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Almost Caught My Breath

I see I still haven't taken my own advice and written this up little and often.  It's now two weeks since I updated this blog.

And in fact I haven't been doing all that much directly regarding Powys Arts Forum, so perhaps I can be forgiven. Instead I've been knocking on doors and talking to perfect strangers about what matters to them in their community. This strange practice is known as electioneering.

My candidature for the ward of Llandinam wasn't successful - though I did get 35% of the vote. County Hall will have to do without me for another few years. Nor did my proposal for the National Theatre Assembly win through - though I didn't really have time to campaign on that with the other campaigns going on.

On the positive side the Forum now has support from Powys County Council for its plans for 2012-13 which includes the autumn conference and preparations for 2013 Arts Month. This was confirmed last week.

We are also discussing with  Powys how their tourism website (pictured) will feature the arts. However that is done, it will be crucial that you feed information through to us.

That hasn't been happening with our calendar of events, which very few of our members are using. Time for a re-think, I feel, and maybe this initiative will be the impetus we need.

On Thursday May 9th I attended a meeting of the Strategic Management Board of Powys Regeneration Partnership. The main task of this group which meets every couple of months is to allocate funds from the Rural Development Plan. I am pleased to say that we were able to support a couple of arts projects, one in Montgomery and one in Llanwrtyd Wells.

One of the next tasks I'm wrestling with is making an application to funding from ACW, using their new on-line system. What I've seen of it so far isn't encouraging - for example it doesn't easily allow us to make a multi-site application since Powys is split between two administrative regions - Colwyn Bay and Camarthen. No doubt we'll sort it - but the deadline for  this round is May 17th.

Still busy ...

Another week - and more - has gone by, and I still haven't been keeping this up to date. But we are moving on, and other things are happening, too, that might have a bearing on the arts in Powys.
I am standing as a candidate in the County Council elections, which, if successful, would be a way of getting the arts more recognised at County Hall, as well as making progress on other local issues in Llandinam.
They always say there's no votes in the arts, but my experience on the doorstep is different, so don't be afraid to ask your local candidate - if you have one (many seats are unopposed) where they stand on arts provision.
Since my last post we've had notification from National Theatre of Wales regarding Assembly 3 - and my own idea regarding Llandinam has made it into the last three. To vote on the proposals go to http://assembly.nationaltheatrewales..org .
Closing date is May 11th at 12 noon.
The Forum trustees met last Friday and there will be updates coming out soon on what we decided. Foremost is the date for the autumn conference, which will now take place on Thursday October 18th. The venue has yet to be confirmed, but it will be announced on our website as soon as possible.
One of our key plans is to see how we can encourage closer co-operation through cluster working. This should benefit planning for Arts Month 2013. In this, and in all things, we work as closely as we can with Powys Arts Service - though always happy to tell them when we don't agree. Lucy Bevan's role is changing slightly with more emphasis on delivering Arts Strategies, and slightly less time for arts development on a one-to-one basis. The Forum will be working on asking how we can try and help the potential gap that might arise. Lucy was able to update us on this at the meeting, and the progress of the Skills for Creative Futures Programme.
Last week also saw me chairing the Steering Committee on Social Enterprise Networks, set up the PRP, and while not relevant to all arts practitioners, should help develop a supportive landscape for the future.

Behind the Scenes

You'll see the blog's been quiet for a while - over two weeks in fact. I don't want you to think we've been doing nothing, though.

We've got one of our board meetings coming up at the end of the month so we've been doing a fair bit of e-mailing ideas, suggestions, working out budgets, who's going to do what and the like.  We've also been trying to get to grips with Google Docs. That will be our preferred way of communicating between Board Members, sharing files and information.

I've recently had an update on the Social Enterprise Conference which I joint chaired, and which we hope will produce an active network in the near future, and a quick catch up with Lucy Bevan, the Senior Arts Officer at Powys County Council. 

There has been a little bit of a go-slow on the Youth Theatre Project at Powys, though now their first school production has finished rehearsing - they previewed it earlier this week - it looks like things will start to move again. Following the abortive meeting in Llanfyllin a month ago when the Forum's Jo Munton brought practitioners together for a meeting with Andrew Sterry that didn't happen, will be re-visited. The new meeting will be on Monday. We haven't been told whether or not Phil Clarke will be there, who did such a great job at the meeting at the old Drama Centre in Llandrindod.

We've also been keeping the website ticking along, and trying to let you know what we know.  You will see that the National Theatre of Wales in planning its Assembly 3, Mid Wales. As we're not one or two it confirms what we knew, that we're not athe front of the queue, but we warmly welcome the initiative. Unfortunately the deadline for project suggestions was very tight by the time we got it - about 5 days. I know it took a little while to reach us, but it looks like they only issued it two weeks before the deadline.

But we are where we are. When we contacted them, they agreed to push the deadline back a bit if there's enough interest in putting forward project submissions. So I hope we'll throw some ideas in there, and it would be great if our members let us know what they're suggesting. We'll try and meet with them next week if we can to find out more.

In between all that I've been wrestling with Google Maps. I've been putting our organisation members on the Powys Arts Month site, as a sort of exercise. Bafflingly, it shows the pins in the right place on the back end database and then on the main map can show them somewhere completely different. We're hoping Rob Picken at Trimast can sort this for us.

We're currently keeping in touch with new developments for the Powys Tourism website, and if all goes according to plan that will be featuring a lot more information on arts and culture in the future.

The image is nothing to with us or Powys, I'm afraid: it's an old stock one I found. Not sure whose it is. If anyone wants to send me a local image of Behind teh Scenes, I'll happily put in up.

Communication and the ... (3)

Well, today we've had a list of the attendees at the meeting that took place three weeks ago. But nothing about what's going to happen next. Very disappointing, I'm afraid.

Still Learning

The final one of our three Training Days took place at the Workhouse in Llanfyllin on Saturday 31st March. An absolutely fabulous building which is slowly being transformed into an exciting resource.

The abiding memory of the day for us, however, was how cold it was. No heating at all, and the unseasonal spring weather we'd had all week was draining away. A bit more customer care needed, I think - or am I just getting too old to rough it?

Still it didn't cool the ardour of the speakers or the artists - and the food was a treat.

So - sipping hot drinks throughout the day to keep us warm - Blue MacAskill gave us the overview of the marketplace for artists, and how it's an endlessly changing place thanks to the febrile nature of the virtual world. A slightly more sober view was offered by Mick Brown when it came to business planning, but even here the emphasis was on how you can create a business plan for you, not a monster that you have to feed.

Then we got tips on how to venture into the facebook underworld for those who were wary, and Rob Picken from Trimast encouraged us to think about how to put together a toolbox of devices that would help us develop, rather than relying on a basic website. It can be too easy still to see websites as static picture galleries rather than a place for dynamic and interactive possibilities.

The sessions have been great in encouraging a sharing and enjoyment in what we do, looking for ways to work together, offering and giving help to the artists around us, and making how to make common cause with our own community.  For, as someone once said, we're all in it together. Only we actually mean it.

picture: Blue MacAskill at the National Library of Wales during her 2008 residency  

The Business of Art & the Art of Business

The second of our three Training Days for Artists took place today at the New Inn in Newbridge on Wye (there's another one at Llanfyllin Workhouse on Saturday 31st March.).

Well, we call it a Training Day but it's much more a skill sharing day, where artists (which includes writers, craft businesses, promoters and more) are able to ask questions of the tutors as a way of seeing how their own experience fits in with what they are being told.

So today we started by talking about questions of 'brand' - how comfortable artists are with such a word with its sense of commercialism  - and how you position yourself in the marketplace. Do you have a business plan - and what exactly is one anyway?  What can it do for you? How much of it should you tell your bank manager?

Then there's Facebook - social life substitute for the obsessive or an invaluable tool? How do you get started? How do you separate out the fun stuff from the business stuff? Do you want your business customers to know what you get up to in down time?

We had three great trainers in Rebecca Spooner, Blue MacAskill and Mick Brown and we're very pleased indeed with how the day went. 

For the Forum these sessions are always invaluable, as we get to know our members in a very direct way. It helps us to get a sense of what the issues are and how we can work together. It also gives us a great sense of sharing, of being energised by seeing what each other is up to.

Not the least significant theme of the day was values. Not prices - but values. Values underpin everything we do.