Support Us

Tag: Community

Categories
Opportunities Project Updates

Project Assistant

The Unexpected Garden – Stranraer

Summary

We’re seeking an enthusiastic, organised, and sociable Project assistant to join our team. This is a fantastic opportunity to work with the Unexpected Garden project and support our Creative Producer to manage the garden and deliver exciting activities in a new community garden in the heart of historic town of Stranraer in the Southwest Scotland.

This is an ideal opportunity for someone looking to get find their way into events, and working with the public.

The Unexpected Garden – Stranraer is part of Dandelion, a national community food growing initiative that is taking place across Scotland. It is part of the UK wide UnBoxed Festival; a celebration of in 2022.

Find out more about Dandelion here.

About the Job

Title: Project Assistant

Location: Stranraer, Harbour Street, DG9 7RD. What3Words code: armrests.farms.lilac

Client: Stranraer Development Trust

Rate: £90 per day (freelance)

We are looking for a commitment of 2 days per week, which could extend to 3 days per week as we approach the Harvest Festival in September 2022. Days and times will be flexible, and some evening and weekend working will be required. We will be flexible to your needs as we hope you will be to ours

Type: Hybrid – working from home and support on site in the Unexpected Garden – Stranraer. 

Start: 4th July – or nearest possible date

Ends: 31st October

About You

The person we are looking for is will be enthusiastic and committed to the project. You will have some experience of working as part of team that produces events and activities for the public, but above all you will be quick to learn and willing to try your hand at just about anything. You’ll be comfortable working outdoors and good with people. You will have good administrative skills and be comfortable communicating with different people.

What You’ll be Doing

You’ll work with our small project team and our volunteers under the direction of our Creative Producer. You’ll help to organise working sessions in the garden for simple garden maintenance through to being a support worker at small musical events and family yoga sessions. You’ll be available to show people and contractors around the Unexpected Garden and support volunteers to set up tents, gazebos and outdoor lighting etc. You’ll know where all the tools and important things needed to run the project and garden are and who to contact in an emergency.

The project is working towards a big public event in mid-September, a ‘Harvest Festival’ – you will be a key team member for the festival, involved in the team that plans and delivers it working with all the people working at the festival from musicians to chefs.  

How to Apply

If you would like to discuss this role further, please get in touch with a letter (or video) of interest that also states why you think you would be suited to this role and we can have a chat

Please send your letter/video of interest to [email protected] by Monday 24th June

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.

We will accept applications from anyone and everyone who feels they have the skills required to fulfil this role.

OPTIONAL EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FORM
Categories
News Project Updates

What is Dandelion All About?

By Beth Piggitt

Beth Piggott – Emerging Creative Producer

Dandelion is a national creative community food growing initiative that is coming to Stranraer.  It is part of the UK wide UnBoxed Festival; a UK wide celebration of creativity taking place in 2022.  A new community garden, known as an Unexpected Garden, will be created on the harbour that brings together food, culture, ideas, and technology driven by the concept of sow, grow and share.  There will be 12 unexpected gardens across Scotland including floating gardens in Falkirk and touring garden on the back of an HGV lorry in Caithness. At the heart of the project, we want to reconnect people with the food they eat, how it’s grown and show them that in the unlikeliest of places food can be grown. There will be a summer events programme which will culminate in a harvest festival in September – with the aim of re-establishing it as a cultural festival for the town.

Why we’re doing it?

Dandelion is committed to empowering young people, inspiring the creative sector and offers new opportunities for the Stranraer community – which is why we’re taking part. Working in partnership, Stranraer Development Trust and The Stove Network are proud to be part of this new initiative that’s going to get hundreds of people growing their own food across Scotland, with over 400 schools taking part and a new archive or stories about growing, gardening and the unique history and memories of the town and local traditions.

What have we planned?

Our Unexpected Garden will be a hive of activity over the summer with a range of volunteer opportunities, events, workshops, and our take on the Harvest Festival. The garden will be a fantastic opportunity for people to come and learn the basics of food growing, try their hand at gardening and become part of a vibrant community; we are looking forward to welcoming new and experienced gardeners (I include myself in the latter).

People will be able to attend our free events and workshop programme over the summer which will encompass talks, music, crafting, music, and art, as well as veggie and herb plug giveaways and vertical farms on tour. Find out more about our programme of events on our Facebook Page.

Process up until now?

Over the course of the past few months, I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to chat with members of the community to hear what they want to get from the garden and the types of activities they’d like to see there. The garden will be a community project that will continue to evolve over the summer, and I am looking forward to watching it grow as more people visit the garden and leave their mark on it.

Part of my own personal process has involved moving up to Scotland from a small town in Leicestershire and coordinating the build of a new community garden; two things I never imagined happening in my wildest dreams; a comforting reminder that you never know what’s around the corner. I’m sure the garden will continue to remind me of that.

We’ve been lucky to have the support of Northern Lighthouse Board and CalMac who are donating old nautical items including a 27ft lifeboat and 2 big colourful ocean buoys to the garden to help us create a garden fit for a seafarer. Burns Real Ale and Dumfries & Galloway Council have kindly allowed us the space to bring the project to Stranraer and Ulsterbus, who will be providing access to water for the garden have also kindly housed 25 tonnes of soil & mulch.

Find out more about Unboxed & Dandelion

Categories
Musings News Project Updates

Creative Spaces – The Power of Community

By Leanne Bradwick

Creative Spaces has been supporting me for the last 10 months, helping build the confidence I needed to establish myself as an artist within my own practice, but also supporting me to make new connections that have helped me break into the realm of community art.

This experience has given me the opportunity to explore a large variety of creative ventures and has allowed me to engage with the young people of D&G.

Hear more about my experience and what I’ve learned through the Creative Spaces programme below…

Since completing her time as a Creative Spaces Associate Artist, Leanne has secured regular work helping the community as part of the production team at The Stove Network.

Categories
Musings News Project Updates

Creative Spaces – What I’ve Learned

By Jodie Barnacle-Best

Jodie @ Caerlaverock Castle

Just over ten months ago now, I joined the Creative Spaces team alongside Rachel, Leanne and Jenna. Never having stepped foot in Dumfries, I tried to piece together what I thought The Stove was from behind my computer screen in Glasgow back in early 2021.

In the thick of a Masters, scouting the internet for opportunities which would allow me to exercise creative thinking in a purposeful way (a disappointingly hard task when you’re graduating in fashion…) while giving myself time to reflect and develop on the dreaded ‘WHAT NEXT?!’ question, joining Creative Spaces seemed like a good step to take.

Describing what I have learned as part of Creative Spaces would take too long, and even listing it out would be pretty exhaustive! It has been a whirlwind experience characterised in large by a trial-and-error approach. University and formal education settings in general have given me *a lot* (in fact, we did a whole block of events on this called ‘So You Wanna Go to Art School?’ back in September!)…

... but my time as a ‘Creative Spacer’ has been educating in ways I couldn’t anticipate.

Every day truly is a school day as our small (but mighty!) team handled everything from concept to production of our bi-monthly workshop programming alongside several one-off events.

It was real-life, project problem solving. And each week that looked different. From getting stuck in (and drenched) at Nithraid to having a day of ‘work’ which involved gathering foliage throughout D&G to decorate for the Wild Goose Festival closing event, to emailing pretty much every school in D&G to market our events…we did it all.

The days were constantly changing…and sometimes seemingly never-ending, but always fun when working alongside three others under 30 all with the same propelling goal; to put on interesting events for other young people in the region.

A big part of why I wanted to be a part of Creative Spaces was to become more engaged in community arts and look at ways my individual practice could connect with others.

Perhaps the hardest lesson in it all, was just how challenging this seemingly simple task is. Increasing engagement and ensuring we were facilitating activities and events which were of interest to our community at times felt like an uphill battle. Having spoken to many people in the scene and even having read some books on community art and participatory practice, it’s clear how universal this is. But when it all clicked into place, boy did it feel good!

I wrapped up my time with Creative Spaces with my personal project, ‘REMAKE Dumfries’, a month-long project of clothing regeneration with a collective of young people in Dumfries and Galloway. Facilitating this project involved utilising all the skills and experiences already under my belt. An individual project, succeeding because of the trials and errors that came before. An ending to my time on the Creative Spaces team that I’m proud of.

To sum up ten months in 500 words is inconceivable, but I hope I’ve managed to convey the core of my experience. Ten months full of connecting and creating, sometimes planned, sometimes off the cuff, sometimes succeeding, sometimes falling short. The opportunity to try and test has been a real privilege. My biggest take-away of all? Not everything has to be meticulously planned and conceptualised like it’s a three-month long university project.

Sometimes the most success comes from the simplest or spontaneous of ideas.

The ‘real’ world doesn’t mark you on your workings out (in fact they often don’t see them at all), so whatever messy route you take to get there, sometimes the most important thing is simply that you did.

Since completing her time as a Creative Spaces Associate Artist, Jodie has join the Board of Directors at The Stove Network.

Categories
News Opportunities

Arts & Engagement Officer

Our friends at The Stranraer Development Trust are seeking to appoint an Arts & Engagement Officer to help support the development of a thriving cultural sector and a potential major capital project for the re-development of a derelict heritage building in the town centre of Stranraer.

This is an exciting opportunity for a motivated person to use their creativity to bring local people into the heart of regeneration initiatives in Stranraer.

Arts & Engagement Officer – Stranraer Development Trust

Salary: £30,000 (pro rata).

Hours: 25 per week.

Duration: The post is funded for an initial 12 months with potential that it will be continued if successful.

Key Responsibilities

  • Developing and delivering a creative programme in partnership with local stakeholders in and around Stranraer town centre.
  • Developing and delivering creative community engagement projects that support and inform potential re-development projects for the town.
  • Supporting the development of a multi-artform network of creative practitioners in Stranraer
  • Setting up and programming a small ‘Project HQ’ (eg small empty shop unit or under used space) for the project that will help facilitate the aims of the project and serve as focus for
    creative vibrancy for the town
  • Working as part of a project team comprising SDT, DGC and TSN and other consultants involved in capital project development
  • Working as part of Stranraer Development Trust team to support the charities wider aims and objectives
  • Providing project monitoring and reports as required
  • Managing project budget

Skills and Experience

We recognise that all types of work experience are valuable and provide useful transferable skills, so please do tell us about your previous work history and the skills you can bring to the role of Arts & Engagement Officer for Stranraer.

It is essential that you have:

  • Commitment to being based within the community of Stranraer for the role
  • Experience of working with artists
  • An ability to build relationships with communities, colleagues, external partners, and stakeholders
  • The ability to manage different priorities and work to tight deadlines
  • Excellent communication skills
  • Competent IT skills
  • An interest in community wealth building

Personal Qualities
We are looking for people who are:

  • Familiar with Stranraer
  • Open and engaging
  • Approachable and empathetic
  • Curious and creative
  • Resourceful and adaptable
  • Team players

Interested, but want to know more?
For all of the details you’ll need and to find out more about the role visit the Stranraer Development Trust website.

How to Apply

Deadline for Applications: Sunday 1st May, midnight

Please provide a CV and covering letter of no more than 500 words, identifying what interests you about this opportunity and why you feel you are suited to the role.

Please send by email to [email protected] (max file size of 5MB) with heading Arts and Engagement Officer

Categories
Musings News Project Updates

Introducing – High Street Multiverse

By Martin O’Neill

It’s likely that the Marvel fans among you might already be well acquainted with the ‘multiverse’ theory, for Marvel, an all-too-convenient premise to string-out an empire of franchises and merchandise to rival Dolly Parton’s wig collection.

But for those who think Iron Man’s a cut-price Forman grill, let’s steal from the internet to better explain it…

The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes.[a] Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. The different universes within the multiverse are called “parallel universes”, “other universes”, “alternate universes”, or “many worlds”.

Thanks Wikipedia!

Imagine it. An infinite web of universes born from even the smallest encounters, where realities blur and bend from even the smallest decisions.

Where whole worlds of stories and sorrows, memories and hopes as vivid and colourful as your own exist within each passer-by.

Supported by DGU, the High Street Multiverse is a digital, public art project working with 5 emerging writers from the region, this unique initiative supported writers to craft five individual audio stories to be placed within the town centre of Dumfries, through a specially designed series of QR code sculptures, the artworks will immerse listeners into new imaginative worlds, traversing time and space.

Under the mentorship of writers Des Dillon, Karen Campbell and Karl Drinkwater, emerging writers Carolyn Hashimoto, Davey Payne, Cameron Philips, Kris Haddow and Jasmine McMillan, worked together in a 4 month period to craft 5 unique tales inspired by Dumfries High Street. These immersive and imaginative works were later recorded, mixed, mastered and designed by producer John Dinning to create immersive audio works, adding an exciting new layer to the tales.  

As part of the project’s conclusion an accompanying publication is set to launch on Friday March 11th at the Stove Café, alongside the artworks themselves. The evening will feature talks and readings alongside a preview of the works themselves. This exciting project culminates alongside a creative writing workshop with Multiverse writer Carolyn Hashimoto exploring the doors and portals of the town the next day.

We hope you can join us in celebrating a new imaginative addition to our town centre, where worlds hidden in the undergrowth of the streets or in the reflections of passing strangers will be heard for the very first time.

1000 years from now lies only 5 minutes from here…

High Street Multiverse Launch: Meet the Makers of the Multiverse

March 11 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
TO BOOK YOUR PLACE, CLICK HERE

High Street Multiverse Writing Workshop: Doors & Portals

March 12 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
TO BOOK YOUR PLACE, CLICK HERE
Skip to content