communiqué (1) Refreshing Blue Drum Board
Agency in July. A draft plan was considered and a number of action points agreed leading to a sign-off meeting.
We are refreshing our Board and are interested in hearing from individuals with a community development and community arts background. Interested? Get in touch with Ed Carroll – blue.drum@yahoo.com
(ii) Follow-up meetings also took place with Clodagh McDonnell, Principal Officer in the Department of the Environment about linkages to the Community Culture Strategy and local authorities. We also met with Arts Council Head of Strategy, Martin Drury to speak about linkages. At both meetings we found an enthusiastic response that was focused on practical ideas for the future.
(2) Happy Parent (HP) Eleanor and the team were really busy during the summer and autumn. All workshops are a coproduction with the local FRC and took place in Kerry, Tipperary, Galway and Dublin. Also two non FRC groups have asked us to deliver the programme locally. Read Interesting for your FRC? Contact Gillian 01-8111446.
(iii) Cork City Community Arts Ten months after the EU project work in Cork, Niall Crowley and Ed made a return visit to reconnect with those we met before and ask permission for including the idea of a community culture platform in Cork. People were very enthusiastic and have agreed to meet again before Christmas. Recently, Ed has also contacted Eve Phillips from Ballincollig FRC to look at the possibility of their participation too. We’ll keep you updated. (iv) Limerick Creative Communities In Limerick, we also met with a lively network of community organisations. The Creative Communities group confirmed the need to increase the visibility of work on the ground. Both Northside and Southill FRCs actively participate in this group. More update about these meetings can be found on our website.
Spafield FRC, Cashel, Co Tipperary
(3) Meetings / Seminars Most of our work in this time is focused on the Community Culture initiative. Community Culture is part of our campaign to get more equality of resourcing for community arts work with children, adults and families.
(v) Galway Community Arts We have made contact with Jen who is one of the organisers of the GALCA group in Galway. They developed the Galway Cultural Hub which we can
(i) Community Culture Steering Group The first meeting of the Steering Group took place in the Family Support
1