Y Pwyllgor Diwylliant, y Gymraeg a Chwaraeon

Adolygiad Polisi: Cyfraniad y Celfyddydau a Chwaraeon at Adfywio Cymunedol

Women in Tune

Dear Culture Commitee, Women In Tune agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of our colleague Lydia Bassett, and would urge you to take them on board,

Sincerely, Heather Summers
Development Co-ordinator for Women In Tune
Pencarniced, Tregroes, Llandysul, SA44 4LZ www.womenintune.org.uk Response to Culture Committee Review of the Role of Arts and Sport in Community Regeneration. From Lydia Bassett, Wales Coordinator, Voluntary Arts Wales

We have searched long and hard across the length and breadth of Wales over seven years and we have yet to find a community without art. From choirs and eisteddfodau to samba and Indian dance, someone, somewhere in every corner of Wales is singing, dancing, drawing or drumming either to entertain or simply for the good of their souls. This myriad of  activities in schools, community halls, churches, theatres and  household kitchens reaches across generations. Art takes place in the most isolated rural communities and in the heart of our cities. It brings people together to create something greater than the sum of their individual imaginations and to share their dreams and wishes for themselves, their families, their communities and their nation.
The arts in Wales¹ communities change lives. They perform every day miracles on a shoe string budget and achieve much that under any other name would be classic community regeneration.

Part of Voluntary Arts Wales¹ recent programme has included the evaluation of the Targeted Community Development programme, funded by the Assembly through ACW. Through this work, we met the marvellous Mrs Julie Jones just one of the every day miracles performed by art in Wales¹ communities.

Julie started out as a volunteer at the Gurnos community pottery in Merthyr Tydfil. She turned up everyday, despite painful health problems, and ended up running open sessions and teaching classes as a volunteer. Julie now has a full time job working at the pottery and was recently commissioned to produce the new crockery for Chapter¹s restaurant in Cardiff. Not a bad transformation for someone previously living on sickness benefits on one of Wales¹ most notorious estates. The only fly in the ointment is that the pottery¹s funding is project based so Julie¹s future, like that of the rest of the sector¹s staff, is not secure.

Julie told me: "The work here has helped a lot with my health and has helped improve my confidence. Before I could not talk or relax with a group of people and now it does not bother me and I feel very relaxed. I was really enjoying the work anyway but it does help financially that I get paid.

"People think it is good my being from here because a lot of people who come to the workshops are from this area. We get a good mix of people and everyone can have a go it doesn¹t matter where they come from." One of the biggest thrills for women from the estate who regularly attend the classes has been teaching and helping out lecturers, solicitors and doctors from better off areas and the sense that the pottery gives them something at which they can excel.

Julie¹s story is far from unique. There are thousands of people like her across Wales who¹s lives have been changed by participation in the arts. People who rebuild their confidence and social networks after illness by joining a choir or amateur theatre group, people who find their feet after moving house through joining a dance class and meeting their neighbours and older people whose only contact with the rest of their community is making the tea for the arts group on a Wednesday night. The arts form both the warp and weft of the fabric of Welsh society we know this in our hearts, but now more than ever we need to be able to prove it.

Research done by Comedia in 1997 showed that:-

• 91% of people made new friends through participating in the arts
• 86% went on to get involved in further projects
• 84% felt more confident
• 80% learnt new skills
• 73% felt happier about their lives

VAW¹s own research with Woolyback, a Valleys based music organisation run by volunteers promoting rock concerts for charity, found that:-

• 100% of those who volunteered to help in setting up concerts felt more confident about their skills
• 95% felt their quality of life had improved
• 95% felt more motivated
• 53% learnt management and organisational skills
• 100% felt less isolated and
• 100% felt better about where they lived.

One Woolyback volunteer told us: "What I have got out of being involved is learning how to stage a concert from start to finish, and when it all comes together it¹s a great feeling. It not only gets kids off the street but hopefully it will change people¹s lives for the better and help them mould new careers."

Woolyback¹s volunteer graphic designer added: "At the moment I am setting up my own business. Without my involvement in Woolyback I don¹t believe that would be possible. From my own point of view seeing my work in loads of different areas is a reward in itself. I believe we can provide an activity where people can take part and improve themselves. I know it sounds corny but I believe we have taken kids from street corners and given them something to look forward to."

The voluntary cultural sector has always been on the margins of both public policy and artistic provision. In the case of community arts as professional practice it is often low profile work in the most deprived communities and increasingly acts as an add-on to wider programmes for regeneration. In the case of the voluntary arts its visibility is limited to public performances we see the Christmas pantomime but not the weeks of rehearsal, costume and stage design, volunteered lighting and PA systems, the man who has to lock and unlock the town hall and all the other elements of hard work and good will which make it possible.

As the voluntary and community arts sectors have gained credibility in the eyes of community regenerators, and of arts policy makers, they have been forced to become more "business like" in applying for funding, assessing and measuring their work and in pinning down the often esoteric benefits of arts activity. This shift has given the sector some of the ammunition it needs to tap into alternative funding streams aimed at the wider voluntary sector.

However, these funding streams have been project based. Lottery money kept the sector afloat through the latter part of the 90¹s and the range and diversity of work in Wales greatly increased but the sector is not built on any solid foundation of core funding. Of all the various disciplines within the arts and within the voluntary sector as a whole I would argue that community based arts activity is the most vulnerable to drops in lottery funding. And while the rest of the voluntary sector examines a possible future in terms of the social economy and service level agreements with the public sector, we know that ensuring access to arts in our poorest communities invariably means grants.

Faced with the choice between maintaining the infrastructure of small and medium scale, local authority owned venues and funding the core activities of community based arts groups, local authorities will repeatedly put their money where their bricks and mortar are. Faced with equally taxing choices in terms of priorities the Arts Council of Wales has chosen to include stabilisation for the community arts as the number two priority in its bid for additional funding to the Assembly (number one being a 3% increase which the arts sector expects as a right).  This is laudable and we wait with baited breath for the remit letter to tell us if the money will be made available but again the voluntary cultural sector is subject to bids for additional money, again we need to wait and argue the case rather than being able to continue with our work knowing it is part of the Arts Council¹s core revenue budget.

For something which is built on such long traditions and solid foundations in communities, the sector has an amazingly shaky funding base. The Arts Council is planning to audit and map community arts activity, Hamish Fyfe of the University Glamorgan is about to undertake a more detailed examination of the sector, and the Culture Committee is reviewing its contribution to regeneration. Never has community based arts in Wales come under such public scrutiny and never has it been so vulnerable in terms of funding as it is now. We need to be careful that the current mapping exercises are not a snapshot of what Wales once had and lost as Lottery funding dropped and the Assembly failed to heed the pleas for additional money to stabilise this vital sector.

For a relatively minimal cost, under £2.5 million, the Assembly could both stabilise the major community arts organisations which make such a huge difference to the life of Wales¹ deprived communities and build the capacity of the infrastructure bodies such as Cymdeithas Eisteddfodau, the Drama Association of Wales and Voluntary Arts Wales itself which support the participatory arts across the whole of the country.
By doing so it would change lives, improve people¹s social networks, help build their confidence and skills and fire their imaginations. Surely we owe it to our cultural heritage to invest now, when the sector is most vulnerable, in a creative future for our children and for generations to come.

Notes

Voluntary Arts Wales is the Wales development agency for the participatory arts. It exists to promote and support participation in the arts and crafts in Wales as a force for personal development, social cohesion and fun.

VAW provides free mentoring, training and support to a network of around 1600 voluntary and community arts organisations across Wales. For more information go to our website at www.vaw.org.uk or contact Lydia Bassett, Wales Coordinator on 01938 556455, Lydia@vaw.org.uk.

Definitions used

1. Voluntary Cultural Sector the sector is defined in the compact with the Arts Council of Wales as:-

• Voluntary and amateur arts groups
• Umbrella organisations which support and represent voluntary and amateur arts groups
• Community arts organisations
• Organisations like Mind and Groundwork which use art as part of their wider policy
• Organisations which represent volunteers such as ushers in galleries.

2. Voluntary arts groups support participation for the sake of participation. The sector is made up of groups such as amateur theatre companies, choirs, brass bands, folk dance groups, eisteddfodau and a whole range of other arts and crafts activities.

3. Community arts group practice art for social change. They are often but not always professionally led and have an overt political agenda.