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[ HI~ARTS ANNUAL REPORT 2001-2 ] 1

[ Promoting the Arts in the

Highlands & Islands of Scotland ]


This has been a particularly exciting time for HI~Arts as we have undergone a period of extraordinary expansion. We have moved from small beginnings a decade ago to our present central strategic position in cultural development in the Highlands & Islands.

The range of projects we are involved in is staggering and is outlined in the report. At the heart of the company is the commitment, experience and professionalism of the staff, working with our partners in the arts community.

We look forward to the coming year with great confidence and enthusiasm.

John Considine Rector, Inverness Royal Academy

C HAIRMAN’S REMARKS

John Considine, HI~Arts Chairman


Coming of Age

It can be difficult to get a handle on exactly what HI~Arts is. For many people, we run a cinema, for others we promote rock gigs, and for a lot of people in the rest of the UK, Europe and the USA we’re the best way to find out what’s happening in the arts in the Highlands and Islands. In truth, HI~Arts is a unique organisation, being the product of a long-term partnership between Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the Scottish Arts Council. Our relationship with these two significant agencies goes far beyond the annual funding without which the company could not function. We are fortunate in being able to work with officers and teams throughout both HIE and SAC, for the greater benefit of the arts in the Highlands and Islands. If those relationships are one of our great strengths, the other two are our flexibility, and our staff team. The flexibility arises directly from our position as an independent not-for-profit company, with charitable status. Working closely with our Board of voluntary Directors, we are able to respond promptly to new demands and opportunities. The effectiveness of that response is largely due to the involvement of a highly skilled team, many of whom have worked with the company over a large number of years, accumulating considerable knowledge and experience of our client groups.

Although we have been in existence since 1991, this is the first public Annual Report to be produced by Highlands and Islands Arts Ltd (HI~Arts for short), and it marks an important stage in the company’s development. Since January 2002, we have been based in our first independent office, establishing a separate presence from HIE, the agency which originally established the company, and which continues to contract us on an annual basis. That move was, however, only the most visible change in a year that saw many significant developments, not all of them anticipated! For the first time, HI~Arts employed more than ten core full-time staff, and saw its annual turnover exceed three-quarters of a million pounds. And the involvement in the Inverness Highland Bid to be European Capital of Culture 2008 brought a new range of challenges and partnerships.

HI~Arts has the privilege of managing quite substantial sums of funding from both public and private sources, and it is only right, therefore, that we provide as open access as possible to the audited accounting of how that funding is used. This first report, however, is also an opportunity to offer an overview of the company’s activities, and to map the many partnerships without which those activities would be impossible.

Robert Livingston

Director, HI~Arts

Robert Livingston, HI~Arts Director

F ROM THE HI~ARTS DIRECTOR


Staff

Robert Livingston (appointed 1994): Director—overall line management of the staff team, devising projects and directing fund-raising, and working with the HI~Arts Board and regional and national cultural agencies.

Caroline Macleod (appointed 1992): Business Manager—management of all aspects of HI~Arts’ funding and finances, in association with the company’s accountants, Ritsons; planning financial strategies, and developing and monitoring new projects.

Fiona Fisher (appointed 1995): Administrator—manages the HI~Arts IT systems and website; provides administrative support to HI~Arts’ partner organisations: Arts and Business Scotland (Highlands & Islands office) and Community Action Network.

Maggie Dunlop (appointed 1990): Coordinator, Community Projects—administrates the HIE Touring Grants scheme, and is currently supervising the ArtsPlay childcare and art project, and the SAC/Highland Council Social Inclusion Partnership music project.

Laura Martin (appointed 2002): Secretary—runs the office, and supports the Business and Cinema Managers.

Graham Campbell (first worked with HI~Arts as a student in 1995): Screen Machine Cinema Manager (since 2000)—line manages the two cinema Driver/Operators and programmes and promotes the mobile cinema service.

Iain MacColl (appointed 1998) and Bill Stewart (appointed 2000): Screen Machine Driver/Operators—acting as drivers, box office staff and projectionists, on rotation, for the mobile cinema.

Marcus Wilson (first appointed 2000): Coordinator, Audience Development—following a two year contract to deliver the Visual Arts Marketing Project, Marcus is now embarking on a three-year programme of Audience Development.

Lorna Shanks (appointed 2001): Coordinator, Theatre Network—a two-year contract to develop the sustainability of professional theatre companies in the Highlands and Islands.

John Saich (appointed 2002): Coordinator, Artform Development—mainstreaming the MIDAS music industry development programme; managing a two-year project to present the Musicians’ Union Workshop Band throughout Scottish schools; planning a writing development programme. This post has taken over the role previously held by Iain Hamilton to November 2001.

Kay Smith (appointed 2002): Regional Coordinator, ArtsPlay—managing a two-year programme to bring together the arts and childcare sectors throughout the Highlands and Islands.

w HO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO


Shaun Arnold (contracted since 2001): Representative for the Highlands and Islands Labels Forum (HAIL)—a roving commission to develop links for the Forum members, nationally and internationally.

Lewis Gale (appointed as student worker, 2002): Working part-time, maintaining and updating the MIDAS database, and acting as HI~Arts’ Glasgow representative.

Roz Bell (appointed 2001): Administrator, Inverness Highland 2008 Bid—core team member for the Bid to make Inverness Highland the European Capital of Culture in 2008.

Sofie Jonsson and Corinna Krause (contracted 2001): part-time local Coordinators for the SIP music project.

Throughout 2001/2 HI~Arts also employed an extensive network of local ushers to work with the Screen Machine at its many venues.

Board

John Considine (Chair), Rector, Inverness Royal Academy

Dr Stuart Black, Head of Strengthening Communities, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (appointed Chief Executive Officer of Inverness and Nairn Enterprise in October 2002)

Liza Mulholland, media producer and Director of Metagama Productions

Arthur Cormack, musician, and Director of Feisean nan Gaidheal (stood down October 2002)

Duncan MacRae, retired Highland editor of the Press and Journal

Hazel Ferguson, Highland Psychiatric Research Foundation (joined July 2002)

2001/2 also saw the resignation, with his retiral from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, of Roy Pedersen, founding Director of HI~Arts, and Chair from 1990 to 2001. His contribution to the growth and development of the company has been immense.

Company Secretary: Gordon Stuart, Ritsons How We Work

Since 1996 HI~Arts has produced a series of three-yearly Business Plans, the latest of which covers the period April 2002 to March 2005. The Plan lays out how HI~Arts will operate as a company—it doesn’t define in advance the programme of activities which the company will undertake on behalf of HIE, as these are defined in detail through the annual contract.


HI~Arts will work in partnership to grow a vital and sustainable cultural environment for all people in the Highlands and Islands.

[ Aims ]

o To develop innovative solutions to the constraints posed to arts and cultural development by geographic and social exclusion

o To support the continuing evolution of a sustainable artistic community in the Highlands and Islands

o To promote effective integration, networking and collaboration—both geographically, and throughout artform and other related sectors

o To assist artists and arts organisations to achieve excellence in all aspects of their work and practice

o To support the appropriate development of new venues, and promote methods of audience development for new and existing venues

o To enable Highlands and Islands arts organisations and artists to achieve recognition as being capable of comparison with the best, nationally and internationally

o To provide accurate, timely and relevant information and advice to the communities of the Highlands and Islands

[ Operating Principles ]

o To operate rigorous and transparent financial and budgetary procedures

o To nurture and develop all staff as essential members of an integrated team

o To work at all times through partnership and collaboration, internationally, nationally, regionally and locally

o To apply high standards of professional practice to all aspects of the company’s work

o To ensure consistent and thorough monitoring and evaluation of all projects and activities

M ISSION STATEMENT


Teaghlach

As an organisation, HI~Arts comprises a large number of individuals whose involvement with the company varies enormously in nature: voluntary Board members, permanent staff, fulltime staff on fixed term contracts, researchers and consultants on short-term contracts, many part-time staff (cinema ushers, arts workers, etc) and also staff from other organisations who are based in the HI~Arts office.

HI~Arts views all those involved in the organisation as members of an extended family, and will encourage all members of that ‘family’ (‘teaghlach’ in Gaelic) in their dealings with each other to be at all times versatile, professional, supportive, progressive and trustworthy.

HI~Arts works with individuals and communities of all kinds and backgrounds across the Highlands and Islands and beyond. The nature of the company’s relationships is vital to the success of all its activities: in all its interactions, HI~Arts ‘family’ members will seek to be open, empathetic, responsive, inspirational and friendly.

HI~Arts’ prime role is developmental: it will be judged by the outcome of its projects, and the manner in which those projects are delivered. In developing and undertaking any activity, members of the HI~Arts’ family will seek to be innovative, pro-active, creative, strategic and credible.

C ORE VALUES


HI~Arts is reliant on two key sources of funding:

o The annual contract fee from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (supplemented since January 2002 by the costs of running the independent office)

o Revenue support as a Core Funded Organisation of the Scottish Arts Council.

Although these two contributions are crucial in meeting the core staff and office costs of the company, in 2001/2 they together accounted for only 40 % of those core costs, and indeed for only 10% of the company’s overall annual turnover.

The balance of core costs is met from a variety of sources which includes:

o Direct grant aid, e.g. from SAC project funds, and from the Highland Council

o Sponsorship, in 2001/2 from The Macallan

o Administrative fees drawn from major projects such as MIDAS, and the Theatre Network

o Bank interest

In other words, HI~Arts needs to devise a rolling programme of fixed term projects in order to generate sufficient income to ensure a properly funded core to the company.

H OW WE ARE FUNDED


On behalf of HIE, HI~Arts manages a range of grant aid for projects which can be defined as ‘pan-Highlands and Islands’, that is, they involve a large number of Local Enterprise Company areas, and would otherwise involve cumbersome and impractical individual funding applications to the LECs concerned. Two funding schemes in particular, the Artists’ Awards scheme and the Highlands and Islands Producers Fund, match HIE funding 50/50 with Scottish Arts Council funding. For the purpose of this report, the full contribution from both organisations is shown where relevant.

Grants offered between 1 April 2001 and 31 March 2002

.General Projects. £.

Feisean nan Gaidheal 15,000

FnG Training (from HIE’s Developing Skills Group) 10,000

Eden Court: Activators 7,500

Highland Festival 35,000

Arts and Business Scotland 5,000

Airneis Tuath: touring ‘birch’ exhibition 360

Grey Coast: Playharvest project 500

Lizzie MacDougall: to attend ‘On the edge’ on behalf of PAN 125

Highland Chamber Orchestra 800

Pocketbooks: Highland-linked publications 2,500

Highland Council: Gaelic song fellowship 1,000

Plan B: Double Helix 2,217

Highland Festival: Highland Wedding production 1,863

Grey Coast: Winter Yarns, and Belfast research 800

Key Housing: work with Projectability 1,263

Tosg: youth tour 1,500

Hebridean Music Workshops: Five islands residency project 750

Northwords: relaunch of magazine 2,500

NHS Highland: performance demonstration at conference 750

National Youth Orchestra of Scotland: Jazz workshops 1,500

Drake Music Scotland: demonstration showcases 800

W HAT WE FUNDED


Highlands and Islands Producers’ Fund (joint funded with SAC)

Grey Coast 5.000

ASE 3,600

Highland Festival 15,000

The Collectors 5,000

Arts in Motion 10,000

Artists’ Awards scheme (joint funded with SAC)

Lesley Burr 300

Simon Fildes 300

Joanne Kaar 464

Carol Dunbar 485

Clare Galloway 200

Calum Hall, Julie Thomson, Kate Carruthers 300

Nigel Mullan 300

Elaine Smith 200

Kirsty Cohen 250

Wendy Sutherland 500

Mary Rosengren 250

HIE Touring Fund Grants (in the case of this scheme, HIE holds the funds, and HI~Arts makes recommendations on awards)

Theatrecollective@highland: Accidental Death of an Accordionist 3,500

Macmeanmna: Mary Anne Kennedy and Donnie Murdo Macleod 1,855

Ballet West: Sleeping Beauty 3,591

Blazin in Beauly 2,430

Lush Rollers 2,500

Plan B: Double Helix 2,677

Anne Martin and Ingrid Henderson 2,500


[ Website ]

www.hi-arts.co.uk is the key site for information on any aspect of the arts in the Highlands and Islands, and indeed its ‘what’s on’ section includes details of every kind of public event. During 2001/2 the whole site was reconstructed, and integrated as part of the overall family of HIE websites. This has greatly increased the flexibility and range of services which the site can offer, and as a result it is now attracting, on average, 350 separate visitors a day, half of those from North America.

[ Screen Machine ]

In 2001/2 the Screen Machine mobile cinema presented 395 screenings of 19 different feature films in 32 communities across the Highlands and Islands, from Arran in the south to Westray in the North, to a total audience of 16,530.

Did you know?

You can download the following as pdf files from the HI~Arts site:

• The full report on the Economic Importance of the Arts in the Highlands and Islands

• The full proceedings of the September 2001 conference, Inheritance and Creativity

• The HI~Arts Visual Arts Guide to the Highlands and Islands, area by area

Did you know?

In July and August 2001 the Services Sound and Vision Corporation hired the Screen Machine for the second year running, complete with

driver/operators, to present a programme of screenings to British services personnel stationed in Bosnia. Eight different films were shown over a four week period to an estimated total audience of over 6,000.

In September the Machine then undertook a second tour to the outer isles of Orkney, visiting four separate islands over two weeks,

with funding from Orkney Islands Council.

W HAT WE DID IN 2001-2


[ Venue Development ]

It is one of the priorities of our contract with HIE to assist the ten Local Enterprise Companies of the HIE Network in the development of venues for the arts in their areas. In 2001/2 key developments have included:

o Supporting a successful application to the SAC National Lottery Fund to equip three new or rebuilt secondary schools in the Highland Council area, on the model of the Macphail Centre in the new Ullapool High School

o Through the Visual Arts Marketing Project, assisted planned developments and rebuilds at art.tm in Inverness, An Lanntair in Stornoway, and the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney

o Undertook a Board planning session for the proposed Moray Art Centre

o Worked with Highland Council officers to oversee a study into venue development in Fort William

[ Visual Arts Marketing ]

This project, running from July 2000 to July 2002, placed an arts marketing specialist, Marcus Wilson, in each of the publicly-funded visual arts galleries and centres in the Highlands and Islands, for a residency of up to two months. During this time, Marcus prepared a dedicated marketing plan for each of the centres where he was based, as well as developing initiatives to promote the visual arts of the area as a whole. In 2001/2 he compiled reports for:

o An Tobar, Tobermory, Mull

o An Tuireann, Portree, Skye

o Taigh Chearsabhagh, Lochmaddy, North Uist

o An Lanntair, Stornoway, Lewis

Did you know?

In the two years between producing the first edition of the Highlands and Islands Visual Arts Guide in 1999, and the

second edition in 2001, the number of galleries listed rose from 92 to 126, or an increase of 36%.

Did you know?

HI~Arts organises an annual Visual Arts Forum, the last of which was held in Dingwall in January, and was attended by more than 60 artists, gallery owners and managers, and visual arts

workers from throughout the Highlands and Islands.

Marcus Wilson, HI~Arts’ Visual Arts Marketing Coordinator


[ Theatre Network ]

For several years HI~Arts has been working with a range of professional theatre companies, based from Argyll to Shetland, and all at different stages of development. The setting up of the Highlands and Islands Producers Fund in 1997 ensured that there would be a measure of dedicated funding for these companies annually, jointly from HIE and SAC. Such funding, however, only contributes towards the costs of mounting specific touring productions, and it cannot ensure the longer term sustainability of individual companies. To assist with this larger aim, therefore, HIE and SAC funded a two-year post, from November 2001, to work on behalf of the Network of theatre companies.

[ MIDAS ]

In 1996 HI~Arts embarked on a long-term programme of development for the music industry in the Highlands and Islands, with an audit of active musicians and their needs. That led to the three year MIDAS programme which, funded by HIE and SAC National Lottery, ran from 1998-2001. As of April 2001, the core purposes of MIDAS—to provide information and advice to the music industry—have been ‘mainstreamed’ within HI~Arts itself. But MIDAS has also spawned a number of related projects, including: a Young Promoters’ scheme to enable more young people to promote performances by more young bands; a Social Inclusion Partnership project to involve more young people in SIP areas in music, and HAIL, the Highlands and Islands forum of record Labels.

Did you know?

Fourteen separate and independent theatre companies are based in the Highlands and Islands, covering everything from classical ballet to

live role play, from Gaelic-language theatre to a mix of live actors and computer animation. In 2001 the Easter Ross-based company Arts in

Motion won a Herald ‘Angel’ for their production of The Comic at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Did you know?

HAIL has 28 separate record labels in membership, with bases ranging from Bute to Shetland. Since July 2001 HAIL has contracted Shaun Arnold to develop

opportunities for members, and these have included a HAIL presence at such international trade fairs as A2A in Amsterdam, MIDEM in Cannes, and South by South-west in Austin, Texas. In November 2001, in Aberdeen, the launch event was held for GoNorth, a showcase festival jointly organised by HI~Arts,

HAIL, the Aberdeen Foyer, and the Performing Rights Society. The main festival was held in May 2002.


[ Conferences and Reports ]

HIE had long intended that 2001 should be the time to take stock of a decade of arts development, since the Hi-Light Festival of the Arts in 1990/91, the associated report and conference, and the founding of HI~Arts. In partnership with HI~Arts, therefore, HIE commissioned Steve Westbrook to produce a major report on the Economic Importance of the Arts in the Highlands and Islands (now available on the HI~Arts website).

It was planned to present the findings of this report, as in 1991, at a major conference in Eden Court, but the emergence of the plans to bid to be Capital of Culture offered the opportunity to expand the scope of the conference’s programme.

In the end, Inheritance and Creativity was jointly organised by HI~Arts and the Highland Council, and a full account of the event is also available on our website.

Did you know?

Each year, HI~Arts plans to hold a regional arts conference in a different Local Enterprise Company area. The first such event was held in Oban in October 2001, organised jointly with the Argyll and Bute Arts Action Group. There were over 60 delegates, the Chair for

the event was James Boyle, Chair of the SAC, and three MSPs and councillors from three different Local Authorities took part in panel sessions.

Bryan Beattie, Bid Coordinator of InvernessHighland2008,speaking at the Inheritance and Creativity Conference.


There are no aspects of HI~Arts’ work which could be achieved in isolation. Working in partnership is therefore a fundamental principle of the company. This section aims to give a flavour of the different ways in which some of these partnerships work.

[ Highland Arts Partnership ]

In 2001 four national and regional agencies: the Highland Council, HIE, SAC and the Highlands of Scotland Tourist Board came together as the Highland Arts Partnership to aim to ensure a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting the arts in the Highland area. HI~Arts acts as secretariat to the Partnership, arranging regular meetings, and carrying out any appropriate courses of action which are decided upon at Partnership meetings.

[ Arts & Business Scotland ]

Arts & Business is a UK-wide organisation which exists to help strengthen communities by developing creative partnerships between business and the arts. HI~Arts has developed a close working relationship with the A&B Scotland office over several years, resulting in the only

regional officer outside Edinburgh being based with, and working alongside, HI~Arts. This has resulted in a pilot scheme to develop a ‘Skills Bank’ to recruit specialists from businesses, the setting up of a Highlands and Islands Fundraising Forum, a range of training courses and one-to-one surgeries, and Board Development programmes for arts and heritage organisations.

[ Working with LECs ]

When the present Director was originally appointed to HI~Arts for a two-year contract in 1994, the chief aim of the post was to work with the ten Local Enterprise Companies in the HIE Network. Eight years on, this remains a fundamental role for the enlarged company. As just one example, in 2001/2 HI~Arts worked closely with officers in Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise to advise on: the future of the Northlands Festival; the progress of Grey Coast Theatre Company through the SAC Advancement Programme; Board and staff development at Timespan Heritage Centre, and plans for jointly funded new Arts Officers for both Caithness and Sutherland.

P ARTNERSHIPS


[ Childcare Consortium ]

In 1998 HI~Arts undertook a one year pilot project linking artists of all disciplines with the voluntary childcare sector. This proved very successful, and so we sought to develop a larger and more integrated programme which would deliver training and awareness-raising programmes throughout the whole of the Highlands and Islands. To this end, HI~Arts drew together a consortium which included relevant staff from HIE; all the Local Childcare Partnerships in the area; Children in Scotland, and a range of umbrella childcare organisations, such Highland Pre-school Services, the Scottish Childminders Association, the Gaelic Playgroups Association, etc. HI~Arts then set out on behalf of this consortium to raise the necessary funding for what was termed Stimulating Creativity II, and funding to meet the projected total cost of £330,000 had been raised by the end of 2001.

[ Capital of Culture 2008 Bid ]

The first impetus to develop an ‘Inverness Highland’ Bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2008 came from the Highland Council’s then Director of Cultural and Leisure Services. It quickly became obvious, however, that a successful Bid would have to be

based on a thoroughly coordinated partnership. HI~Arts was a convenient mechanism for kick-starting the process of developing the Bid, by employing a post which developed into the Administrator for an independent 2008 team, and by receiving and managing all the funds for the Bid (in excess of £350,000) received from no less than seven separate public agencies.

Microsoft Word - HI.doc

Documents

islands arts

arts annual report

arts chairman hi

arts community

scottish arts council

public annual report

annual funding

annual turnover