DASH Annual report 1 for 2004/2005

Disability Arts in Shropshire Annual Report 2004 - 2005

and The Trusthouse Charitable Foundation Ludlow Town Council

DIRECTORS / TRUSTEES OF DASh Ruth Kaye Sue Bott Ian Wainwright Sylvia Earthy Jayni Anderton Joy Tudor Rachel Gibb

Chair Secretary Treasurer Vice Chair

Mike Layward

Company Secretary

STAFF Mike Layward Paula Dower Tanya Raabe

Artistic Director General Manager Visual Arts Manager

Chair Persons Report It has been a full fat year for DASh. The Away Day, in Craven Arms, included strong heart felt discussion from funding to a healthy future, taking seriously the decision of more regular Committee meeting.

Borderline Film Festival in March roused lots of interest.

Our Carnival gets bigger and better every year and ‘In Yer Face’ was in Shrewsbury on the 18th June.

Artistic Directors Report Looking back over the past year, I’m aware how much DASh has changed and how different the Organisation feels from a year ago.

The main change is our Staff, we now have three staff, this has not only stabilised DASh, but created an expansion and a diversification of our work. This an exciting time for DASh, with unlimited possibilities

We not only have an efficient Office, thanks to Paula, but are developing individual Artists development, thanks to Tanya and much, much, more. All this work is detailed below.

Our work in 04-05 breaks down into 4 areas: 

Visual and Digital arts

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Performing arts and Film

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Accessible Transport to the Arts

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Information and Advice

Visual and Digital Arts Artist Development Team – ADTeam The ADTeam is a professional development and mentoring project for four Disabled Visual Arts. The project lasts for nine months and leads to a group show of the Artists work.

The project consists of:  Individual portfolio development  Individual skills develop  Group working  Career development and opportunities The first ADTeam has already shown the success of individual support to Artists and we already have a waiting list for the second course, which will be run in 2006 Digital Now II Digital Now II is a digital arts project developed from Digital Now I. The project focuses primarily on artistic expression and secondly on digital technical ability.

Digital Now II creates a network of Disabled Artists in Shropshire and links up with 10 U.K. Disabled Artists and 5 International Disabled Artists to provide a platform for artistic dialogue.

Digital Now II has two sections these are Moving Image: Making short experimental films Still Image: using digital technologies to manipulate still imagery The theme of ‘Difference’ is being interpreted with vision and passion.

Performing Arts and Film Carnival The third inclusive Ludlow Carnival was a great success, with 200 people taking part (up from 92 in 2003) and 75 of these were Disabled people (up from 25 in 2003), with people coming from all over Shropshire and beyond.

The partnership with the Town Carnival has worked. It has put our part of the Carnival in a clear context. Everyone in Ludlow knows that Whit Monday is Carnival day. Feedback from Carnival 04 was that it was the best Carnival people remember in Ludlow.

The unique partnership of a traditional Carnival, an inclusive carnival and an Arts centre working together, have increased funding opportunities, though we still struggle to find the full budget.

Borderlines Film Festival In March we ran ‘Close up and Personal’ a day of Disability related films as a partnership with the Borderlines Film Festival. Eighty people attended the event.

We showed short films by two regional Disabled Film MakersMat Beddell and Alan Wijgerden and in the afternoon we showed ‘Afterlife’, which stars a Learning Disabled Actress.

Accessible Transport for the Arts

We have continued our two transport schemes, Bridgnorth Arts for All (BAA) and North Shropshire Arts for All (NOSHAA). The two schemes were extended to 7 shows for BAA and 6 shows for NOSHAA. This showed in the numbers of bookers: BAA: 78 bookers

NOSHAA: 64 bookers

Information and Advice This area had dramatically changed with Paula our General Manager taking the role of Information Officer for ½ day a week.

The website has been redesigned to be more accessible. The website was submitted to www.net-guide.co.uk , the top search engine for accessible websites, and has achieved an ‘excellent rating’.

The DASh newsletter is no longer posted, but can be downloaded in pdf format from the website. This makes it accessible to people who can use screenreaders.

Marketing Upcoming projects and events are being promoted through the new DASh website, email, post and the EtCetera newsletter.

DASh’s projects have been covered in local newspapers and on BBC Radio Shropshire.

The design of promotional material is now being created ‘inhouse’, Tanya and Paula work together to produce the designs.

Development Awayday

The DASh Board Awayday (in fact overnighter) happened in January 05 at Westhope College.

The main theme of the event was to look at DASh’s products and how to develop these.

The outcomes were:  Develop DASh Marketing plan  Develop DASh Graphic design business  Staff to keep Board more informed of day to day developments