Stogursey Arts Trust annual report for 2022
The Arts Trust was successful in replacing four key trustees, who had left the area or resigned after long service. The new members of the team provide significant new expertise and insight in specific areas of the Arts, as well as skills, which have already proved helpful in running this community enterprise as we opened up again following the pandemic ‘lockdowns’ in 2020/21.
In 2019, the Stogursey Arts Trust had been successful in obtaining a grant from the Fairfield Trust to support local artists in putting together a sculpture project.
Due to the pandemic, this project was postponed, but given the knowledge gained form the ‘Outside Gallery’ project run during the Festivals of 2020 and 2021, it was felt that a modified ‘Garden Sculpture Project’ would provide a fantastic opportunity to support the ‘reopening’ of the village, by getting people to talk about the sculptures exhibited.
It was hoped that the 2022 Arts Festival would promote social discourse and bring back some normality after the ‘lock downs’ of the Pandemic and encourage audiences to reengage with the Arts and importantly each other.
Having maintained our regular monthly information bulletins on the Arts during the Pandemic, in the local Stogursey News Magazine, it was felt the need for a change in strategy coming out of the Pandemic. The Arts Trust needed to affirm its identity through events, rather than the default position (adopted during the pandemic) of promoting itself and ideas in the local ‘news’, so we began to work on organising an Arts Festival Event for 2022.
The resulting Festival, which ran during October, was promoted through an initial press release, which was picked up by BBC local radio and also by BBC TV local Network News. We had a total of 30mins air-time on radio and a charming film was produced by the film crew and TV news team at Points West. The radio interviews and the film featured the work and exhibits of sculpture by local artists and children at the local school, and helped to promote ‘chat’ about the festival itself.
For the ‘opening up’ Arts Festival, it was decided to coincide this with the opening of the village Flower Show. One of the Arts Trust’s affiliated groups, the Morris Dancing Side; known as the Morris Travellers, opened the event with some variations on traditional folk dancing. The local Parish Council supported the 'Light up Stogursey' project by putting the municipal Christmas light decorations up early, encouraging other residents of the village and parish to do the same. There was an Artist talk by one of the sculptors and a very successful ‘Open Mic’ night, where many local performers contributed to an entertaining evening of music and poetry readings. The Flower arranging group, decorated the church with the help of money raised from a funding event by the Trust earlier in the year. Stogursey’s Arts Trust’s - Soap Factory Cinema ran a special 'themed evening', along with the screening of its regular film of the month.
Retrospectively the 2022 Arts Festival was positively featured in the 2023 February edition of Somerset Life.
Towards strategic action for future sustainability, Stogursey Arts Trust have revised the key questions, previously identified in 2021 with the new team of trustees appointed in 2023,
Mike Bradshaw
Stogursey Arts Trust annual report 2022
In forming discussion groups to address the revised questions, it was important to have the best possible representation, in order to get a broad input to contribute to the discussion of the topics in each of the groups. Some of the key topics/questions were run consecutively to save on time and venue organisation.
The revised strategy group questions identified in 2021 are listed below. These will be reported on and identified in strategic action for 2023.
The Festival
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What have we learnt through running the Arts Festivals during pandemic restrictions?
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What are the new ideas for events not already considered?
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How will the Arts Festival year look in the future?
Our identity: who we are and what we do?
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What do we want the Arts Trust to look like in the future?
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How can we get more people involved, bringing new ideas and maybe re vamping old ones that worked well?
Promoting the public image
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How do we want ‘to be seen’ in the community and wider social media?
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What other methods of communication and marketing should we consider, both in reaching out and providing information?
Outreach and knowledge support
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How do we support new, additional creatives groups, including mentoring support: such as grant application writing?
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How do we develop meaningful School links with teachers, pupils and parents?
Resources & venues
- How do we improve and inform our working relationships with venues in the village?
Funding, links and finance
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Fundraising: what is our strategy for future development?
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What potential networks are available for the Trust to consider working with in the future?
Succession and planning
- As members of the teams retire, leave and move on, what is our strategy for Succession Planning and replacement?
Having appointed new trustees and co-opted ex-officio members to support the actions to be taken, we have agreed and identified time scales for completion of tasks during 2023. The exercise is finite and once the work has been completed, we will move forward with succession and sustainability strategies for Stogursey Arts Trust.
Mike Bradshaw
Stogursey Arts Trust annual report 2022
Profit & Loss Year Ending January 22
| INCOME Film Nights Sale of Paintings Coffee Mornings Open Mic Night Donation Total Income EXPENSES Insurance Coffee machine Paintings Total Expenses NET PROFIT |
207 1,750 162 11 20 2,151 146 54 1,250 1,450 701 |
|---|---|