One Voice Conference: 14th June 2008

The BFBB One Voice Conference took place on Saturday, 14^th June in Birmingham and delegates from all brass band associations throughout the country were invited to attend. The event was skilfully chaired by Paul Hindmarsch and over thirty delegates participated in the presentations and wide-ranging discussions.

 

The presentations covered a number of salient issues for brass bands and particularly focused on links with local authorities and local communities. Ian Carter from the Southern Counties Amateur Brass Band Association, Peter Fraser from the Scottish Brass Band Association and Louise Renshaw from Macclesfield Youth Band all spoke about the promising initiatives and developments in their associations and bands, while Alun F Williams of Greater Gwent Music Services and Steven Legg of Gloucester Music Services gave fascinating insights into their work and the connections that bands could make in this sector.

 

The evaluation forms for the conference have been handed to me and they make vary encouraging remarks, many congratulating the BFBB on running a superb event and asking for an annual seminar. I am happy to echo their sentiments. For those who attended, it was informative, thought provoking and constructive; for the BFBB, it was a successful event which should be repeated annually. A detailed report about the conference will be made available from the BFBB after further evaluation.

Arts Participation Manifesto Consultation Event

On Monday, 9^th June 2008, I was in London with about fifty other people from a wide variety of arts organisations, local authorities and umbrella bodies to assist in the development of an Arts Participation Manifesto. Discussions focused around finding a way of getting more people to engage with the arts in a positive way over the next ten years.

 

The task of finding a consensus was not easy and took most of the day. Activities centred on small groups that then put their observations and opinions to the remaining delegates by combining themes through a process of assembling ideas.

 

Though a definitive manifesto has not yet been agreed, key goals and a means by which its aims might be met have been. The process of developing a full blown Arts Participation Manifesto will no doubt take another twelve months or more but a good start has been made. For once, a project that claims to champion participation has started off by sending out the right signals and, more importantly, involving people in its initial construction processes.

2012 Cultural Olympiad: The Inspire Mark

On Wednesday, 28^th May 2008 I went to a briefing in Leeds about the new 2012 Inspire Mark. The meeting was hosted by Arts & Business Yorkshire and presentations were made by Francesca Canty, Kian Garin de Loach, both of LOCOG, and Tessa Gordziejko, the 2012 Regional Programmer for Yorkshire.

 

The briefing explained that an ‘Inspire mark’ had been produced as a part of the London 2012 brand family. It was emphasised that this branding is only for non-commercial projects. The mark will endorse the fact that a project has been ‘inspired by London 2012’ and that it reflects the values of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. This is a first time a brand mark of this nature has been approved for any Olympic or Paralympic Games.

 

The LOCOG team said “The inspire mark will be awarded to exceptional non-commercial projects across culture, sport, education, environment, volunteering and business regardless of scale. Successful projects will be granted the right to use the mark on various project materials, such as posters, brochures and websites and will also be included in the Cultural Olympiad’s national publicity”. It was stressed that the mark will not be approved to appear near to commercial trade-names or logos. I asked how bands that are sponsored by commercial organisations and have the name of that organisation in their title were going to get approval for their projects. The LOCOG team were unsure of how this would affect such events and said that each project would be assessed individually.

Meeting with ACE: 6th May 2008

On Tuesday, 6^th May 2008, I attended a meeting with Mr Alan Davey, ACE Chief Executive, Mr Jeff Ennis MP, Bryan Catcheside, Musical Director of Ascot Brass and other representatives of the Brass Band sector and ACE. This was a worthwhile meeting where the following points were discussed:

• Grant applications and the nature of the complicated form. Mr Davey told the meeting that only 16 applications had been received from the brass band sector in 2007 (including BFBB’s for the 2007 European Championships) whereas there had been over 100 from small jazz groups and organisations.
• Social inclusion and a wider participation agenda
• Lottery funding
• Youth and training bands
• The ‘take it up’ scheme

 

There was a sense that the points we raised were received by ACE with sincerity and consideration. Mr Catcheside noted that ‘It is clear that there has been a legacy of suspicion regarding the funding of brass bands stemming from an impression that lottery money made available to bands in the past was squandered rather than used wisely’.  The ACE representatives recommended a central organisation, namely the BFBB, should provide a conduit for advice regarding applications for funding. BFBB is seeking further meetings with ACE to expand this proposal into a useful tool for bands.

Moreover, BFBB will need to work closely with ACE to provide a channel for applications and introducing a form of self-regulation within the brass band sector to provide evidence of wise use of allocated funds.  As with all financial initiatives, a demonstration of secure procedures is more likely to attract funding.