The first Art Road Trip events have taken place in Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland, kicking off a year of arts activities which will be wendign their way to Gloucestershire this Summer.

“We are all creative in our own ways and we all have such potential, but we don’t all have the same opportunities for this to be expressed or realised. It is great to be working with colleagues at Create Gloucestershire to positively address this challenge.” Matt Little, Chair

In 100 days the National Gallery will begin a year long celebration to mark bringing people and paintings together for 200 years, called NG200. And Create Gloucestershire and partners are taking part in ‘The Art Road Trip’ bringing the celebrations to communities in Gloucestershire!

Last week Culture Matson had its second visit from Sir Nicolas Serota, Chairperson of Arts Council England. The group ‘got out the good biscuits’ before sitting down and talking through the amazing journey they have been on in the last 5 years.

Pippa Jones, CG’s founder and director was speaking at the Culture, Health & Wellbeing (CHWP) Alliance Conference in Barnsley as part of a panel convened to discuss how arts organisations and the health sector can work better together.

This is the first in a 2 part series of blogs from a conversation where Pippa and Debbie look at the story of Culture Matson. In this blog they look back at how Culture Matson came about and how the group has developed.

In 2023 Culture Matson started a trial to develop a ‘Community Chest’. A community chest is a shared investment fund that supports health and wellbeing and joins up money from the NHS, local authorities, and other sources. Read how members of Culture Matson met the challenge of running a community chest to collectively decide how best to use the money for their neighbours.

Find out more about the Off we Go project and the impact joining in with the activities had on those taking part.

KICKSTART BLOG

Evie and Jimmy both got paid apprenticeships through the Kickstart Scheme. Jimmy was at Deepbed radio and Evie worked at SVA. Watch their video to find out what they got up to…

Dr Alex Waldrop was our “keynote listener” at glosdataday. She dedicated her time on the day to listening. She heard what was being talked about, she noticed who was there and who wasn’t and she took notice so that she could give all those voices the opportunity to be heard. After a day of dropping into workshops and joining open space sessions Alex presented back to the room. This is what she heard:

But we knew it was important and we had a strong desire to make it happen!

Create Gloucestershire were one of the four partners who came together to host the dataday. Back in the Autumn of last year we began conversations to imagine this event. It was going to be unashamedly about data and it was going to inspire, inform and empower everyone who came along. That was the plan.

This is the question that sits behind our Create Health strand - a series of test projects to develop and understand how to live well.  Our experience in Gloucestershire and evidence drawn from practice across the UK and internationally, confirms that arts, creativity and culture are a fundamental part of living well.

We were delighted to be asked by the British Libraries as part of their Living Knowledge Network to talk about Art of Libraries and the impact it has had on two early adopter libraries in very different settings, and how they engage with local communities and tailor strategies to their individual areas. 

CG’s take away from the new national and local funding picture is that there are many brilliant arts and cultural organisations who secured funding and just as many that didn’t. There was simply not enough funding available to meet the incredible aspirations and potential of arts and cultural organisations in England.

When Cam and Dursley Creatives and GL11 Community Hub collaborated on the Platinum Jubilee Flag making project the community went silkscreen crazy, producing over 2,500 flags depicting images created by local children that celebrated our Queen.

KICKSTART BLOG

Jordan Odame is working at The Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury and joined the team through the Kickstart Scheme. Read on to find out more about his unusual journey into work in the cultural sector.

How do we combine data and creativity to develop a data driven culture with a difference? Over the past six-months we have had a fresh look at how we capture and use data; asking ourselves a range of challenging questions. Read on to find out more.

KICKSTART BLOG

My name is Manon Molyneux and I am working as a Junior Studio Engineer/Music Leader at The Music Works in Gloucester. I joined The Music Works on the kickstart scheme and have since become a full-time employee at the Gloucester Hub!