.
It would be sad if in boosting Edinburgh events others around Scotland, so valuable in their own way to their own communities, were to fall by the wayside in the stony grounds of recessionary cutbacks. Were this to happen the effects could be highly detrimental to quality of life and the ability to develop rural tourism, necessary, I would argue, if the Scottish Government wishes to see us attain a 50% growth in tourism by a rapidly approaching 2015.
Backing your suggestion is the only road forward. I would hope the debate you have started stimulates the action needed to bring about real progress.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I am in complete agreement with Dorothy. The support for visual and performing arts and promotion of Cultural Tourism in Argyll and Bute is severely lacking, considering that Tourism in all it’s forms is one of the major industries in the region. There is a total lack of value accorded to the Cultural Tourism sector and all that goes to feed it. The example of Dumfries and Galloway’s success in attracting arts funding and it’s exemplary and exciting events such as the legendary ‘Spring Fling’ only serve to heighten despair as we look at the shrinking funding pot and the constant harrying to be ‘sustainable’.
Whilst no-one would argue that ‘sustainability’ is the goal to be striven for in the Creative Industry sector, it’s not going to come around anytime soon especially for those of us who are the relatively new kids on the block and who, despite the generous support for ‘Homecoming 2009′ are struggling to see the way forward from 2010 onwards. It seems quite bizarre to have put so much into Homecoming with no sense of looking at developing the cultural industries in Argyll and Bute, beyond 2009. Isn’t it the Creative Industries that have been one of the main focuses in pulling back the Diaspora? Yet there is little recognition of the importance of these industries and their value to the visitor and local communities in Argyll and Bute.
For me, one stark fact stands above many of the others-in the whole of the Argyll and Bute region there is only one publicly funded, multi-disciplinary arts centre-and that is on Mull! Bearing in mind how big the Argyll region is that to me say’s it all. There is a vast, exciting and dynamic Creative community in Argyll and Bute and their output is one of the reasons that Cultural Tourism is successful in Argyll and Bute-but it could be even ore successful if the value and contribution made by the Creative Industries was supported with both public and private funding and more provision made for multi-disciplinary arts hubs throughout the region to showcase the wealth of talent and creativity alive in A and B.
A culture of sustainability can be created, but it’s not going to happen overnight and it’s not going to happen without public funding to help it grow. Give us the tools and support and we can make it happen-reduce funding, withdraw support and the whole of the momentum built up in this year of Homecoming will come tumbling down like a house of cards, to the massive detriment of the quality of life of the rural communities and cultural tourists. Yes, people like a nice view-but they also want activities and challenges to stimulate them once they’ve enjoyed the view!
August 12th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I need to clarify the situation regarding my unsought for and not entirely welcomed ‘big splash’ story.
Firstly I am not walking off the set in a huff! I am indeed off in a few weeks but it is to do a year’s course in Museum and Gallery Studies at St Andrews University, and while ‘there is nothing for me here’ at the moment (completed quote required) I am not wanting to leave Argyll and I sincerely hope to be able to find work in the cultural sector at some stage so I can come home. Ideally this will be at Dunollie where is a fascinating curator’s job to do. Incidentally Dunollie is not being mothballed – I said I was tidying it up and putting it to bed before I headed off, which is rather different but not such a good story.
I didn’t approach the Oban Times – they merely asked me what was going to happen now at Dunollie after our wonderful Homecoming event. ‘Not a lot’ was the reply, given that we are trapped in this funding problem. My year out will give a little time to work out some solutions, and I am in good and friendly communication with the Council who have been unfailingly supportive of what we are wanting to do – but they genuinely do have a problem with funding the required match. It is pointless to rage and rant about the current lack of Council funding when what we – and current set of councillors – are dealing with is a historic deficit going back to the changeover from Strathclyde Region combined with the onset of the Lottery: the administration of the day failed to grasp the big opportunities largely because they weren’t interested. The councillors are now by and large much more interested, but they are in a very poor situation for being able to address the huge deficit that exists between what we have and what would bring us into line with the rest of the country.
The really big step forward within the Council is that the economic benefits of arts and heritage are now recognised – which is a massive change from the situation which I met when I moved back here from Orkney (which is of course culturally fab) in 1992. I personally feel more encouraged than I have for a long time that the debate within the council is starting to move – not dramatically or quickly, but it is open, and that is new. Mike Russell and Jim Mather are helping it along, and Alex Salmond is well aware of it (because I told him when I met him a few weeks ago). They do recognise the challenges faced by the council in moving the cultural provision up the funding register.
If I were to come up with one wish for this arts debate which I seem to have unwittingly and rather oddly kicked off, it would be that it is conducted very positively with regard to the council – without whom we will be going nowhere. We have a joint problem, and any solutions are going to have to be joint. I really regret that the Oban Times article came across as Mrs Angry of Oban, because actually I am not angry – I am frustrated because we are stuck at this funding wall right now, but I am also quite excited by the noises I hear coming from Councillors. My year out takes the heat of the Dunollie situation and will give us all some space to look at new routes and solutions, and to take some time to get the measure of what the Council want to get out of arts and heritage.
Which brings me back to strategic and economic development surrounding cultural investment and provision. As I said, the case is pretty much made and we can thank Glasgow and lots of other places for showing how culture is an economic driver/community bedrock rather than an economic drain / elitist pursuit.
I am maybe a simple soul, but I prefer to deal with such matters on a pragmatic step by step basis. I feel that the philosophy behind what we want to do with culture (individually and collectively) is some distance down the road, and what we need to do right now is establish a few solid facts:
1. Per capita spend, distribution of spend and services, current economic return.
2. Useful and pragmatic comparisons between Argyll and Bute elsewhere: what is a fair level provision? How is it administered elsewhere? How is it funded? What are the economic returns? What are the advantages AND problems in areas with high provision? How do other areas with low budgets deliver?
3. With this information, what do we need to do to deliver a service which is PRACTICAL AND ACHIEVEABLE for our Council in conjunction with the independent sector? What services do we need to add to, and how do we need to redefine, existing services to make them work better for us? What will it cost?
4. Expectation and reality / regional spread / arts and heritage balance / facilities audit (public and private) : all need definition and discussion, but I feel it is quite important to view cultural development in terms of programmes etc as fairly organic at the moment. We all have wants and needs, but some are more developed than others; most suffer from hopeless of facilities, lack of staff, volunteer burnout etc. The problems are various and local in variation but have the common theme of shortage of resources. Lets put this whole debate back to the beginning and right now get the discussion ball rolling towards better resources, and then once that ball really starts to roll, then look in detail at what these resources might start to achieve.
5. What can we do to help the Council? Because believe me this won’t work unless we do. Easy. Collate facts and figures that our councillors can use. Don’t fight them, and don’t critisise them unless they really deserve it. Don’t expect them to know or understand the attractions and advantages of cultural industries because they may not be natural cultural buyers. Many of them may feel about culture they way I feel about football or golf, and I know I would need someone very patient, enthusiastic and POSITIVE to explain to me why we need any more of it. Talk to our local councillors as potential partners and avoid a ‘them and us’ situation, and it will be pointless and ultimately damaging. We need a good, strong, positive and above all pragmatic working environment for this all to go forward.
6. Government has a big role to play here. They are currently rapping A&B over the knuckles for not doing enough, which is great, but they also can’t expect the massive deficit to be dealt with by the Council on their own. We have to encourage councillors to bite the bullet and look at just how much it might cost (which will be very alarming) and then support their efforts to persuade the government to find a start-up allocation to launch a new cultural team or infstratucture here. We are, after all, on a pretty greenfield site, and we will need investment on a national rather than local scale to get the foundations down. The Council need our voice behind them when they approach the government.
From all the above you will see that my rant to the council in the Oban Times was not MY rant! It contained some useful facts, and I can see how the reporter felt it came together as a story but the tone wasn’t what I would have chosen. I was a reporter for 17 years and these things happen.
So- in conclusion, I would like to keep it simple, practical and collaborative. We have a job to make cultural development sexy, appealing, accessible and rewarding, and if we do our job well our local councillors will want to be on that bandwagon with us. We won’t get them all, but if we get enough the mountain will start to move… so please TALK to the council and government MSPs etc -and drag them along to things. They always have fun even they don’t expect to!
August 13th, 2009 at 10:26 am
While I agree that the Council have to be kept in the loop, first of all the council has to GET IT — about arts, culture, language, history, archeology and the one that is hardly ever mentioned – genealogy.
The fact that we are SO far behind the times in comparison to everywhere else in the country, and most of the rest of the world, in this corner, IS down to the Council in a great part. There has been, and still is, plenty of hard work by small local groups and volunteers. but these will never be able to create the facilities that make a difference economically.
Argyll and Bute Council have failed to support — and I mean properly support — not some mealy mouthed tokenism, and the barest scrape of money when forced — any efforts of groups around Argyll to emulate others around the country. Unless there is a photo opportunity many of the councillors seem never to leave their office, let alone open their minds.
Support has to come from the HEART – they have to mean it, they have to be passionate about it, they have to have some sincere understanding about what is being aimed for, and they have to have some integrity about what they do and say. Until this happens – they are not even going to get past first base, let alone LEAD !
Argyll and Bute Council has none of these, and it shows.
The audience is out there, there are hundreds of thousands of people keen to come, either virtually or in person, and to spend, learning about Argyll, its history, its culture and its people. Its up to this Council to help those who have the ability and interest to make this more accessible and available to this eager and growing market. They should be the active conduit between the National and International organisations and funders, and the local groups and organisations. That is how it works elsewhere.
What did Argyll and Bute DO about Homecoming? – other than offer a meagre pot of money, too late for any new group to do much about it, and with an application form that was beyond a joke! Mostly all that were assisted were existing projects who would probably have happened anyway. There were few novel events CREATED by their efforts.
Other than a few notable and inspiring exceptions, much of what had a Homecoming tag on it, in Argyll and Bute this year, were things that happen every single year.
It is well recognised that Family History is one of the biggest potential money spinners and tourist attractants globally – yet Argyll and Bute still DO nothing about genealogy.
At the most basic level, the libraries do not have to the online resources most others do, there is no Family History Centres, an apology for an archive, despite the best efforts of the officers left with the job of dealing with it all. And the support for the museums and history is pitiful.
If the council started to really, seriously, actively, passionately, support the efforts of volunteer organisations around the county who are trying to promote the arts, culture, language, social and family history of the area, then, maybe, we would have a local population that could be inspired to appreciate what is under their noses, which is being lost daily. This market has a potential to contribute significantly to Argyll’s future economy, maybe even become its saviour!
Others recognise the power and the financial benefits, as well as the social ones.
just a few to illustrate the point. ( I cannot find the piece on Radio 4 on Sunday 2nd August discussing the immense amount of money that was being calculated that genealogy could bring into Scotland in tourism income in the next few years — it was millions, many millions. Argyll should be at the forefront of receiving this, not at the end, creating disappointed customers who will go elsewhere.
http://www.download-it.org/free_files/filePages%20from%205.%20Genealogy%20tourism.pdf
Genealogy is one of the fastest growing hobbies worldwide and is potentially a great money spinner, this is recognised at an individual, corporate and academic level – yet not by our Council.
Look at the responses to this thread for Colonsay
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/islandblogging/blogs/000019/0000000026.shtml
http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_122689_en.pdf
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/05/28141101/1 The Scottish Diaspora and Diaspora Strategy: Insights and Lessons from Ireland
In other parts of Scotland they have had Homecoming initiatives to build on for the future, a tough future we are facing – what have Argyll and Bute Council done for their population?
August 14th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
To say that most of the council Homecoming funded projects were annual events which would have occurred again this year, irrespective of Homecoming funding, sounds very like the response of someone who has never faced the demands of running an annual event. Otherwise linnhe would know that running such events each year brings a mountainous new challenge to raise funding and put together an attrractive programme with a balance of elements people appreciate and come back for along with new initiatives to keep the event fresh, putting enormous pressure on small bands of extremely hard working volunteers. To say there were few novel events funded this year is certainly not accurate. Those at Dunollie, for example, testify to that as do many others. Nor was novelty a criteria for receiving Homecoming funding. As Cowalfest is working towards its seventh festival, supported by council Homecoming funding, I guess its one of the events linnhe is railing against.
Incidentally, we didn’t see the application as a joke, but as a form that deserved our best attempt at completion in order to help finance a festival which has grown and altered with the years, adding new activities and helping the development of tourism in this area of Argyll.
As well as collaborating with others in arts and outdoor activities to develop cross-creative boundary opportunities, we also co-operate with the Cowal Way, helping promote this long distance walk which now provides the link for local people and visitors to walk from Campbeltown to Inverness. Walking is worth over £1bn a year to the Scottish economy. Perhaps it isn’t novel, though we do try to be ambitious with the variety of walks we offer, but bringing home Cowal’s share of that billion pounds would mean a significant boost to the local economy.
As well as adding to our programme, Cowalfest has also done much research into an area linnhe does seem to appreciate, ancestry. Added to our website this year was information on local clans, families and merchants and the properties associated with them, and we actively work with others to see how the area’s rich heritage can be better portrayed to visitors. These properties and their fascinating stories feature in many of our walks. VisitScotland”s June edition of Ancestral Scotland featured the work Cowalfest had done.
In a report recently published on the genealogy tourism market one of the findings was that the proportion of a visitor’s time spent on genealogy activities varied between 10 and 25%, much of this being spent on visiting towns and villages of specific family interest. General sightseeing, relaxing and visiting museums and galleries were the activities on which the remainder of their holiday time was spent. Another earlier report came to a similar conclusion, citing visiting attractions such as castles and museums and / or exploring the Scottish scenery as other activities undertaken. Currently ancestral tourism is worth over £152m per annum to the Scottish economy, thought its potential for growth is recognised. But genealogy in itself does not appear to be a big ‘money spinner’, but rather one of a number of varied activities that visitors are looking for as part of their holiday experience.
Cowalfest this year is also managing the Robin Jenkins Literary Award. In our understanding of the word, this is novel, in the sense that it is new, groundbreaking. This is the UK’s first environmental book award, with the award ceremony taking place at the Edinburgh International Book Festival later this month, so raising the profile of Jenkins, widely regarded as one of Scotland’s greatest contemporary writers, and highlighting his association with Cowal and with the Forestry Commission.
I won’t bore with listing Cowalfest’s other initiatives this year, this site has been generous in its coverage of them. But in another innovation this year’s festival will include an exhibition Alexander Reid and the Japanese Influence – Art, ships and plants. This has been the result of significant research over many years, and has seen Cowalfest accepted as a Japan-UK 150 event in a year of events promoted by the Japanese Government that celebrate the signing of a treaty of friendship and trade between the UK and Japan 150 years ago. This signalled the end of the Shogunate and of Japan’s 250 years of isolation. In its moderniisation and industrialisation many Scottish companies and individuals were involved. But the process was two way with Japanese art significantly influenciing Western art and artists, including many Scots.
This does not seem a trivial event to be dismissed as unworthy of Homecoming funding, it fits within the Great Scots criteria and the significant contribution that many Scots made worldwide. In my justification of our funding I am sure I speak for many other event organisers without whose hard work, determination and vision Argyll would be a much poorer place.
Criticism and deriding others who are toiling to deliver is easy. Much more difficult is bringing agencies, organisations and people together to deliver a collectively agreed strategy. This is the only way change can be achieved. That is why Catherine Gillies is right in saying the council must be part of the solution. That is why this debate is important.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
The national Homecoming team told me that there have been only two, at most three, local authorities which have, quote, ‘got’ Homecoming, and that Argyll and Bute is one of them. We collectively have put together one of the best regional Homecoming programmes in the country with a mix of existing events with a Homecoming twist and new inspiring ones (I like that – I am going to claim Dunollie as one of them). I think Argyll and Bute Council need to get some recognition for that, and above all the late great Kerry Corbett. What a loss she is.
However I do agree with Linnhe that the form was excessive. The national Homecoming application process was actually easier! They did not require a full business plan for projects of a modest size, and I do think it was laying too big a burden on small organisations to deliver full-scale business plans for projects which ometimes only got grants in the hundreds. It was fair enough for us – we got £10,500 from Argyll and Bute and £10,000 from Homecoming and you have to be accountable at that level, but it is also the case that you can really put people off if they have to roll out the whole red carpet for small, low budget events. I am impressed that so many people entered the process and did the graft given that the A&B application was unnecessarily rigorous; lessons should be learned for next time.
One event which should get a big round of applause is the Lismore Homecoming week- and they got just £700 from Argyll and Bute!!! They delivered the most astounding programme for that, including guest lecturers, genealogy, walks, theatre, musical events, exhibition and more. I think it was probably the most targetted Homecoming event in the county – even more than ours, and if ForArgyll runs their Oscars again this year, then I will be putting the Comann Eachdraidh Lios Mor in for as many categories as possible. The volunteers on the island worked their socks off , raised business sponsorship, marketed well, hauled in great audiences, and really delivered the goods. They could teach event management companies a thing or two.
Apart from wanting to recgnise their achievement, I wanted to raise the Lismore event as a very useful marker for arts/cultural delivery in Argyll. It was brilliant but it was entirely volunteer led on a pitiful budget, fraught with challenges of logistics and transport. The committee are, to quote one of them who I met in Tesco yesterday, “on their knees”. Everyone of you involved in trying to deliver cultural events in A&B will recognise that whole scenario.
What I want Argyll and Bute Council to ‘get’ now, and what I feel that our Homecoming year has a chance to show, is that culture is NOT a hobby. It is a straightforward and proven economic driver in the same way that seafood platters and seafari trips are, yet nobody expects chefs and powerboat drivers to work for nothing. Of course culture is a different economic model, but it is a standard one even if it doesn’t yet have a locus in either the council or the Argyll end of HIE.
The cultural economic model is of course based on the ripple effect, contributing to the tourism product but not necessarily self-sustaining on a standard sale/return business footing. But cultural delivery should be, and is, a balance between commercial viability and the need to ensure that the cultural product maintains standards of quality and accessibility (galleries/studios, events, performances, heritage attractions including museums and so on, plus of course the major tourism servers such as genealogy): The service level agreement is a very efficient top-up mechanism, as is project funding.
Of course we need a budget, and as I keep saying boringly, a proper plan. Information, stats, comparable regional administrations, and then a proper plan. It is a million miles away from the creative end of culture but if we don’t tackle it from that end we will never get where we all want to go.
Finally it is absolutely right to raise genealogy up as one of the key areas in all this. We at Dunollie are acutely connected with it as a clan seat, and it is the fastest way to put £ signs in front of councillors and others to talk figures to them on the subject. Luckily the tourism stats are collected and very clear on ‘roots tourism’. It is massive, and often occupies the top end of the market in terms of accomodation and eating out. It is also not in any way a phoney product, and I have no time for people who scoff at clans and family history. In many ways it is the deepest subject of all, and touches people at intensely emotional levels – and not only the diaspora. Our experiences at Dunollie and at The Gathering in Edinburgh showed that many Scots and other UK people are also keenly connected to the notion of clan/family and critically also to the related locations. When you ally this spark to superb cultural providers like The Walking Theatre Company, or to artists, writers and others, you get something that is so powerful and is a huge magnet. And so it becomes an economic driver…
It is actually all very simple. Says she…
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:41 am
[...] This looks like being an ongoing success story which, given the present debate on this site about how to make the connection between the arts and tourism dollars, shows us a totally unsubsidised working [...]
August 25th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
[...] This looks like being an ongoing success story which, given the present debate on this site about how to make the connection between the arts and tourism dollars, shows us a totally unsubsidised working [...]