I just had a meeting with an advisor for becoming self employed, the job centre put me in touch with him so I got the advice for free. Anyway I went there to discuss the possibility of setting up a small artist led gallery in Falkirk and he gave me some advice and people to contact to get the ball rolling. The conversation turned towards Manifesto and the Blackswancollective as the advisor suggested that I get an art collective on the go as this would illustrate there is a sufficient artist out put and it keeps the costs down. Set up a website to advertise our artwork, make magazines, copyright our logo and publicise it to the extreme, which have already done. He then suggested that we create a national charity called Manifesto or BlackSwanCollective, a charity that promotes the local arts in our specific location creating a branch of Mainfesto/BSC in our towns as this would allow us to apply for specialised funding and pay no rates or a minimal fee on renting properties in order to put on exhibitions. I am not sure if this avenue has been discussed before so I thought I would mention it here. I am currently setting up a meeting with Business in Falkirk in order to discuss copyright, a meeting with the charity commission to discuss how to set up a charity and leasing with the council to gain access to empty shops for a week or so.
None of this is set in stone just an idea at the moment and I am only seeking information on what we could to take Manifesto/BSC further in the future. I know that we would eligible for applying for grants offered by the Voluntary Arts Scotland such as the make a splash fund that offers up to 2000 pounds to put on events but I would not be allowed to directly apply for that as I work for VAS. I have been given access to the councils database of funders but yet to find one suitable for us but there are loads to go through.
What does everyone else think about this idea of setting up a national charity in order to put on exhibitions in our areas or maybe one large scale blackswancollective show at the end of the year?
Craig Allan
Arts Ambassador for Falkirk
Hey all,
ReplyDeleteJust been chatting to Craig about this as I'm a little excited by it. I know we dont want to get a head of ourselves but this is some really good information to know, as we're going to need to have as much help as we can get when we start to really push this further.
I remember that Geoff and Sam talked about setting up Badger Badger as a charity when you guys where having your location difficulties, did you guys get far with you research in to this?
I think the idea of getting theblackswancollective set up as a charity would be an awesome idea if it means it gives us the chance of being in a far stronger position when it comes to funding as well as giving a certain assurances to people to let spaces off of. What do you guys think?
On another note Jen and myself will be moving up to Glasgow on the 30th, which is next week! Cant quite believe it! Once we have sorted that out we'll get our heads down and focus on theblackswancollective almanac and sort out dates etc.
I don't know if we are wanting to discuss funding or anything like that at the moment but there is no harm at having the information at our disposal.
ReplyDeleteI've been on the Stirling Council (not my local authority) website researching potential funding, so far I have come across hundreds of organisations that offer grants for specific areas of arts for example;
'Grant for third sector organisations (TSOs) undertaking community projects in the UK.' Third sector is what the government are calling community planning these days, pretty much their way of getting communities working together promoting the area and making it an all round happier place to live.
Grant for third sector organisations (TSOs) undertaking projects that encourage involvement and understanding of the fine arts in the UK.
The amount of funding that is on offer from some of these organisations is ridiculous, £250,000 Grant funding to social welfare, arts and heritage projects in England, and sometimes other parts of the United Kingdom
So there are hundreds of organisations who could potentially fund a BlackSwanCollective exhibition as long as it promotes certain aspects of the community they are interested, which we would obviously satisfy.
There are atleast 26 lottery funded grants that are also available for us to apply too. However these grants require us to have charitable status. I will post up more about becoming a charity later when I have more information on it. Again no harm in knowing a little about it.
Like everything else the requirements and regulations for becoming a charity are different for Scotland than England and Wales.
ReplyDeleteFor Scotland it is the OSCR - Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator http://www.oscr.org.uk/
England has The Charity Commission http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/
If this an avenue we would like to go down an idea could be that the members of TBSC living in Scotland find out as much information about applying to the OSCR and the ones living in England find out about The Charity Commissoion. Looking at the OSCR homepage alone seem to be too much information for one person alone to take in.