What Next? Cardiff
Agenda
When: Wednesday 17 February 2016, 8.30am – 9.30am
Host: Arts Council of Wales/ Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru
Where: The Boardroom, Arts Council of Wales, Bute Place, Cardiff CF10 5AL Tel: 02920 441 348
Chair: Lisa Mathews, Portfolio Manager, Arts Council of Wales.
Reception will be open from 8.00am. The Arts Council of Wales will be the meeting venue for What Next? Cardiff until Wednesday 23 March 2016.
There are bike racks/stands available for use near the stage entrance of the Wales Millennium Centre. There nearest Car Park is located on Pierhead Street http://www.apcoa.co.uk/parking-in/cardiff/pierhead-street-mscp.html
- Welcome and introductions
- City of Cardiff Council budget
- What Next? Chairs Meeting in Norwich – 22 February 2016
- BBC ‘Get Creative’ – ‘Cer i Greu’
- Cardiff Capital Region – European Capital of Culture 2023 (briefing note below)
- Visual mapping exercise – Chris Glynn, Illustration Lecturer, Cardiff Metropolitan University will be joining the meeting and will begin a visual mapping exercise of the creative community to identify who works with who and where new links can be made.
- What Next? Cardiff contacts mailing group
- Future What Next? Meetings. Planning ahead for activity in 2016. Which speakers should we invite? Themes to discuss? Activity around Welsh Assembly elections. Support and development of other What Next? Chapters in Wales. Future venues.
- Any other business
Potential future topics for discussion
- Setting-up a Cardiff Family Arts Network (suggested by Chris Ricketts)
- Cardiff City Region: how to get arts/culture represented at Board level
- Equality, Diversity and Social Justice: Time for Positive Action (on Google drive) – speech from Kerry Michael at NitroBEAT
- SUSTAINABILITY DUTY: Identify and invite the lead individuals from the following to future What Next? Cardiff meetings: Prosperity, Resilience, Health, Equality, Communities, Welsh Language, Global Responsibility.
- Crowdsourced (Ceri Black tc)
Potential future speakers
- Chris Jenkins, Chief Executive, Commonwealth Games Wales Office TO BE SCHEDULED
- Kath Richards, Cardiff Council AGREED TO SPEAK. DATE TO BE CONFIRMED
- Paul Orders, Chief Executive SUGGESTION
- Cllr Pete Bradbury SUGGESTION
- Amanda Spence, Design Advisor at the Design Commission for Wales SUGGESTION
- Welsh Government speaker to talk about its International Engagement Strategy. Arts Council to follow up.
- John Kampfner , Chief Executive of the Creative Industries Federation
- Catrin Pascoe, new editor of the Western Mail
SUGGESTION
New speaker suggestions welcome – please email katy.brown@artscouncilofwales.org.uk
The purpose of What Next?
Broad aim: to find new ways of engaging with our audience and visitors: the ever-expanding millions who value and take part in the cultural work that happens day-in, day-out up and down this country.
Guiding star: to encourage the people of this country, as individuals and as communities, to see connections between the many different ways art and culture affect and enhance our lives; to urge everyone to register their endorsement of – and pleasure in – their art and culture, especially where these are under threat.
What Next? Cardiff website (agendas, members etc): http://whatnextcardiff.wordpress.com
What Next? UK movement website: www.whatnextculture.org
What Next? Twitter:
Cardiff: www.twitter.com/wncardiff or @WNCardiff and #wnculture
UK: www.twitter.com/whatnextculture and #wnculture
Please note: We want everyone to feel free to ask questions and share their thoughts at What Next? meetings without worrying that they’ll be quoted elsewhere or out of context. It’s generally accepted that no-one reports on the meetings, tweets anything personal or identifiable, or shares any content without checking first with the contributor.
What Next? Future Host Venues
17 February to 23 March – Arts Council of Wales, Bute Place, Cardiff CF10 5AL
18 May to 16 June – Cardiff School of Art & Design, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Western Avenue CF5 1YB
The National Museum has offered to host a series of meetings as has Arts and Business Cymru but both need to confirm dates.
A call went out on 3 February to venues in Cardiff on the What Next? emailing list asking if they could host future meetings.
MARCH/ PARADE FOR CULTURE
An amazing turnout with hundreds of people gathering and marching (despite the weather). Pete Telfer made a six minute film which gives a great idea of what it was like.
38 DEGREES PETITION
This is still open till 25 Feb, to hand in at the full council mtg. Please still sign and share widely: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/cardiff-without-culture We are over 5800 signatures now and it is rising again. Please can you tweet or facebook or linked-in it, send it in your newsletter, put it on your website/blog, email it out, and more?
FACEBOOK – still use, share, etc – now at more than 2000 page likes and increasing again
https://www.facebook.com/cardiffwithoutculture/
Cardiff Capital Region – European Capital of Culture 2023
Suggested Briefing note for scoping out a bid
Background
The opportunity for a UK city to become a European Capital of Culture only comes once in a generation – 1990 Glasgow; 2008 Liverpool and the next will be 2023.
Cardiff is supremely well placed to win this bid and, indeed, informal soundings from the EU suggest that key people believe it to be “Wales’s turn”.
Why bid?
The accolade is the most prestigious cultural prize in Europe and brings with it both funding and global attention. The two previous cities have noted not just financial impacts but very great and sustainable perception changes. For Glasgow it was a major game changer.
What is the story?
The Cardiff Capital Region is the new powerhouse that can change the economic, cultural and social perceptions of the region to Wales, the UK and the World.
Since Cardiff bid in 2001 (and it was in the top 3 of the 13 bidding cities), the city has improved its cultural offer immeasurably. The Wales Millennium Centre, Artes Mundi, National Theatre of Wales, NoFit State Circus and Cardiff Contemporary are among the world class events and institutions that were only embryonic at the last bid. So why does Cardiff need it? Cardiff lies next to one of the areas of greatest deprivation in Europe – the Valleys. Cardiff became rich on the natural and human resources of the Valleys and now it is time for it to repay the debt and to connect back into the Valleys.
The Capital Region’s focus is on transformational projects, the principal one being the planned new Metro system. Building the story of the bid on the Metro will give a clear compelling story to our bid. Cardiff Capital Region wants to create a connected community allowing people to move freely into the City for work and out of the City for leisure and culture, spending money in the Valleys, rewarding creative businesses and creating sustainable wealth.
Creating a dynamic vibrant cultural destination at each station of the Metro attracting artists and creative businesses to re-locate to a well-connected attractive and affordable place will enliven the Valleys in a way that decades of investment in job creation has not totally succeeded. The perception of the Valleys as a great place to live, work and re-locate will be given a major push by the European Capital of Culture year. Artists relocating has always been the catalyst to regeneration on a much wider scale – creating a Shoreditch for Wales.
What does a bid entail?
Political will, buy in from the sector and the Capital Region and commitment of resources. Time is of the essence as final bids must to be submitted to the European
Commission by Dec 2017. The bid, including the full programme would have to be submitted even sooner to the DCMS (possibly October 2016) so we need to act fast if we want to proceed as there is much work to be done. The City of Cardiff Council, Welsh Government and partner Local Authorities need to make a decision by December 2015/January 2016 if we want to submit a bid in time.
We need to identify the team to take this forward and a workable governance structure to deliver the bid and the full cultural programme. Cardiff City is willing to take the lead on the bid in the short term, but an ideal structure would be a consortium answerable to a steering group – the Cardiff Capital Region Board, for example, but we need to be mindful that this is unlikely to be in place for some time. There will also be political challenges as there will be 9 other local authorities involved, who we hope will also significantly contribute to the programme, planning and budget.
What would make the bid different?
The Cardiff Capital Region proposal would be to build a significant cultural programme for the Cardiff Region, with a focus on connectivity and a smart programme. The Metro for Wales’ Capital Region area will connect Cardiff, Newport and the Valleys to a wider network across the UK and internationally. The narrative would be Cardiff Region, European Capital of Culture and Innovation. The Cardiff Capital Region has produced a vision document for the region that focuses on connectivity, innovation and skills – all of which will resonate well with the bid.
Capturing the spirit of the region that powered the Industrial Revolution, all cultural projects would champion innovation, helping re-brand Wales as a place of invention, home of the creative industries and a place where the arts are the driver for regeneration, cultural development and social inclusion.
The programme would focus on new technologies and, in this way bring in global players but would also be a bid that recognises the need to keep extravagant costs to a minimum. It would be a lean, clean and sustainable programme connecting people and communities locally and across the world. Our world class organisations would be tasked with using their existing expertise to work together to produce the programme that would bring in artists from across Wales giving a boost to the wider creative community Wales wide.
What would be the legacy or impacts?
A successful bid would lead to a year of cultural activity in the region; employing artists from across Wales in delivering the programme. It would stimulate the implementation of capital infrastructure work, such as the Metro, transformation of Valleys venues and heritage buildings and play a major part in a lasting economic transformation both through investment and transformation of perceptions of the region. A cultural programme would improve health, wellbeing and aspirations of the communities as well as changing perceptions from outside.
According to the ‘Impact 08’ study, the Liverpool European Capital of Culture programme attracted an extra 9.7 Million additional visits to Liverpool generating an
economic impact of £753.8 Million. Both the Glasgow and Liverpool programme have left a massive cultural legacy in those cities.
The Economic Impact Study for Cardiff 2008 done in 2001 estimated:
- 2,500 – 3,500 jobs created
- £660 million increase in income
- Increase in visitor numbers of 12-15% (this is taken from other ECofC)
- Increase in skills and expertise
- Volunteering providing routes back into training and employment
- Increase in profile and attractiveness
- Attracting inward investment
What would it cost?
The European Capital of Culture bids vary between 20 and 80 million Euros. Programme expenditure for programmes to date has varied markedly, recent programmes costing between 7€ and 32€ per capita to fund. If there are 1.4 million citizens in the region, this would be a significant investment. We estimate that a “smart” bid could be put together for around 50 million Euros. It should be noted that all bids include significant infrastructure costs, current and new salary costs and current and new programming budgets. New money in the bids is hard to disaggregate but new money is also attracted.
In the case of the Cardiff Capital Region bid, new money could be attracted from:
- The initial EU funding (and possibly DCMS special projects)
- Private investment
- Additional European Funding from the ERDF and ESF funds as well as Creative Europe, Horizon 2020, Interreg and environmental and technology funds
- The City Deal – where there is infrastructure, there are opportunities to work in partnership to create cultural programmes to animate and to create community involvement – e.g. commuter book clubs in the new stations (piloted at Kings Cross St Pancras)
- Trusts and foundations
- UK wide funds particularly to do with innovation, environment and technology
- International trusts and foundation, for example, UNESCO, Robert Stirling Clerk, Gulbenkian,etc
- Section 106 and Community Interest Levy money to invest in public art projects associate with the bid.
- Funding contribution from Cardiff Council and the 9 other local authorities in the Cardiff Region.
- Full backing from the Arts Council of Wales and to identify what investment could be unlocked from Lottery and other schemes for example full use of the arts in education initiatives
- Full backing from the Arts and Cultural sector in Wales to align their considerable existing spend towards the bid
- The Art Fund
It should be noted, too, that by 2023, the UK government is predicting it will be creating a surplus. The severe funding climate in which the bid will be starting may well become more relaxed from 2020 onwards. The bid will not be dependent on this but will allow for an expansion of the programme if this is possible.
What is the Competition?
Existing cities that have confirmed their expression of interest for European Capital of Culture 2023 are Leeds, Dundee and Milton Keynes. Leeds already has a website up and running with some content. They are preparing their programme and have advertised some projects and posts. We expect Leeds to submit an impressive bid as they have solid support and will benefit from the potential investment in the Northern Power House.
Yvette Vaughan Jones October 2015
Get Creative
The following information on Get Creative (#mycreativehour and website) has been sent to What Next? Cardiff via; Hannah Lambert – Get Creative Campaign – What Next? Project Manager
Get Creative Day #mycreativehour
On Saturday 2nd April 2016, we will celebrate a year of Get Creative, a year of everyday artists and citizen crafts, a year of shining a light on the millions of people who love to get creative every day.
The week before, on Sunday 27th March, the clocks spring forward and people across the UK will have an extra hour of light in their days. What will you do with that hour of light? What might you do with a week of light, bright hours?
Get Creative invites all its Champions and the public to use the extra hours of light to do something creative in that week – write a short story, learn a new piece of music, hold a free taster session or master-class, dance an hour a day, throw open your rehearsals or studios and invite someone new, direct a one act play, design a wedding dress, build a set, invent an artwork. Whether you’re an individual or an organisation, everyone is invited to take part. Do it for an hour a day all week, or just find an hour on the 2nd April – get creative with your hour of light.
Show us what you create, design, do and make by using the hashtag #mycreativehour and we’ll showcase as many of your creations as possible on the Get Creative website.
Let’s celebrate the nation’s creative heartbeat and a year of Get Creative – #mycreativehour
Get Creative website
To recap, the website is regularly receiving 20k visitors a week and has surpassed well over 1 million page views since its launch. It’s continuing to develop audiences and we are committed to diversifying content and contributors. It is very likely that GC will continue on past GC Day on 2nd April.
To work editorially on the website, stories need to hang off something unusual, useful and interesting. So rather than just emailing in to notify the GC team of a free event or workshop, it really comes alive when we can pick something out of the story and run with that instead, referencing the event or link at the end.
We have found editorial pieces that are accessible and curious as well as informative work really well. If there is an easy way in to a subject or art-form, such as top-tips / masterclasses to playing the guitar or starting a painting, it’s a great way to talk about a creative project or event to a wide (and increasing!) audience via the GC website.
I’d be really happy to be contacted by any of your Cardiff chapter if they have any thoughts they want to run past me. We’d love to get some more Welsh content up on the website. Please remember that organisations do need to sign up as GC Champions in order to contribute and that GC events need to be either free or cost-recoverable in order to comply with BBC guidelines.
To get in touch with Hannah: hlambert.projects@gmail.com / @HannahMLambert
Upcoming Events
Full Council meeting
This is where the budget will be set and voted through – Thursday 25 February from 4.30pm. The final proposals which will be voted on will be published Fri 12 Feb. Council have also published the full findings from the consultation period – there are great comments on arts/ culture pp27-35 of this report.
Ceramics Mingle
Cardiff School of Art & Design, 2-4pm, Wednesday 17 February – come and meet and chat with our current ceramics students to talk to them about career opportunities and life in the creative sector.
Cardiff School of Art & Design Summer Show
Saturday 21 May to Friday 27 May 2016. PV – Friday 20 May 2016, time tba.