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fishman
Posts: 180
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Posted:
30 Apr 2008 at 17:45 |
SAC announces total withdrawal of funding to Scottish Trad arts community project of the year 2007,Edinburghs enormously successful Scots Music Group. The largest programme of traditional arts for adults anywhere in Scotland has had £60,000 of funding withdrawn.63 projects were funded. 46 were not.
Amongst the 46 faced with total withdrawal are:
TMSA:
Scottish Traditions of DanceTrust:
Scottish language resource centre;
Scottish Language Dictionary:
Out of the 63 succesful No project promoting Scottish Traditional arts got any funding , except the Hebridean Celtic festival
Many community projects and all the leftish theatre companies were also axed.
Read it for you self at
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1005438.aspx
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Auldtimer
Posts: 2958
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Posted:
30 Apr 2008 at 17:55 |
It's shocking, a total and utter disgrace, and protests have already started to SAC, the Minister and other MSPs and i urge anyone who cares about traditional and community arts is Scotland to email, write or turn up and knock on the relevant doors.
The only scenario which makes any sense is that this is part of SAC/Creative Scotland's strategy to force the Scottish Government to provide more money. What has been cut is more likely to grab the attention of the current administration (and would have bothered the last administration too, btw) than what has been funded under this scheme. |
Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
30 Apr 2008 at 18:14 |
Linda Fabiani's "unequivocal support"
<http://www.footstompin.com/public/forum?threadid=70313> |
boula2
Posts: 2286
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Posted:
30 Apr 2008 at 19:04 |
| Could it be anything to do with running so called Ceilidh's in Edinburgh under false pretences? |
Auldtimer
Posts: 2958
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Posted:
30 Apr 2008 at 19:40 |
| I'm appalled that Voluntary Arts Scotland has lost out. They not only provide practical information, advice, training and support to the voluntary art groups which are the bedrock of arts participation in Scotland but they are an important part of the Voluntary Arts Network which did heroic lobbying work with the DCMS. If it hadn't been for them the Lottery Fund would have been even more depleted to pay for the Olympics. |
Jack Campin
Posts: 1191
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Posted:
30 Apr 2008 at 20:16 |
Voluntary Arts Scotland was mainly about telling people how to negotiate bureaucratic obstacles the govenment itself had put there. It had no positive function, and removing the obstacles would have made more sense. (They've been replaced in the funding budget by equivalently useless consultancies like "The Audience Business" and "Glasgow Grows Audiences Ltd").
The vast amount of money being put into theatre companies that make no public impact at all suggests cronyism.
Can the Queens Hall survive without subsidy? If not, that's an indirect blow against many organizations that didn't even try to get funding.
And why are Scots language organizations dependent on SAC at all? Since when was a dictionary art of any kind?
(I had a market researcher for the SAC at my door this afternoon. I satisfactorily skewed the statistics. The forms weren't designed with the expectation that there might be an interviewee who does Scottish traditional music more than 100 days a year and doesn't have a TV).
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Auldtimer
Posts: 2958
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Posted:
30 Apr 2008 at 21:07 |
The word is 'is' , Jack Campin, Voluntary Arts Scotland is not going under and helping people overcome bureaucratic obstacles is only a small part of its work.
The SAC's assessment was full of praise for what it does and the only 'weaknesses' were a couple of tepid 'could do better' in areas that aren't actually their remit. But there is to be a review about Creative Scotland's relationship with the voluntary arts section so in a couple of years and for a cost slightly more than the current funding for VAS, the highly paid consultants will tell them that they need an organisation that does exactly what VAS does. And the audit of Scots language provision will tell them that, among other things, they need a Scots Language Resource Centre.
From reports I have had from elsewhere the grounds for refusal of funding have verged from the inaccurate to the completely farcical. And I thought SAC's press release was rubbish even by their recent standards.
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bigmooth
Posts: 1391
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 00:19 |
From the SAC website:
"The Scottish Arts Council is also dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the Scots and Gaelic languages......." |
Jack Campin
Posts: 1191
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 00:35 |
An arts administrator has no more business dictating language policy than they do setting hospital pharmacy budgets. The SAC should never have been allowed anywhere near a position where they could interfere with people doing practical work to promote Scots and Gaelic.
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Peasle
Posts: 159
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 08:08 |
| I hope everyone connected with footsompin does something about this, even if it's just to seek a surgery appointment with their MSP to let them know what they think. Should we not be starting a petition? The old brigade back in the '60s would never have let them away with this. There would have been protest marches - and songs written too! |
MickStubbles
Posts: 1174
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 09:01 |
I don't profess to know all the organisations who have lost out on their applications for funding by the Scottish Arts Council but some of the 'losers' that I do know something about include:
7:84 Theatre Co
Borderline Theatre Co.
Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival
Fife Arts Co-operative (I live in Fife!)
Queens Hall
Traditional Music and Song Association
These rejections will come as a hammer blow to these and all the other organisations who regrettably have come to rely on grants from the public purse for their continuing development and even their survival. I know organisations are all being advised to do more to raise their own funds and move on from being dependent on grants, but even so a complete withdrawal of funding is bound to mean job losses, cut backs in services, less support for many other groups and individuals who use the services of these organisations, etc.
It does make one wonder what sort of values and priorities are being followed by the SAC when they make their choices of who to support and who to turn down.
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Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 09:18 |
The Herald <http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2238332.0.Highprofile_names_fail_to_win_share_of_arts_council_7m_grants.php>
and <http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/editorial/display.var.2238249.0.Funding_our_culture.php>
The Scotsman <http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Experimental-music-now-calls-the.4038353.jp> |
Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 09:29 |
The culprit
Constituents can contact their MSP via these contact details
Constituency:
Linda Fabiani MSP
Dalziel Building
Suite 3.3
7 Scott Street
Motherwell
ML1 1PN
Telephone: 01698 265925
RNID TypeTalk calls welcome
Fax: 01698 269033
Constituents and non-constituents can contact this MSP via these contact details
Parliament:
Linda Fabiani MSP
The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP
Telephone: 0131 348 5698
Fax: 0131 348 6473
Linda.Fabiani.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
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Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 10:10 |
I'm indebted to Dexter in the GWEndy House for this image.
Ms Fabiani is the one in the middle.
Edited: rude
Forum Admin |
Simon T
Posts: 6410
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 11:03 |
| This is not good. As said in this thread we need to act. It seems to me that there is a lack of Lowland Scots projects (apart from Itchy Coo). Many Feis projects are Foundation funded which and do not need to apply for Flexible Funding. I will write today to the many MSPs in my area. |
Nìall Beag
Posts: 1757
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 12:18 |
I didn't realise the SAC were funding the dictionary in the first place.
I take that as a bit of an insult, personally. |
fishman
Posts: 180
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Posted:
01 May 2008 at 16:12 |
Can I remind you that this is a political process and as such requires a response from the Tax payers. You have now 4 days left in which to appeal or make you views known. Irrelevent,smart comments and slagging individuals on this forum of course don't have any effect. You need to get lobbying, and quick ,if you want to make a real contribution to the health of this National Trad arts sector. If we are kicked into touch, volunteers will be required to rebuild these organisations.
There are no community based arts groups in Foundation funding ,and Feis Rois and Feisean nan Gaideal and TMSA are the only trad arts orgs funded.The position in 2006 was better when the music budget was £26m and Trad music got £500k. Yes folks 2 per cent. That's how much we are valued by the establishment, all the rest is rhetoric
Jim Tough and Richard Holloway have made the SAC position clear. They think the SAC should fund innovation, new developments and professional companies.
I think we as tax payers should demand that the Arts Council should ALSO fund the maintainance of traditional forms, continuing successful and popular initiatives, and voluntary organisations who are delivering all this and creating and maintaining participative traditional arts in communities.
None of this is fashionable. So if you want something other than the latest fad supported, stop greetin start meetin. |
partanface
Posts: 925
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Posted:
02 May 2008 at 08:25 |
| Well said fishman. I’m involved with two organisations who are severely affected (i.e. liable to be killed off) by this. I got a bad feeling at the Scotland: Creative Nation, Cultural Summit conference when I snuck into a session (I was there helping to man a stall) and all I heard was “innovation, cutting edge, new directions, only excellence” etc. I wondered then where working with traditional music would fit into that, or indeed the ‘ordinary’ public as participants, not passive watchers/listeners. Anyway the two organisations I know about aren’t taking it lying down. Meetin, not greetin, today. |
W
Posts: 116
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Posted:
02 May 2008 at 12:49 |
| I often wonder if these organisations get the appropriate support in making their applications in the first place? I imagine that a brilliant application goes a long way towards obtaining the necessary funding and I wonder if there are people with the right skills behind the bids made by our essential organisations. Surely this is something very important that should be given attention as well as the great services they provide? |
Onny
Posts: 12843
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Posted:
02 May 2008 at 13:02 |
I can't vouch for how current this is.
http://www.footstompin.com/forum?threadid=33092 |
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