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Author: Kirsty Geddes

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News Project Updates

Maya Edwards: Harbourland Phase 2

Context

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.

Categories
News Opportunities

New Role: Communications & Marketing Manager

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This position is now closed.

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:

DOWNLOAD THE FULL APPLICATION PACK HERE

Application Process

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)

OPTIONAL EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FORM

Categories
Musings News

Change?  That’s What It’s All About!

By Tony Fitzpatrick

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.’

Categories
Musings News

Connections & Partnerships: The Value of Culture in Communities

a man standing in front of a screen reading from a script to an audience,
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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.

Categories
News Opportunities

Join the Creative Spaces Class of 2024

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The Creative Spaces Project is looking for three new recruits to join its programme for 2024.

This is a paid opportunity for young creatives aged between 16 and 30, to join The Stove team on a part-time basis, for a fixed period of 10 months.

ABOUT THE ROLES

Fee: £672 per month (For each successful candidate)

Hours: Part-time, two days per week (14 hours)

Duration: 10 months, fixed term (Successful applicants will begin their contract on the week beginning 29th July, 2024.)

Contract Type: Freelance

Criteria: Applicants must be aged between 16-30 and have some form of creative practice, project or idea you would like to develop.

Deadline for applications: Monday 1st July at 12 noon

Based at The Stove Network in Dumfries, Creative Spaces works with young creatives from across the region providing a stepping stone into the arts and the world of being a creative freelancer.

Every year, Creative Spaces recruits three ‘Associate Artists’ t o complete a 10-month creative development programme where you will learn t o grow your creative interests, work with the Creative Spaces Team on various projects & events, and with guidance, will learn to develop your own personal project*.

Creative Spaces aims to build up and support Dumfries & Galloway’s creative scene. We d o this through putting o n events, hosting workshops, offering mentorships, and providing learning opportunities and networking connections to help people build their skills as creatives.

These opportunities aren’t just for people already working in the creative sector and you don’t have t o be an ‘established artist’, have a degree or previous experience to apply.

The Creative Spaces programme is designed to offer you the chance to explore the creative industries and try and find your
place.

Download the full application pack here
Download the clear text version here

WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR

DESIRED EXPERIENCE

  • Good written and verbal communication skills
  • IT and media skills (e.g. using emails, word etc)
  • Interest and/or experience in t h e creative industries and community work Interest and / or experience in working with other people
  • Ability to self-manage your own workflow

PERSON SPECIFICATION

  • Adaptable
  • Engaging
  • Creative

COMMITMENTS

  • Time commitments will include a combination of regular hours (to be determined by team availability) and some flexible working across projects (evenings, weekend work).
  • You’ll be required to attend weekly meetings and take part in project development and delivery of work across our programme:
  • 1 x Fixed day per week based in The Stove (either on Tuesday or Thursday)
  • 1x Flexible day per week (either working from home or in The Stove)
  • Weekly Creative Spaces meetings with Creative Spaces Producer Weekly Projects meeting (With the full StoveTeam)

HOW TO APPLY

Deadline for applications: Monday 1st July at 12 noon

Please submit your application by email to [email protected] (max file size of 10MB) with the heading Creative Spaces – Associate

Feel free to be creative with your application. We’ll accept any of the following formats, but please remember to let us know:

  • Why do you think joining the Creative Spaces programme will benefit you?
  • Why do you think now is the right time to apply to this programme?
  • What do you hope to achieve?
  • Please include brief details surrounding a project you would like to pursue as part of Creative Spaces (this could be a series of workshops, an event or any other creative output).*

*Please note that this idea is just so we can understand the kind of areas you may be interested in and any projects you wish to pursue. This is not a final idea that you have to take forward.

APPLICATION FORMATS:

We’ll accept any of the following formats:

  • Covering Letter (no more than 500 words)
  • Video (no more than 3 mins)
  • Image pack or portfolio (10MB or less)
  • Voice note

Just make sure that you include a CV or text sheet with your name, contact details and a few examples of recent work (this could be images, videos or write-ups).

Download the full application pack here
Download the clear text version here

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.

optional Equal opportunities from
Categories
Musings News

Thoughts on the launch of WWDN

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Heather Taylor is a writer, storyteller and creative practitioner specialising in multi-sensory creative and performance practice, inclusion and accessibility, and is a member of The Stove’s board of Trustees. She recently attended the launch of WWDN, a creative placemaking network, and shares her thoughts and hopes for its future success. Read her blog below:

Image credit – Kirstin McEwan Photography

WWDN – A place for everyone

By Heather Taylor

Hey All!

I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the sunshine we have started to get – let’s hope that’s not the start and end of it!

I just had to share my excitement about a fantastic event I attended recently.

On the 9th of May, The Stove Network launched something truly special at the Catstrand in New Galloway. It was the kick-off for the ‘What We Do Now’ (WWDN) network, and let me tell you, the energy in the room was wonderful!

As a member of the Board of Trustees, with a deep passion for accessibility and inclusion in community development and the creative arts, this initiative holds a special place in my heart.

The WWDN network has been in the works for the past couple of years, and seeing it now, and anticipating its future, is beyond thrilling.

Image credit – Kirstin McEwan Photography

The journey began with a highly successful pilot program where creatives collaborated with six hub organisations across the region.

The results were inspiring, showcasing the transformative power of creative placemaking in our communities.

Now comes the next phase of this incredible journey. The launch event was a testament to the dedication and hard work of everyone involved.

It was heartening to witness so many people from diverse backgrounds coming together to explore creative placemaking and envision the future of this network.

What truly warmed my heart was the level of thought and consideration that went into ensuring the event was inclusive and that everyone felt comfortable in the space and most importantly – valued.

Image credit – Kirstin McEwan Photography

On a more personal note, I must admit that there are times when I question my place in both the trustee board and the creative community.

Like many others, I often grapple with imposter syndrome, wondering if I truly belong in these spaces. However, what truly struck me during the WWDN launch event was the undeniable sense of inclusivity and openness.

It became clear to me that there is indeed a place for everyone within this network. What’s even more remarkable is the opportunity it presents to dive in and make it your own.

Unlike many other initiatives, WWDN doesn’t require you to have all the answers or a predetermined end outcome. Instead, it welcomes you to come with ideas and offers support in realising them. This, my friends, is a game changer!

I have mentioned already in this post my appreciation of those involved, however, I would like again to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has been involved in bringing the WWDN network to life.

From the dedicated individuals behind the scenes to the creative practitioners who lend their talents, each and every one of you has played a vital role in shaping this initiative into what it is today.

A special shoutout goes to the incredible Stove team, whose unwavering dedication and boundless enthusiasm serve as a constant inspiration to me and countless others. Your passion for community development and the arts is truly infectious, and I feel privileged to be a part of this journey alongside you all.

Thank you for everything you do!

The launch of the WWDN network marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter in our journey towards a more inclusive and vibrant creative landscape. I can’t wait to see what we’ll achieve together!

If you are interested in find out more about WWDN and how you can get involved in the creative placemaking network, head on over to the WWDN website here.

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