EXAMPLES OF GOOD PRACTICE

Culture

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 MAC – Fife Council’s Museum & Arts Coach

Launched in March 1996, it’s a mobile museum, gallery exhibition and activity space designed to make the whole range of collections available beyond the boundaries of museum buildings to people across Fife. It was created by converting a double-decker coach to a single space the full height of the coach.

 

Exhibitions last a year on average and subjects have ranged across creative arts, mining, Victorian art, contemporary jewellery, geology, Polish forces in WW2 and natural history.

 

Its aims are to

· develop audiences which reflect Fife’s demographics

· encourage first time users and break down barriers of transport, time, money, awareness or confidence

· provide an accessible environment.

· provide an educational resource which can be accessed easily by schools

· increase the level of engagement with culture

 

In 2003 MAC received the Museums & Heritage Award for Excellence in Education for the project ‘7 Pit Wynd, Coaltown of Fife’.

 

In 2002-03 MAC made 173 visits to 106 venues reaching almost 10,000 people. 42% of visits were to regeneration areas, 17% to groups of older people, 10% to groups of people with disabilities and 33% to education facilities. Over 90% of MAC’s visits are to non-museum venues

 

It’s a valuable and unique service –the only mobile museum in Scotland.

 

Glenwood After Hours Club @ Glenwood Library

The Glenwood After Hours Club is a library-based project, part of the Take a Pride in Glenrothes Initiative, in partnership with the Local Service network, Community Learning and Fife Constabulary.  The project aims to divert young people who are indulging in anti-social and disruptive behaviour in and around the Glenwood Centre into a more positive use of their time by providing them with a structured programme of activities.  The project provides young people with a safe environment in which to participate in a variety of events and projects and provide them with the opportunity to explore and develop new skills.

 

The project started in January 2005

 

208 children have attended the events; 17 children [average] attended each event; 80% are girls; 20% ; boys; Ages range between 7 years and 15 years

 

There has been some evidence of reduction of crime or anti-social behaviour.  Anecdotally, incidences of anti-social behaviour have dropped; some of the children who were responsible for the anti-social behaviour now attend the club; and fewer incidents have been reported and generally it is quieter

 

In addition to the above there have been a number of positive impacts.

Projects have included:

· film with young people in Northfield about the impact school, friendships, Bullying and exam pressure has on mental health

· 20 x 12 metre printed vinyl site specific art work on the end panel of the half pipe at the snowsports centre, currently seen by  thousands of commuters and shoppers travelling into Aberdeen each day – without any vandalism for 2 years

· billboards on Victoria Bridge in Torry, designed by Community groups, encouraging local involvement in a local Gala day

· SK8 and Create- a live project being undertaken by young people from Torry Academy, creating designs for a new local skatepark which will be transferred via print to the new skateramps during the summer

· ‘Working at Living’ is a DVD currently in production, made by older people for older people, on accessing Services and Benefits.

In addition, the team has further developed the use of digital print for a number of bus shelters in Regeneration areas, and for the hoardings during the refurbishment of His Majesty’s Theatre, paid through Elected Members ward budgets, Building budgets, and Community Regeneration funds.

The Blake Stevenson report, commissioned to assess the effectiveness of the Arts Programme for the network [Healthy Living] stated:

‘The arts project clearly contributes to addressing and tackling health inequalities  and promoting health, well being and self confidence, whilst using participation in the arts to produce a positive impact on mental health’.

Further information from Lesley Thomson, Community Arts Manager LTHOMSON@aberdeencity.gov.uk

Aberdeen City Council

Arts, Regeneration and Health inequalities

Arts Development at Aberdeen City Council delivers a City wide Cultural participation programme throughout the City.   In the year 2005/6 the total number of learning opportunities was 37,022 and 1,574 workshops were held.  Increasingly the team has become involved in delivering on a range of non Cultural objectives, ensuring that the Arts are used as a tool for engaging with hard to reach groups in Community Planning.  In the Scottish Executive response to the Cultural Commission it states

 

Arts Development has been particularly active in developing creative methodologies for involving children, young people and adults in a range of health thematic projects, working closely with Elected members, NHS Grampian, Neighbourhood staff, Grampian Police and Fire and rescue Service, Voluntary single issue initiatives, Sports projects, and specifically Aberdeen’s Healthy Living Network (HLN). The network was set up in October 2002, and comprises over 40 agencies with an interest in addressing local health inequalities linked to urban deprivation.

Aberdeen’s arts development team has embraced this approach for a number of years with exceptional results.

The use of digital technology to produce large scale public art works, and to make films, has been a major factor in not only successfully engaging all ages in projects with a clear health agenda, but in producing tangible and quality  images  which communicate that agenda to a wide audience.

Edinburgh City Council:  Cultural Partnership

As a direct result of the adoption of the City’s Cultural Policy, the Cultural Partnership was established in 2002 following a public meeting attended by over 70 arts organisations from across the City to debate the value of creating a Cultural Partnership. It is the first of its kind in Scotland. 

The Cultural Partnership operates within a Community Planning framework by:

· providing a focus for more effective joint working between organisations

· providing an environment which supports joint action; and

· encouraging membership organisations to share ideas and build services which are customer and citizen-focused.

Edinburgh’s Cultural Partnership not only achieves these aims, but also influences policy across the city for example the City’s Community Plan and City Plan.

Each year a well attended publicly advertised open forum is held to discuss the Partnership’s work to date and issues relating to the Cultural sector at that time for example the Scottish Executive’s report’ Scotland’s Culture’ published in January 2006.

The Partnership continues to develop and strengthen its membership and has been cited in the Cultural Commission’s report ‘Our Next Major Enterprise’ June 2005 as an example of good practice.

http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/leisure/arts_and_entertainment/CEC_cultural_partnership

This partnership reflects the leading work that Edinburgh has been involved with in the development of its art form specific strategies which led from the above-mentioned Cultural Policy. To date Theatre, Dance, Music, Festivals and Events Strategies have been developed and many of the recommendations implemented. Moving Image, Visual Arts and Crafts and a Public Art Strategy are being progressed and many additional pieces of work are ongoing examining the needs for a Gaelic Arts Policy in the city and an analysis of Mid-scale Music Venue Provision in a national context.

Glasgow City Council:  Class Connections

Cultural and Leisure Service, in partnership with Building Services and Education Services, and with support from the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund, established a free transport scheme, ‘Class Connections,’ based in and around the city’s Learning Communities.  The aim of the scheme is to improve access to the range of cultural and leisure facilities and venues for schools in socially excluded areas. 

Class Connections started as a pilot project utilising existing resources to enable socially excluded young people to access Glasgow City Council services, venues and facilities including museums, libraries, sports and arts centres.  This was in response to Education Services identifying access to transport as the principle barrier to school groups access CLS venues.  It is recognised that cultural activities provide the support and services necessary for young people to reach their full potential and become actively involved in their communities.  Only by experiencing a wide range of activities can skills be developed.  A programme of cultural activities provides the opportunity to interact which in turn helps them to develop listening and observation skills, how to handle information and improve their social skills.

The success of the pilot led to the scheme being rolled out across the city to include all 379 schools in Glasgow.  The total number of children transported to events rose from 178,824 in 2004/2005 to 394,152 in 05/06, equating to over 16,423 trips compared to 7,451 trips in 2004/05.  In recognition of good practice, Class Connections won the COSLA Excellence Bronze Award in 2004/2005.

The impact is also measured through surveys carried out to gather quantitative and qualitative information.  The surveys aim to assess the benefits of the project and the impact the visits have on young people (see attached evaluation reports). Key survey findings indicated that 97% of respondents believed Class Connections added value to either their learning programme or summer Holiday Programme.  84% of respondents rated the service as excellent with a further 76% of respondents highlighting that Class Connections was their only means of providing outings to venues.  The survey also highlighted that only 24% respondents stated that they would have visited the venue if the project did not exist.

 

Feasibility Study for an Edinburgh on-line Ticketing Portal

- a ticketing, information and data resource for audiences and arts organisations

A new project has been underway for the last 8 months to develop a feasibility study for an on-line ticketing portal for Edinburgh.  This is the first such project of its kind in Scotland.

Formal consideration of the potential benefits of an on-line ticketing portal were prompted by the Theatre Strategy for Edinburgh.  Other relevant factors included: the current developments in strategic planning across the city in other art forms (dance, visual arts and crafts); a growing interest in streamlining the use of ICT for arts marketing and audience development; and some notable increases in on-line selling through individual box offices in the city. The City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian and the Scottish Arts Council funded this study which was carried out by an internationally renowned consultant to achieve the following for the city:

· Excellent customer care

· Increased access

· Selling more tickets

· Compile market intelligence to inform and support marketing planning

· Minimise costs to venues and customers for selling on-line

And also to:

· delivering a 10 year vision of how best the arts in Edinburgh should engage with the broadest possible range of potential attendees 

· enhanced cultural tourism brand values and service delivery, for both information gathering /   planning a visit and during the visit itself

· ‘raising the game’ re customer care and added-value in order to meet and ideally exceed attenders expectations (residents and visitors) 

· cost effective systems and services, with trained staff working according to best practice

This approach to developing a city portal is unique, as it has ensured that there is buy in from all funding partners, arts organisations, suppliers and audiences. Audience development has been the focus of the study and as such the work will be considered by the Scottish Executive to inform the progress of the National Box Office for Scotland.

In addition to the funding secured to carry out the feasibility study and audience analysis work a further £0.5M has been secured to deliver the project which will be partner funded by SEE&L and SAC.

Intelligent Data Capture – Audiences: Edinburgh

With direct facilitation by the City of Edinburgh Council, the Audience Business has developed plans to deliver high quality city-wide data capture and data analysis. Software has been installed into all the City’s box offices to enable a better understanding of Edinburgh audiences and cross selling patterns.   This data is now becoming available for analysis on behalf of performing arts organisations across the city.  The ability to refine our understanding of the audiences of the city will serve the programming and audience development plans into the future.

 

East of Scotland Museums Partnership

The East of Scotland Museums Partnership was formed following a meeting held in Edinburgh in September 2003 with representatives from neighbouring local authorities and independent and university museums.  This was in response to the then recently announced Museums Regional Development Challenge Fund.

 

The fund was established to create a regional framework to develop capacity and sustainability through active partnerships, across local authority boundaries and between local authorities, independent and university museums and other organisations.

 

Following this initial meeting a working group was established tasked with exploring potential partnership proposals.  It developed five bids, three of which were successful, attracting grant aid of over £800,000.  The partnership was formally launched with the signing of a ‘Concordat’ on 18 January 2005.  The partnership is currently exploring ways in which the projects can be sustained beyond the initial three year funding and future networking opportunities.

 

Travelling Gallery

The Travelling Gallery is an award winning, unique, self-contained, custom-built mobile art gallery, which brings contemporary art exhibitions into communities throughout Scotland. The Gallery tours 2 exhibitions per year for about 16 weeks at a time and usually visits a different venue each day.  It visits many schools as well as high streets, community centres, shopping centres, art centres, hospitals, colleges. 

 

The exhibition programme imaginatively includes both established and up and coming artists from home and abroad showing work in a variety of media which is challenging, of high quality, communicative and engaging to a diverse audience. The programme gives audiences throughout Scotland the opportunity to experience exhibitions by internationally re-knowned Scottish artists as well as artists from around the world.

 

Exploring concepts and technologies which are representative of current trends in international, contemporary art, the exhibitions range from specially commissioned one and two-person installations to themed group shows and visionary collaborations.

 

From time to time, exhibitions may reflect the concerns and interests of minority communities. For example, Wish I Was Here represented displaced people with more than one culture and language; See, Sense was curated to be accessible to people with a visual impairment; The Park was of local interest to the 3 local authority areas toured, Argyll and Bute, Stirlingshire and West Dunbartonshire.

 

The Big Shout: Young People’s Participation in Fife

 “The Big Shout” refers to a range of actions promoting youth citizenship in Fife.  It pulls together a number of strands of recent work:

Promotion of citizenship through Pupil Councils and other school-based activities (led by Education Service)

Developing youth information and dialogue via Young Scot website (led by Dialogue Youth)

Pilot of creative methods of engagement using new media and technology in an arts-based approach (led by P&OD and Fife Cultural Co-ordinators in Schools/Creative Links)

Links with Porsrgrunn, Norway where a model of children’s participation is well established.  This began with a 3 day speaking tour of Fife in March 2005 (organised by P&OD)

Away-days and training for young people to build the concept of a Fife-wide Youth Forum (led by Community Learning and Development)

Setting up a Youth Panel in Fife to advise on allocation of Big Lottery funding (part of a national initiative led in Fife by Volunteering Centre Fife)

 

The overall aim of the Big Shout is to help young people to better understand how they can influence decisions and services and how they can work on projects to improve their communities.  In community discussions there is often a view expressed that young people are a source of trouble.  The Big Shout attempts to reframe these perceptions by viewing young people as part of the solution to improving our quality of life in Fife as opposed to being part of the problem.

 

Further information from Susan Muir 01592 417851 e-mail:     susan.muir@fife.gov.uk

 

Learning in Libraries

The Adult literacy project “Storylines” continued the successful partnership between library staff and ABE colleagues.  Storyteller Margaret Tollick nominated the Lochgelly group for a national Adult Learners’ Award, and an excellent night out for the learners and library staff at the Awards ceremony in Glasgow was capped by winning a top award.  Storylines uses professional storytelling techniques to encourage people to talk about, then write, then input to computer their own stories (real or imaginary).   A booklet of all the stories produced is published at the end of each project.