Gloucester Great Place

How joined up local alliances create new opportunities in communities…this one in Gloucester with Culture Matson.

Pippa, CG’s founder and director and Naomi Draper, CEO and Artistic Director of GL4, attended the Creative Health APPG ( All Party Parliamentary Group) hosted by Stroud MP Simon Opher. Read Pippa’s key takeaways.

Create Local is Create Gloucestershire’s transformative programme that addresses the unmet demand for arts, culture, and creativity in Gloucestershire, particularly in communities that have historically received limited public funding. It connects artists with individuals who are passionate about enhancing the creative fabric of their area, and collects data to showcase the transformative impact of community creativity, paving the way for increased investment and decision-making by the local community.

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.

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.

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.

Have your say! Thursdays 2-4pm in the static caravan at The Redwell Centre, Matson.

GLcommunities and GASP are looking for residents to contribute to a community podcast. If you have a hobby or interest, a burning issue you want to talk about, an interesting story, a bright idea, or if you want tot learn to record and edit your own audio content or present your own show, drop in to find out more.

In December, we joined Culture Matson partners to share the fantastic work being created and delivered by and for the residents of Matson, with visitors from Arts Council England.

Like many arts organisations, Forest of Dean-based community arts charity Wyldwood Arts has gradually been reintroducing face-to-face provision this year. In this blog post we hear from Associate Producer Liz Bell about the experience of delivering a community banner-making project in a post-pandemic rural environment.

20 local GCSE and A’Level students from Rednock and KLB schools in Cam & Dursley will be showcasing experimental pieces during Tyndale Arts Week. They created the work during a nine week programme called ‘Love Art? Create your Future! run by artist and educator Abi Nicol.

Creative Age is an arts-based, social community project for people living with dementia and their carers who still live independently. Participants take part in focused creative group sessions facilitated by experienced artists, exploring imaginatively with collective story-making, seated movement, dance, music, visual stimuli and poetry, with content driven by the participants’ interests. Before the pandemic, creative sessions were followed by socialising over tea and cake, hosted and coordinated by Bethesda Church and committed volunteers (who also support the artist-led sessions).

Aimee is currently on a creative leadership programme with Gloucester Culture Trust, working for Gloucestershire Libraries and for two days a week at Strike A Light. She helps engage with people through creative projects based in libraries across Gloucester. 

We caught up with her 3 months into her traineeship…

In March 2019, Gloucester Culture Trust launched the Creative Leadership Trainee Programme. The aim: to nurture the future creative leaders of today.

The programme has created four full-time, year-long jobs within four of Gloucester’s creative organisations, all of which are fully funded by the Creative Entrepreneurs strand of the city’s Great Place project. This area of our work, which we call JOLT, is about creating opportunities and a supportive space which enables people to work and make a living in the creatives industries, right here in Gloucester. 

Matson came on board as one of the Art of Libraries test libraries in October 2017 but before I talk about the project, and my role as a Creative Catalyst, I just want to set the scene and talk a bit about Matson, just to give an understanding of the context in which we are working.