MAKING PROGRESS
Yesterday I enjoyed some of the pleasures on offer at Towner, our new partner in the Blue Monkey Network. In glorious Eastbourne spring sunshine I met with Matthew Rowe, Towner’s Artistic Director, on the cafe balcony with its beautiful views across Eastbourne to the Downs, to talk about our next steps.
We talked about ways in which we’ll be able to make best use of Towner’s resources, not least its cafe with adjacent meeting room and the sheltered balcony which is perfectly positioned to catch the afternoon and evening sunshine. One of our early aims is to create a sense of constructive cooperation between East Sussex artists; to build an understanding of, respect for and interest in each others’ work. In order to do this we want our initial events to have the feeling of vibrant social occasions which artists will enjoy and look forward to coming to and this seems like a good place to start.
FRIDAY JOBS
My “To Do” list for yesterday:
write constitution for the new Blue Monkey Network
update website with news of our bursary
set up bank account (don’t forget to take ID)
deal with NAN Futurific paperwork
prepare for talk to local Arts Society this evening
As usual things were not straight forward. The Constitution was fine – I’d already done some research on what it should contain and how it should be laid out, so that was reasonably quick to do.
The website was a little tricky – I couldn’t quite make it do what I wanted it to, so compromise was necessary & the sooner I manage to set up a new one the better.
The bank… ah well… I suppose that was to be expected. I’d thought I’d be able to walk in with my forms and ID and walk out with a bank account. That was not to be – but hopefully this time next week it will be set up.
And without the bank account, I couldn’t complete the paperwork.
Then there was the talk. I was looking forward to the prospect of going out to share my exciting news about the new Network with some Eastbourne artists, but I didn’t know this group or what their response would be. I planned an informal presentation, a brief introduction about Blue Monkey, who we are and what we do, and then news of our plans for the new Network at Towner and lots of time for questions and discussion about what artists might want from the new Network. Having spoken to many of the Eastbourne artists who I know, I’d assumed that their enthusiasm would be reflected across the board, so I got a bit of a surprise when my talk was greeted with apparent indifference and suspicion. This particular group it seemed were not keen to extend their networks or build new relationships. Hmm… might have to work harder to win some people’s confidence it seems.
GREAT NEWS!
We have been awarded a NAN Futurific! bursary. This is fantastic news! It means we can put aside time to research the best way to set up our new organisation and to study other organisations who seem to be a good model for us. We can also get on with planning our intial programme and first free taster event.
Time to get busy. The plan is to be ready to promote the new Blue Monkey Network during the East Sussex Open at Towner in April and throughout the Eastbourne Festival in April and May, when lots of Eastbourne artists open their houses and communications are good and news spreads quickly.
The conditions of the bursary say:
“NAN bursaries are awarded to artists’ groups and networks for the purpose of Research and Development aimed at supporting exchange between artists’ groups and networks, in the UK or elsewhere, in order to:
Explore new projects and provide a focus for critical exchange
Encourage artists’ groups and networks to generate collaboration and extend their professional practice
Test ideas and professional relationships between artists’ groups and networks.”
Great! That’s exactly what we want to do!
