“Who knew so much goodness was right here all along?”

What over 55 people told us about growing creativity in Gloucestershire

On 16 September, we convened more than 55 people for a day together at the Friendship Café in Gloucester around one question: how can we grow creativity in our communities better, together? Artists sat alongside people from arts organisations, the voluntary and community sector, the NHS and local authorities. Every district in the county was represented, and another 15 people were on the waiting list.

We used Open Space, so nobody set an agenda in advance. Anyone who cared enough about a question wrote it on a card, pinned it to the wall and claimed a space, each one named after a planet. Twenty-one questions went up, from funding and venues to hidden histories, facilitator burnout and how we share grief creatively. Here is the shorter story of what came out of them.

The same thing kept coming up

Whether a conversation started with infrastructure, marketing, children’s activities or the wellbeing of facilitators, it arrived in the same place. People do not know who else is out there, what they are doing, or how to reach them. One card said it in six words: “I didn’t know that was happening.” The session on children and families listed close to thirty names and organisations in an hour. A great deal is happening across Gloucestershire, and almost none of it is visible in one place. People were practical about the fixes: a countywide directory or map, everyone using the same what’s on and opportunities page, and more days like this one.

The conditions the work needs

Gloucestershire runs largely on funding-led initiatives, people said, and there is an appetite for something steadier underneath them. Someone drew a tree on their notes sheet and wrote “roots need time to grow fruit”. Space was the concrete version of that: what venues exist, what they cost, and what is free. One participant proposed a Gloucestershire Venues Network. Money was the other pressure. Most funds require applicants to be a charity or constituted group, which shuts out individual artists, and the hyperlocal models that get round that (Create Local, Voices Gloucester, Together Gloucester) are confined by geography. People asked for core costs and practitioner wellbeing to be paid for properly, and for long-term work in places rather than short projects.

Looking after the people doing the work

The session on facilitator wellbeing produced one of the most candid sheets of the day. Suggestions ran from naps and holidays, through peer mentoring, supervision and retreats, to a structural point made firmly: arts work is undervalued and practitioners are set in competition with each other, and no amount of individual resilience fixes that. On the feedback wall, one person wrote that creative work can feel isolating, added “it’s not true!!”, and said that coming together “shows we aren’t alone”.

Starting with communities

The question “how can we find out what communities want?” produced the richest notes of the day, with trust at the centre of the mind map. Trust grows through consistency, through partnering with organisations people already trust, and through low-risk ways in where watching still counts as taking part. Many people do not think culture is for them, and the way in is often through something they already do and value, which may never be called culture. The closing round put it in four words: “with the community, not for”.

Where the energy is

The opportunities people pointed towards were shared mapping of provision and opportunities, a venues network, a route to funding for individuals, peer support for practitioners, long-term storytelling work in Gloucester, and a way of showing impact that funders recognise and practitioners believe in. Some of these Create Gloucestershire is already working on. Most belong to the whole room. And yes, we will do this again!

Read the full record

The public record gathers all 21 questions, a fuller exploration of themes, what people said they need, and the feedback from the closing round. You can download the report here. There are also photographs from the day and a slideshow of Jenny Bowers’s artwork created live on the day.

It is written from the notes people chose to leave, so it is partial by design. If you were in a conversation that is not reflected and you would like it to be, send it to us and we will add it. Email connect@creategloucestershire.co.uk 

Thank you to everyone who came, helped organise, hosted a conversation, took notes and listened. And thank you to the Friendship Café for the room, the support and the food, which got six separate mentions in the feedback!

Live drawings: © Jenny Bowers @jennykbowers

Photography: © Thousand Word Media Ltd 2026