The Scottish Government

NAME OF PATHFINDER PROJECT Cultural Pathfinder project: stART 2007.

Brief description

The stART festival has become one of the largest community driven, participatory Arts Festivals in Scotland . It emerged as a result of local people, Cultural Co-ordinators and Community Capacity workers coming together to work in partnership to tackle the issue of provision of cultural activity in the Strathmore area.

The project places the notion of " cultural entitlement" very firmly in the hands of the communities it strives to enhance - consequently, communities and individuals have become empowered to shape and develop their own notion of cultural entitlement, which in turn is supported through the community planning process and not prescribed by it.

Overall aim

To develop a community capacity/development model to renew a sense of pride and interest in the local area through the delivery of high quality, community driven, arts development opportunities within the Strathmore area of Perthshire, across all age groups, using a definition of culture which is not restricted to arts provision alone.

Specific aims (list 4-6)

• To enable communities to define and deliver their own cultural entitlements.
• To increase Community Capacity by offering opportunities for individuals and groups within the community to develop and share skills.
• To offer access to high quality arts tuition, through (what has become) one of the largest participatory arts festivals in Scotland.
• To support existing local groups engaged in cultural activities, to help them become more sustainable and self sufficient.
• To encourage communities to invest time and effort in their environment through facilitating projects that bring about physical and artistic changes thus encouraging a greater sense of "ownership" within the community
• To develop interface between communities' cultural entitlements and the Community Planning process
• To offer communities within the Strathmore area the opportunity to celebrate their community identity and spirit.

Resources (inputs)

Funding.

Scottish Executive Pathfinder

Awards for All

Perth and Kinross Council

Scottish Arts Council

Total Funding:

In Kind Support.

Perth and Kinross Core Staff - £12,000.00

Community Capacity Worker - £8,000.00

Arts Development Team - £5,000.00

Adult Learning Worker - £8,000.00

Active Schools Coordinator - £3,000.00

Youth Work Team - £3,000.00

Arts development

Service budget - £1,400.00

Total in-kind support: £40,400.00

Activities/services (outputs)

• Through the use of the National Standards for Community Engagement, develop meaningful relationships with local groups and individuals in order to review the cultural pathfinder proposal.
• Create LEAP planning document for the project.
• Using previously developed processes, aid the stART committee in its endeavours to substantiate and develop local support and networks.
• Publicise the Festival events .
• Publicise the availability of "stART up" funds.
• Help the committee to design and produce a brochure of events for festival.
• Employ Web designer to create a festival web-site.
• Employ Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant.
• Employ Festival Co-ordinator.
• Devise Evaluation model in partnership with other cultural pathfinders (Fife/Dundee).
• Disseminate funding to local groups to host participatory events from arts providers of excellence.
• Locate and book Artists/facilitators to run workshops during festival.
• Take bookings from individuals wishing to take part in festival.
• Insure health and safety standards in place.
• Insure event.
• Work with local Schools to publicise the event and enable all age groups to engage fully in available activities.
• Work with local media to promote event.
• Organize the end of festival parade (fire sculpture, pipe band etc.)
• Make resources available for small, inspired groups to further explore the interests or activities, which took place during the festival (March 07) for potential further development.
• Work with the community to plan an exhibition of work produced during the festival, to showcase cultural entitlement opportunities within the local area.
• Organise dissemination event.

Indicators for key performance aspects.

Activity (output) Indicators.

• Will develop a system for evaluation with Fife/Dundee Councils.
• Will produce statistics from evaluation forms completed by individuals who took part in festival workshops.
• Will track people's ongoing participation in cultural events to monitor impact of festival.
• Will monitor expressions of interest in new/different cultural activities.
• Will monitor unpredicted impact of increased cultural activity in the area where it become apparent and be directly linked back to the stART festival.

Participation (output) Indicators.

• Participants of Festival - will achieve a 60% return rate on workshop evaluation forms.
• Will fill 70% of the 2000 available workshop places.
• Will interview 20% of those people who took part in the festival.
• Participants cover a wide range of ages and include families and individuals.

Satisfaction (outcome) Indicators.

• Participants were pleased with the festival workshops in which they took part, and the knowledge they gained.
• The stART committee recorded high levels of satisfaction with the way the festival was organized and executed, and the feedback from the community.
• Communities will feel empowered regarding planning, running and participating in events
• Funders se that the objectives of the project proposals are fulfilled and that the money contributed towards the festival was used in the correct way, and to its maximum possible value.

Impact (outcome) indicator.

• Increased contact between community groups and community learning and development staff and agencies.
• Host groups report increase in participant numbers.
• Increase in the quality of cultural activities.
• Communities develop a much broader understanding of the arts and cultural activities/entitlements and how they might become involved in those activities.
• cultural entitlements will be supported through the community planning process and not prescribed by it.

Value for Money (output and outcome)

Output:

• Cost of the workshop tutors, and the cost of materials.
• Cost of venues.
• Cost of publicity material.
• Cost of extra staff employed for festival.

Outcomes:

• Renewed sense of pride and interest in local area will reduce incidents of vandalism.
• Increased demand for workshops will create a greater demand for use of local halls, helping local venues to sustain themselves.
• Through the support of the cultural pathfinder project, existing groups will become more sustainable and self-sufficient.
• Many of the workshops will produce physical structures that will be of benefit to local area. (stone carving workshop will provide stones for park wall, living willow sculpture will create an outdoor class room for a local primary school etc)
• In the long term, greater access to cultural activities will increase the skills base of local people thus improving the local economy, providing a skilled workforce from within the community rather than employing skilled labor from outside the area. It is also possible that tourism to the area will increase thus bringing greater capital into the area from outside.

Data collected:

Baseline Data.

Because the festival has been ongoing since 2004, it is very difficult to gather baseline data. However it is planned that "retrospective" baseline data will be gathered using information provided by the local schools, the Cultural Co-ordinators, Perth and Kinross Council, the stART committee, local groups and committees and the local police force.

Interim Data.

Data extracted from the evaluation forms completed by those who attended festival workshops will be collated and compiled, and will mirror the themes of the baseline data collected. Structured personal interviews will provide additional data for analysis.

Final Report Stage.

The final report will highlight how well the Cultural Pathfinder Project in Perth and Kinross mirrors the desires of the Scottish Executive with respect to cultural entitlements in Scotland. It will compare the baseline data with the most recent stART festival data, and generate statistical evidence to prove the success or lack of success of the project as a whole.

It will highlight the weakest areas of the project as well as the strongest, and make suggestions as to how those areas might be improved upon for the next festival, thus generating the basis for a new LEAP document.

Outcomes

Progress information (how is the project developing/did it develop, compared with the original plan?

Main learning points