The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #124104 Message #2740298
Posted By: Banjiman
07-Oct-09 - 07:38 AM
Thread Name: Arts Council Funding for EFDSS
Subject: RE: Arts Council Funding for EFDSS
Yes, £200k not £2 million. Maybe I was getting carried away!
Advice/ support for accessing money would be very useful...... and how to organise succesful events. The issue here (for me anyway) is not the need for grants but rather underwriting of potential losses. My experience is that well planned folk events will usually break even or make a a profit (in my case ploughed back into the organisation) but the fear of losing money puts people off organising/ promoting things. I have a friend who lost £2000 of his own money trying to get a small folk festival off the ground..... he won't be doing it again!
A specific strategy to engage youngsters in singing/ songwriting/ performance would be useful. Not wishing to re-open the debate, my perception is that there are not enough youngsters involved grass roots activities..... sessions, singarounds, f**k clubs etc . There is a rumour that younger people attend folk festivals in droves..... but their numbers do not seem in proportion to the population as a whole from what I have observed.
So there might be something in what Dick says (but sounds expensive v numbers touched by it). But some kind of outreach work into schools or voluntary organisations working with children would seem a must (should there be a folk music badge for Scouts/ Guides/ Brownies etc?).
There are some interesting initiatives happening locally (e.g. Yorkshire Libraries have just commissioned a local folk singer close to my heart to work with the children at Catterick Garrison to write a song in the folk "style" around the effects of being left behind while thier fathers are away fighting in Iraq & Afghanistan. The governemnt "Sing Up" campaign in schools seems like an opportunity that the "folk movement" has mostly missed out on).
Is there a co-ordination role for the EFDSS in picking up on these types of initiatives and looking to get folk practitioners involved and working with other bodies to spread the ideas nationally?
I could go on but think I've probably used more than my share of this thread, at least for now!
Paul