Proposal for new Arts Forum
There is a proposal to create a forum which will ‘speak with one voice’ for the arts in St. Albans. The process of forum creation is supported by the council but mediated by Leisure Connection. However, the message is very much that once the body is formed it will be self-governing. There is the offer of a relatively small amount of start-up money from the council but thereafter the forum will have to raise its own finance. There will, it seems, be no office and no secretariat unless new funding can be obtained.
Preliminary meetings have been held and a volunteer steering group has emerged. There is as yet no name for the body nor a constitution but it has been proposed that the new forum should focus on the big picture for arts in St Albans and address gaps in provision.
As might be anticipated, ideas as to what the new organisation might do are not in short supply. Improvements in communication, overall organisation of arts provision, extension of social and geographical spread, increased availability of studio space are amongst proposals which have been mooted.
A Facebook group (‘Create one voice for the arts in St. Albans’) has been formed. Anyone registered with Facebook will be able to access this group and keep an eye on progress. There is to be another meeting of the embryonic steering group on the 20th of January (ie too late for the outcomes to be reported in this newsletter).
What, understandably, remains unclear is how the new forum will relate to STARTS. Most of the ambitions are shared between the two organisations. Indeed we feel that STARTS has made some progress but we have also discovered that the lack of a paid person whose job it is to drive the organisation forward is a very considerable handicap. It is difficult to recruit and retain volunteers and those who do remain sometimes struggle to keep energy levels up. There is also a difficulty with creating a base; offices eat up money.
An obvious answer is to raise money, and it seems that the new forum might have at least one good prospect of doing so, but fund-raising is itself a very demanding process. STARTS has been reasonably successful in gaining finance for one-off projects but not in securing core funding for running the organisation.
As reported in previous editions of this newsletter, the STARTS trustees are part way through a process of considering the fundamental role of the organisation. We will, of course, keep a close eye on developments concerning the new forum and adjust our plans where it seems appropriate.
