A general meeting of members of The Stove Network was held on Tuesday 12th November 2024 to discuss the motion to adopt new Articles of Association for the company. Seven members attended with a further 18 giving their apologies and appointing the Chair of the company as their proxy to vote on their behalf.
The meeting became a very engaged and positive discussion of the history and reputation of The Stove as an organisation for the community of Dumfries and Galloway which had always sought to act transparently and inclusively and that the new Articles of Association were very much in keeping with this tradition and appropriate to the evolving practice of The Stove. Suggestions were made about new policies supporting the rights of children in line with United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as adopted by Scottish Govt and adding game design to the list of creative activities promoted by The Stove.
The meeting voted on the motion:
“That the Articles of Association in the form annexed and initialled by a director of the Company for the purposes of identification be adopted as the Articles of Association of the Company in substitution for and to the exclusion of the existing Articles of Association of the Company.”
The motion was carried unanimously by the seven members in attendance and the eighteen members voting by proxy.
The new Articles of Association for The Stove Network have been ratified by the Office of the Scottish Charities Regulator and will be uploaded at Companies House where they are publicly available to view. Anyone wishing a copy can write to [email protected]
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Lynsey Smith writes –
On Tuesday 12th November all Stove members are invited to an Extraordinary General Meeting to discuss and vote on a single resolution – to update the Articles of Association (aka. the constitution) of The Stove, as recommended by the Board of Trustees.
So, why are we doing this? Back in September 2023, the board set up a working group to review the governance of the organisation including the Articles of Association.
The three key reasons behind taking a fresh look at how the organisation was working at board level was threefold:
Awareness that certain relevant policies and legislation at national level had changed since we last reviewed our Articles of Association (2017) and we wanted to ensure our Articles were compliant with policies/legislation that could be relevant to The Stove.
A desire for more joined-up working between the board of trustees and staff – particularly in the context of the evolving practice of The Stove and the need to diversify income sources (e.g. through earned income) to best utilise the skills offered by the board and facilitate greater speed of decision-making
A desire to look at the working processes of the board more generally in the context of coming to the end of the first decade of The Stove’s existence.
The working group has carefully and thoroughly discussed issues and options for change, researched best practice examples and consulted with relevant organisations working in the field. Having agreed with the whole board that the changes we wished to make would require changes to the Articles of Association for The Stove we engaged the services of specialist charity lawyers Lindsays from Edinburgh. Lindsays have supported the board to best express the desired changes within best charitable practice and produced a new set of Articles of Association. The new Articles have now been assessed and passed by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) and formally adopted by The Stove Board of Trustees at their meeting of 2nd September 2024 to be recommended to the Stove membership as the Articles of Association for the Company at an extraordinary general meeting where members can vote on this recommendation.
The significant changes to the Articles of Association can be summarised as follows:
Assertion of control of the company by the ‘community of benefit’. This has always been at the core of rules and working of The Stove and some slight changes are required by changes to Community Empowerment legislation to ensure we are fully compliant should we wish to use this legislation for example to initiate a Community Asset Transfer. Our area of community benefit is (and always has been) Dumfries and Galloway (D+G). The proposed change is to make it a rule of The Stove that a minimum of 75% of our membership is ordinarily resident in D+G. Currently 80% of our 637 members are resident in D+G.
To add a fifth charitable object (NB ‘the Community’ refers to D+G):
to promote the arts, including drama, dance, music, literature, poetry, painting, film making, photography and sculpture and other art forms and areas of artistic endeavour, and in particular (but without prejudice to the generality of that aim) with a view to the involvement of local communities within the Community;
to collaborate and form partnerships with individuals or organisations to benefit the Community through the arts;
to support community initiatives within the Community using the arts;
to use the arts to promote the benefits of social welfare of the inhabitants of the Community, without regard to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation; political, religious or other opinions; and
to promote best practice and advance policy around creative community arts for the benefit of the Community.
This is to reflect the considerable work that The Stove is doing to advance the field of community arts practice at regional, national and international level and how this work benefits the region of D+G with new funding streams, commissions and career opportunities
Change the term of tenure for Trustees. Currently there is no maximum term for people to serve as Trustees. The new Articles assert that Trustees can serve a maximum of two 4 year terms, should they wish to serve for a second 4 year term members would vote on this at the AGM. People could put themselves forward for election to the board of trustees having served two terms only following a full year after the conclusion of their second term.
Provision for Executive Trustees to join the board. To support better joined up working between the board, the staff and members, the new Articles allow a limited number of Executive Trustees (staff members) to be board members. To get the best of both worlds (‘joined-up working’ and ‘community control’) very strict rules are in place to ensure all working processes of the board are, at all times, controlled by a majority of Non-Executive (voluntary) Trustees – for example the quorum for board meetings now includes the requirement for a majority of Non-Executive Trustees to be in attendance and conflict of interest processes are in place, meaning that staff can never be involved in decisions over their own employment etc.
Clarification of process for members putting themselves forward to join the Board of Trustees. The new Articles make provision for members to suggest themselves as Trustees of The Stove at any time.
Having gone through a year of research, consideration and advice, The Board of Trustees unanimously recommends these changes to members of The Stove Network and we look forward to welcoming you to the General Meeting on 12th November. If you would like to attend, please RSVP by Friday 8th November so that we have an idea of numbers and can ensure we can accommodate everyone comfortably etc.
Maya was recommissioned for Phase 2 of the Harbour project in July-November 2024 to continue their creative engagement process toward developing a community design concept for the new piece of dredged land within the Waterfront re-development. Alongside gathering local insight for the co-design process, Maya hosted a programme of events and engagement at Creative Stranraer to test ideas and continue engaging people in the creative vision for the future of the town under the regeneration. Visit Harbour Project Phase 2 Blog Update 1 here to read the first chapter of Maya’s journey.
Harbourland is an Opportunity to Make a Whole New Part of Stranraer.
As part of the process of extending the marina, some dredging must take place to make Loch Ryan deep enough for larger sailing boats. Within the plans for One Waterfront a new area of land will be created next to the East Pier using the material dredged from the loch. I’ve been working with local people to imagine what this new area of land could be:
‘The safest harbour is a world between land and sea. Harbourland is an ecosystem – a place to witness and protect many forms of life and provide a space for them to survive, thrive and connect with one another. It is place that belongs to everyone and somewhere that will show the best of Stranraer to visitors. Harbourland asks: ‘how can we act like the oyster and build an area that benefits both people and the coastal biodiversity? What are the types of ‘surfaces’ that communities in Stranraer can attach to and make their own?’
Harbourland Polling Station Results
If you came down and joined the thousands of tourists and celebrators at this year’s annual Oyster Festival, you may have come across the Harbourland polling station. As mentioned in the previous update, Oyster shells were historically used as the first ever ‘ballot cards’ during the early days of democracy in Ancient Greece. This year, I worked with the Rhins Mens Shed to create an interactive installation to bring this tradition back to modern-day Stranraer to inform the Harbourland consultation. Using the data gathered from countless conversations with local people, community organisations and from Raise The Sails Festival in April, I collated the main hopes for Harbourland into 5 key categories:
A sheltered place to sit and bide a while,
Tidal rock pools for coastal wildlife
A place to share stories of Stranraer
A space for community events and festivals
Interactive play structures.
Over the weekend, nearly 400 people cast their oyster shells to vote on what they would like to see as part of Harbourland. The oyster shells that are typically gathered for redistribution back into the loch were instead used to facilitate important conversations about the communities hopes for the future of the town, before making their way back to the water. We had older residents keen for interactive play structures so that they could ‘share the town with their grandchildren’ and ‘give them a reason to visit,’ along with younger generations of nature enthusiasts who were terribly excited at the prospect of tidal rock pools in Stranraer.
A landslide amount of votes for tidal rock pools was the outcome of the initial consultation as seen below. All of the information gathered from the Harbourland Polling Station is being fed directly back into the Waterfront regeneration.
Sandcastle Competition
At the end of September, I staged the Great Stranraer Sandcastle Competition on the shores of Agnew Park. I designed bespoke Stranraer sandcastle buckets inspired by the topographical oyster forms that I’ve been working with for participants to take home for future days by the Loch.
Sandcastle competitions are an ancient tradition for coastal communities, an excuse to spend time down by the water and exercise the creative potential of natural materials. We’re hoping to create a future waterfront that is a place where families want to gather and to feel more connected to. Stranraer’s waterfront regeneration is set to transform the town in new and exciting ways, and we’re keen for these designs to be co-created to ensure a future landscape that reflects the needs of all communities – both human and sea species!
Following from my ‘Siltcrete’ experiments, there’s a strong intention to make use of the dredged materials from Loch Ryan in the plans for the new piece of land in creative ways that benefit the unique natural environment. The competition gave people of all ages the opportunity to take part in co-designing future structures of the coast, to be inspired by the shapes of their local ecology, and to build ambitious sand sculptures down on a mostly disused shoreline.
Over 70 people came down to take part and Stranraer beach was transformed with people coming together to play and find inspiration from their native oyster beds. The landscape was soon transformed into a mass display of everyday creativity and celebration of local site-specific ecologies. Teams won prizes from categories including ‘best sportsmanship’ and ‘most imaginative concept’, and as ever, the creativity of Stranraer’s community didn’t disappoint. Some of the sand sculptures included the story of Esmerelda the lost mermaid, Oysterland castle, Ailsa Craig and her lighthouse, and a whale who loved smarties! By the time the tide was returning, the coastline was covered in hundreds of oyster forms, reminiscent of a community made oyster bed.
Harbour Hub Takeover
As the final installation within this latest phase of the Harbour project, I will be feeding back all of the community ideas, events and interventions that have taken place so far, and what there may be to look forward to in the next stage. This will take the form of a Harbour Takeover in the Creative Stranraer Hub (23 King Street). 3 display boards will detail each stage of the project, along with the initial design principles for the new piece of reclaimed land highlighted through creative consultation.
Alongside the 3 display boards themselves, there will also be a window screening of underwater footage commissioned by the SCAMP (Solway and Marine Partnership) project to captivate passers-by as our evenings begin to get darker. The film by the Newton Stewart Sub-Aqua Club and John Wallace documents the underwater world of the of the Solway Firth and gives us an insight into some of the ecosystems that we are aiming to foster through Harbourland. Huge thanks to the Community Re-Use Shop for their donation of a TV!
The final aspect of the takeover is a community boat report created by artist and consultant Anne Waggot-Knott. Anne was our researcher/recorder/reporter in Phase 1 of the Harbour project and has been embedded within the project since its conception. The Community Boat Reports are interactive, informative documents which are designed to be folded up into the perfect paper boat. These are available for all visitors to read, build and take home.
Come and visit the Harbour Takeover from October 16th through to November 11th at Stranraer Creative Hub.
Until Next Time…
If you want to find out more about the Harbourland proposal programme or the context of the project, please contact Maya on [email protected]
If you want to read more about the Creative Placemaking strategies currently taking place in Stranraer, please visit the What We Do Now resource written by Shawn Boden here.
The Stove is looking for someone to bring a campaign and story-led communications/marketing approach to the multi-disciplinary team which incubates and crafts the work of the organisation.
Communication is critical to the creative placemaking practice of The Stove, the person we are seeking will lead The Stove Communications Team and drive innovation in external and internal comms to a wide range of participants, stakeholders and audiences.
We are open to the widest diversity of people and approaches – what is critical for us is that you have the potential to be part of the unique blend of personalities and talents at The Stove.
ABOUT THE STOVE
The Stove is a creatively-led organisation with a national and international reputation as a leader in community-embedded arts practice based in Southwest Scotland. We were the first artist-led community development trust in the UK and deliver high-quality activity uniquely integrated with an activist approach which supports local people to shape the places they live and work.
We work across our home region of Dumfries and Galloway as one of the UK’s leading exponents of Creative Placemaking – using creativity as a tool to support community-led change.
Our work has a particular focus on people experiencing disadvantage/inequality, and young people, and engages with the widest possible range of people on issues relevant to their lives in ways that can make a lasting difference.
The Stove is based on the High Street in Dumfries, where we operate a Community Venue, delivering a programme of activities/projects from large-scale community events/festivals to regular groups/workshops. In 2022-23 we delivered 264 unique public events with a combined audience of 8344 and 5703 people actively participating in events/ workshops.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Money and Conditions
The Communications and Marketing Manager is a full-time role at a salary ranging from £28,000 – £32,000 PA depending on experience, talent and potential.
The role is based in Dumfries and will involve travel across the region, nationally and internationally. A commitment to localised economies is at the forefront of our practice and as such it is a condition of this role to be based within Dumfries and Galloway to undertake it.
Key Duties & Responsibilities
Implementation of Marketing/PR and Communications Strategy & Brand Management of The Stove. This includes a number of key Stove initiatives which function as sub-brands e.g. What We Do Now, Creative Stranraer, Creative Spaces and Wild Goose Festival.
Campaign design and planning to support the development of creative projects and organisational aims/objectives
Oversight of all Stove online assets
Oversee delivery of marketing & PR projects (Digital: email, website, social media, partnership channels)
Create and curate compelling content, including posts, articles, videos, and graphics support Stove projects and initiatives
Contributing to planning and delivery of community engagement (inc Stove membership) processes for projects and organisational aims/objectives
Managing Stove recruitment processes
Line management of Marketing Officer and Web & Data Manager
For more information and for further details of this role, download the full application pack below:
We want you to communicate yourself and your approach to us in the way that is best for you. There are no rules to the application process beyond the following, we need to:
Have your final submission by the 26th August and send to [email protected]
Get an understanding of your experience, skills and potential
Hear about your interest in role and how you would approach it
Receive nothing from you that is bigger than 10MB
Interview dates will be 12 & 13th September, by applying for this role you are declaring yourself available for these dates.
We are open to communication from you in whatever form is comfortable and natural to you. If you have any questions about this, or anything else please do not hesitate to get in touch.
It’s important that our people reflect and represent the diversity of the communities and audiences we serve. We welcome and value difference, so when we say we’re for everyone, we want everyone to be welcome in our teams too. Wherever you’re from, and whatever your background, we want to hear from you.
Access Requirements
If you have any access requirements at any stage of the selection process please contact Lindsey Smith ([email protected] 01387 252435)
Well, this blog has changed already. I started some scribblings a couple of weeks ago and at that time I was still a member of the Board of Trustees at The Stove Network (TSN). Now I’m not. For me, that’s quite a big change!
At the AGM in February this year I bade farewell as Chair of TSN, a role I’d been in for almost nine years. As part of reporting what the board had been doing and how it had been changing over the year, I said I’d be stepping down, firstly as chair, then as a board member once we had a new chair in place. We were ready for change but wanted managed change, a transition. Sensible.
In a subsequent email to Lynsey Smith (now our wonderful new chair) I wrote that my experience on the board had been probably one of the most “fabulous, enticing, disruptive and creative experiences of my life,” In short, it had changed me. What I’d also seen was that The Stove too was changing and enriching the lived experience of even more people in and now beyond Dumfries.
I knew when I signed up for the board that it would be about organisational change and professional development and that the board had to stay alert, keep up, be water-tight in governance terms but also, importantly, not get in the way of the dynamics coming from our creative community and the people of the town.
I had a clear sense that what was happening in and from The Stove building was different. There was a palpable sense of energy and some urgency that I didn’t quite understand but soon realised it was being driven by the desire and need for change. It was coming from the people of the town, those involved in the many fresh and new projects and businesses in the town centre. It was also coming from a growing band of creative and energetic young people, many of whom were coming to or returning to the area after periods of work, study and travel elsewhere.
In industry they have ‘accelerator projects’ to nurture and bring to life innovative practices and ideas. I saw The Stove as Dumfries’s accelerator project for the creative industries and indeed for the town. I also saw The Stove equally as a creatively driven community development project which was increasingly supporting wider economic development aims in a very tangible way. There were risks too and that was a great thing.
In my previous life, I had been involved in some amazing creatively driven change programmes and projects, but they were often scattered in the towns and villages across the region and not happening to any lasting extent in Dumfries. There were of course a growing number of exceptions like Big Burns Supper, The Usual Place, the revamped Theatre Royal, the Dumfries end of Spring Fling and the D&G Arts Festival. But there was clearly much more creative potential to be unlocked in our regional capital.
I don’t intend to list the programmes, events and happenings that have come from TSN over those years, but for anyone who has spent any curious time in The Stove Cafe, you’ll have spotted that there’s more than great coffee and food happening.
There’s a real vibe and sense of creative energy in the place. I can always spot a ‘newie’ in The Cafe. Their coffee often gets cool as they chat, look around curiously, wonder what those people are doing going up and down those stairs, take in the latest exhibits or eavesdrop at that wee buzz of a meeting going on in the corner.
An hour in The Cafe is like a wee bit of performance art in itself. But there’s a warmth to it all. A welcoming. And a kind of urban-cool. It also feels different. As that 70’s anthem went “…something’s happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear…”
All of this is the very stuff of change. Any given hour in the daily life of that Cafe and building generates and emits change. Look into what happens in the evenings, in those upstairs rooms and in the creative productions that come out of the place, and you begin to understand what The Stove is, what it does and how it changes things.
The team have had now thousands of young people, businesses, creative and community practitioners, academics and folk from and beyond the town and region and country through those doors. Any trail through the published programmes of the last decade will be testimony to that. I urge you to have a look at the incredible and growing archives on the TSN website. If you caught Heather Taylor’s blog piece last month, you would have some feel for the next network driver: the “What We Do Now” creative placemaking network. An initiative that has all the makings of a paradigm shift.
So, what happens when an organisation that is driven by creative change and innovation faces a very real existential threat? Well, every such organisation, community and individual faced just such a challenge that lasted almost two years. That pandemic thing.
Almost overnight we all experienced enforced change. The personal, community and organisational turmoil and fear was very real. Some coped better than others. At our AGM this year and last, I found myself repeating that I still don’t think we have truly understood the implications of ‘what just happened’. I’m sure we all still are seeing ways in which social, personal and organisational norms and behaviours have changed, even through those pressures to ‘get back to normal’. But strike up any random discussion about COVID and you’ll find things are far from forgotten or back to normal.
I was truly in awe of what the team and membership of TSN achieved during and following those lost years. Rather than lock-down and close the curtains, The Stove adapted, accelerated its innovative capacity, went online, on to social media, big-time, and into print and set up a small but very significant virtual community experience that proved a real lifeline, not just for the creative sector, but for many in the community in general. Have a look at the Atlas Pandemica pages on the Stove website. As relevant now as ‘back then’!
As this piece goes out, we find ourselves again in one of those periods when political leaders predictably thrust upon us the word “change” as a wedge issue. “What we need now is change” vs “The last thing we need now is that kind of change”. Corny though it was, I rather liked Barack Obama’s take on the change thing:
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for: we are the change that we seek
Barack Obama
It’s something like that which drew me to The Stove Network. Now that I’ve gone, wrench that it was, I’m now a small part of that change. That’s what it’s all about! See?
A note from Lynsey Smith – Chair
‘Tony has played an instrumental part in the development of The Stove over the past eight years and has passed on a very steady ship to me. He has been of great support to me as I transitioned into the role of Chair and will remain a close friend to us all. He has taught us many things on his journey, most significantly his ability to make everyone feel part of something, his flat hierarchical approach and gentle nature. Thank you, Tony, from the bottom of our hearts.’
The Stove’s CEO, Matt Baker, recently participated in a summit between Scottish Government and COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities) called ‘Connections and Partnerships: The Value of Culture in Communities’.
The aim of the event was to encourage partnership working in culture, at local and national level, to support cultural activity at community level.
Exploring challenges, opportunities, and potential actions for change, the event was also attended by some cultural leaders to inform discussions.
Angus Robertson MSP Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture introducing the event.
We caught up with Matt to find out what he was chatting about and how the idea of shining a spotlight on ‘Cultural Value’ can positively impact those working in the creative, social, environmental, and economic sectors at local level.
Matt’s talk followed a presentation by Inverclyde Council about their Culture Collective project 2021-23.
(Culture Collective is rightly celebrated in Scotland, and beyond, as an innovative new approach to connecting national and local cultural opportunity for communities).
‘Like Inverclyde, Dumfries and Galloway had a Culture Collective project which built capacity in community groups to work with creative practitioners to support their work in communities, particularly people and places that had been hard to reach previously.
WWDN Culture Collective Project for Dumfries and Galloway
The legacy of this project for Dumfries and Galloway is the WWDN network which was formally launched earlier this year. This is a vision of our region working together to share resources, capacity and knowledge, using culture to benefit communities.
The principle is that community anchor groups are supported to build experience in working with creative practitioners.
Different communities work together on joint initiatives and all this activity will support a population of local creative freelancers and small cultural organisations.
Community groups and creative practitioners are members of WWDN and use the network to develop new projects and share best practice etc.’
Matt then turned to the practice of Creative Placemaking as an example of one working methodology which can support partnership working across different sectors at local level and draw new support for culture into communities.
‘This approach builds on 12 years of work by The Stove implementing creative placemaking practice in Dumfries town centre.
Our work centres on a simple idea; to use creativity as a tool to support community-led change. Change for individuals, for groups, for social enterprises and for places in their entirety through place planning and the like.
At The Stove we call this ‘Grow Your Own Culture’, a belief in the intrinsic value of participation in creativity, that people making their own culture is equally as important as consuming culture made by other people. This approach often leads to unexpected outcomes right across the spread of social, economic and environmental impact.
In Dumfries, creative projects with communities shaped a conversation across the town about its future, and critically how local people could be involved in making that future. To cut a very long story short, this led to a campaign to ‘buy back our high street’, which became the Midsteeple Quarter project.
Now, five high street buildings are in community ownership and are being developed by the community with over £10M inward investment to date.
What has also become clear through this work is that forming partnerships and bringing culture into collaboration, with other placemaking agencies, helps the creative sector to thrive. In the last year The Stove has cascaded partnership projects to local creative freelancers with 180 individual commissions worth over £200,000 in total.
This year, with South of Scotland Enterprise, The Stove released ‘A Creative Placemaking Approach’ which is published on a creative commons licence and free for anyone to use.
The document aims to lay out a methodology for creative placemaking so that the opportunities and impacts for partnership working across different sectors are clear, and local authorities, for example, feel confident to approach cultural partners about potential collaborations on placemaking projects in health, education, community development, innovation, regeneration and place planning’
Highlighting recent developments in Dumfries and Galloway with the Local Authority taking a creative placemaking approach to connecting larger strategies for economic development with communities on the ground through a place-based approach, Matt went on to talk about practical examples of this work in practice.
This diagram from the publication gives an idea of the spread of impacts from partnership working with the creative sector in the context of place.
Creative Placemaking Impact Diagram – From ‘A Creative Placemaking Approach 2024’
‘We believe this area of work has huge potential for connecting culture with other sectors through the shared agenda of placemaking for the benefit of both.
By way of example – the Economic Development department at Dumfries and Galloway Council is seeing the cultural sector as a vital bridge between strategic infrastructure planning and local communities.
With the advent of Levelling Up and Community Empowerment it is now critical to national funding that communities are directly involved in the design of capital projects – yet in D+G there is a wide gulf between economic development and the grassroots of communities.
In Stranraer, cultural organisations have been commissioned by the council to conduct creative community engagement which is giving less-heard communities a voice in the shaping and delivery of the capital development of the former harbour area and a former hotel on the High Street.
Discussions are also underway about using creative activities as catalyst to bring communities together to develop new ideas which feed into the economic development pipeline.
This work has proved so successful that six weeks ago, Dumfries and Galloway Council advertised, what we believe is, the UK’s first ‘Creative Placemaking Framework’ to enable the council to more easily procure the services of local arts organisations to undertake creative placemaking work.
Of course, there are challenges but it was very encouraging to see this area of work highlighted in the recent National Culture Strategy Action Plan (see S7) and I hope a greater understanding between COSLA and Scottish Government will play a significant part in delivering parts of that action plan.
Matt Baker is CEO and one of the founders of The Stove (est. 2011). The Stove was a progression of his practice as a public artist. Through his career Matt became increasingly concerned with the potential for creative process to empower communities. He sees The Stove as a long-term experiment in embedding a creative resource within a community – the work is a co-directed journey with local people and Matt remains completely absorbed and fascinated by where that journey is leading.
