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(1) Audited Accounts 2012

Gillian worked to close off the 2012 accounts. She comments: “ it’s interesting to look back the different streams of funding that were awarded to Blue Drum in that time in 2012!”

-Family Support Agency €68,555 -The Community Foundation €1,300 -The Arts Council €1,000 -Liverpool Study Visit Subs €460 -Dublin City Council €400 -Glenisk Donations €250 -European Union €36,000 -Give EUR Hope €3,500 -Dutch Embassy €385

Sneem, Co.Kerry

(2) Seminars / Meetings

(i) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Eleanor went to this seminar and advocated for a richer view of cultural rights. The panel agreed they had not looked at cultural rights from a production perspective before. She also nominated Blue Drum for future advocacy work in this regard. (ii) Irish Youth Foundation Niall McLoughlin and Sabina Cotter of IYF welcomed Ed’s exchange about community arts work with children. (iii) Vulnerable Families Conference

Ed took part in a EU Presidency Conference about the dimensions of family vulnerability - the causes, the current situation and what can be done. (iv) Social Inclusion Forum Gillian took part in this forum sharing our experience with FRCs and families experiencing poverty and social exclusion. Taking part was helpful to develop a child and family perspective for the Europe 2020 Strategy.

City (Re)Searchers 2013

(3) Happy Parent (HP)

After the 2012 evaluation of the HP programme, it now operates as a 4 part programme which includes a self-managed element. The programme emphasises non-issue based creative communication between adult and child, and a friendly open peer-support environment for parents/carers. An information leaflet and Poster for use by FRCs was designed and disseminated, as well as a Brochure and information leaflet aimed at other organisations who also work with parents. In addition an Happy Parent Facebook page and Pinterest page has

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been set up to enable accessibility to the work and to inspire! We welcome Vivienne Byrne and Lisa Crowne as two new Arts Facilitators to the HP team. Barry Cullen also continues to evaluate the programme and planning meetings were held.

Twenty-two FRCs expressed an interest and workshops take place in 9 centres:

Killinarden, Dublin. Fatima Mansions, Dublin. Sneem, South West Kerry. Trim FRC, Co. Meath. Connect FRC, Co. Louth. Caha Centre, Adrigole, Cork.

Killeshandra, Co Cavan

Enquires are also coming in from other non-FRC community organisations e.g. New Life Centre in Darndale.

(4) Community Culture

In advance of the Dáil Committee on

Arts and Disadvantage report (due

Summer 2013) we were invited by

Minister Deenihan to develop a

Community Culture proposal. He

agreed to schedule a joint meeting

with his ministerial colleague, Minister

Frances Fitzgerald. The Proposal is a

well-conceived, structured and modest

proposal in development for over a

year. At the heart of the programme

is an urgent need to address what is a

systemic inequality with regard to

poorer family’s access to, and

participation in the arts in Ireland.

(5) City Researchers

Community Culture Proposal is a result of research from the City (Re)Searchers Project where we are asking families and communities what makes culture important and valued? We completed the Cork and Belfast modules, which went really well in terms of engaging communities. Some idea for cross border programmes focused on FRCs emerged. Niall Crowley and the researchers developed a full day Public Deliberation. This is what we heard! Day 1 - Belfast Day 2 - Belfast

The researchers travel to Kaunas for

the final four-day inquiry on 24-27

June, 2013. This event is supported by

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Culture Ireland’s EU Presidency

Programme.

(6) Letter from Gordon Jeyes

Gordon Jeyes, CEO Designate of the

new Agency wrote to Blue Drum

recently proffering the merits of an

arts initiative in the context of child

and family support and a specific idea

to develop enterprising skills

programme. We will follow-up with

Gordon and begin exploring community

enterprise (more below).

Fiona Woods I Have Doubts

(7) Pedagogy of Community and Cultural Rights - 20:20 Vision

Another direct result of the City (Re)Searches project was the need for greater cooperation between independent bubbles of activity. Training is a strategy to get FRCs working more cooperatively in community arts. A group of facilitators from Italy were suggested as specialists

in the area of co-operative tools (more below). Leargas have given us the go-ahead to offer a training course in Lithuania next October 2013. We chose Lithuania because its hosts the EU Presidency and Irish participants are funded for overseas courses only.

(8) Grundtvig

Ed and Eleanor took part in a

preparatory visit to prepare a project

with artway of thinking, a Venetian

collective. We planned and prepared

the work required to deliver the In-

service Training which is scheduled for

October 2013 and which is now on the

Europa training database website. Also

discussed was an application for an EU

Grundtvig Learning Partnership

(9) Community Arts Enterprise and

Entrepreneurship

One of the outcomes of both the letter

from Gordon Jeyes and Grundtvig visit

is our intention to organise Untapped

Capital an exchange workshop and

seminar focused on community arts

enterprise. We want to explore how to

‘bank’ the gifts, skills and capacities of

young people and communities. We

applied to the Community Foundation

Ulster Bank to help us in this regard.

Issue 1 / April 2013