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G i v i n g t h e C o m m u n i t y a Vo i c e
A TOWN IN TRANSITION STRATEGY AND PROPOSALS 2012-2015
DMG, Arts Centre, Vane Terrace, Darlington • 01325 488139 • dmg@medi aworkshop.org.uk • www. mediaworkshop.org.uk
P
A TOWN IN TRANSITION DMG STRATEGY AND PROPOSALS 2012-2015
Photography Production - Exhibition Opening
Darlington Media Group Mission Statement
“Darlington Media Group provides open and low cost access to visual and Film Production - Beauty and the Bike
media arts, skills and facilities to the communities of Darlington through teaching, exhibiting creative work and developing outreach projects. It does so by
galvanising
the
talents
and
enthusiasm of local arts practitioners�. Little Stories - Tower Road Big Lunch
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1. Summary Proposals for 2012 - 2015 - The Wider Context The cultural scene in Darlington is facing shock treatment. Following a drastic reduction in central government’s block grant, Darlington Borough Council is withdrawing much of its arts subsidy, and the Arts Centre’s future existence, as well as that of the town’s arts offer generally, hangs in the balance. Responding to such a potentially calamitous situation, the local authority called upon ourselves and other Third Sector cultural organisations to come together to develop a cultural policy for the town that could ride this passing storm, and emerge stronger and more coherent than before. Where previously the town’s arts offer was delivered piecemeal, and amidst a sense of competition for resources and financial support, we asked ourselves whether a new vision for the arts could be delivered in the spirit of cooperation and mutual support. Moreover, that vision would be developed with the wider aims of One Darlington, Perfectly Placed as a coherent strategic context. Work was immediately commissioned to establish the broad policy aims of a new cultural policy for the town that would help guide our collective work over the coming years. That policy was published in summer 2011 as the Vision for the Arts in Darlington. As an organisation founded on cooperative principles, Darlington Media Group (DMG) has warmly welcomed this new approach. Thus whatever the future for the existing Arts Centre, we are developing our plans for the coming years with a positive belief that we can make a valuable contribution to the arts in Darlington. This business plan therefore sets out our proposals for the next three years, a period of transition, as part of the cultural sector’s contribution to the town’s Sustainable Community Strategy. In this period, DMG will: •firm up its organisational structure through legal incorporation •consolidate its core participatory services of open access, education, exhibition and production •build a visual and media arts cluster with the Open Arts Studio and a number of individual artists •give strategic support to the town-wide cultural sector by developing the mobile app Around Town •DMG recognises that there are still key decisions to be faced in 2012, especially regarding our premises. But in many ways the proposal to close the Arts Centre offers as many opportunities as it does threats. These will be examined further in our SWOT analysis towards the end of this document.
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2. Background DMG has operated out of the Blanche Pease annexe at Darlington Arts centre for nearly 30 years. It was constituted as an Unincorporated Association in 1983, and is currently converting to a not-for-profit multi-stakeholder cooperative. A committee or board is elected annually by some 60 members to run the organisation. Membership consists of local media artists, local users of DMG’s facilities, and representatives of local organisations who also make use of the workshop. Coordination of our work and technical support for users is carried out by two freelance artists on specific time-limited programmes. They currently staff the workshop from Tuesday to Friday, and are supplemented by volunteers who staff the workshop on Saturdays. The £36,000 programme (2010/2011 figures) is funded by a mix of volunteer labour, project funding, earnings, subsidy from commercial work, and a community grant from the local authority which currently stands at just over £15,000. Historically, DMG has paid a peppercorn rent to the local authority for the use of the premises, heating, water and lighting. This currently stands at around £45 per month. In exchange for this level of subsidy, the town receives the following programme: •5 days a week of open access to a wide range of practitioner-supported arts activities, resulting in 26,848 1 annual visits •an education programme of workshops and courses in the visual and media arts •an ongoing programme of international and local photography exhibitions •a film production unit that enables community participation whilst working to broadcast standards. •support for local media artists in their production Iran: Sisters in Chanel and Chador’ by Newsha Tavakolian at DMG Gallery 2008
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based on figures for Jan to March 2011 of 6,712 recorded visits
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3. Two Case Studies How DMG’s work contributes to the town’s Sustainable Community Strategy is often complex, qualitative and difficult to quantify. Perhaps it is therefore best to take examples of particular projects. Produced in 2008 and 2009 over a period of 15 months in
creative processes by over 40 people. The film, book and exhibition have been shown around the world to audiences in excess of 100,000. Youtube alone has recorded over 80,000 viewings, and Resume of the project organisations continue to request permission to organise public Was schreckt Frauen und Mädchen in vielen Ländern Europas vom Fahrrad ab, während sie in Deutschland, Holland und Dänemark nicht davon lassen können? Dieses Buch handelt von jungen Frauen in Bremen und der englischen Stadt Darlington; Städte, die diese Gegensätze repräsentieren. Die Mädchen haben sich gegenseitig besucht und dabei herausgefunden, was zu tun ist, um das Fahrradfahren attraktiv zu machen. Die Lösung lautet: „It’s the Infrastructure, Stupid“. Doch hört ihnen jemand zu? Und wer ist der Täter?
screenings, from Perth, Australia to Vancouver, Canada. An
Beatrix Wupperman & Richard Grassick
resulted in direct participation in both the issues involved and the
Beauty and the bike
Beatrix Wupperman & Richard Grassick
ecological project, Beauty and the Bike also involved the setting up Why do British, and many other European, girls stop cycling when they become teenagers, whilst girls in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark loves their bicycles? This book documents the lives of young women in the German city of Bremen and the North-East English town of Darlington, two examples of this contrast. When the girls visit each other, they develop a clear understanding about what needs to be done to make cycling actually attractive: „It’s the Infrastructure, Stupid“. But who listens to them? And who is the culprit?
of a bike hire facility (darlovelo.org) which continues to function today from Blanche Pease.
Der Film ist als DVD erhältlich The film is available on DVD
documentary, a 72 page photographic book designed and printed to extremely high standards, a 32 image exhibition, and an ongoing bike pool was £54,000. This was funded by a range of grants and awards (£35,000), some local, some regional, some national and
Beauty and the bike
The total cost of producing the 55 minute broadcast-standard
ISBN 978-0-9564327-0-4 £14,00/ €15,00
some international, DMG’s own earnings and member
from Beauty and the Bike by Sabine Bungert at DMG Gallery 2009
Darlington and in the German city of Bremen, Beauty and the Bike
contributions (£2,000), DMG members working voluntarily (£10,000), partnership working (£1,000) and DVD/book sales (£7,000). Anyone aware of documentary production costs will realise that such a budget is a reasonable figure for a 55 minute film alone. The fact that the process drew together so many local people, including local practitioners (a local composer who works from the Arts Centre composed the original score, and seven musicians worked with him on the recordings), shows how a creative process can work when rooted in the local arts scene. It is the sense of “ownership” engendered by its practitioner and user led structure that delivers significant contributions in volunteer time by skilled artists and technicians. The exhibition programme is another good example, run on an annual cash budget of a few hundred pounds, but involving an estimated £7,680 worth of creative and technical contributed labour. A breakdown of the work involved in the running of an exhibition programme, from curation to printing to mount-cutting to framing, hanging, opening, exhibiting and dismounting, is listed in Appendix 1. The exhibition programme has varied according to budget. Successful project financing in 2008 and 2009, for example, delivered high-prestige exhibitions that attracted significant media attention and high footfall. But the core of the work is always carried out by local photographers. And with a wide range of international connections, we are also able to source original photographic works directly from photographers.
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4. DMG Strategic Aims and Outcomes Our strategic starting point is the Vision for the Arts in Darlington, which makes clear the cultural sector’s contribution to the seven Sustainable Community outcomes: (1)The arts bring people together in shared enjoyment and celebration (2)They are capable of giving voice and identity to everyone in the community, including the vulnerable and the disadvantaged (3)The arts provide directly jobs, income and wealth generation (4)And they help to build a quality of life that attracts investment and jobs in the wider local economy (5)A vibrant local arts scene encourages talented and enterprising local young people to stay on after education and contribute to the community (6)The arts develop the thinking, imagination and understanding in young people’s education that spins off into other areas, like science and business… (7)…and they can stimulate the creativity, daring and enterprise that has helped to make Darlington a world leader in engineering and design technologies (8)The arts contribute to social cohesion, mental health, happiness and well-being (9)The arts make our everyday experiences special and help us to see and understand the world and ourselves in new ways (10)The arts help us to reach our full potential as creative human beings These contributions to the town’s prosperity, health, education and cohesion repeatedly manifest themselves in the day to day work of DMG. Our exhibition programme brings together a wide range of local people in celebration of visual art, whilst giving opportunities to local people to use it as a means of expression, whatever their background. Our productions generate employment for the wider local cultural sector (our film Beauty and the Bike employed 8 local musicians), and draw attention to the town as a place where “art happens” (that same film has had over 100,000 YouTube views). Our work with the Open Arts Studio has helped to create a safe creative environment for local people with mental health issues, whilst our open courses and workshops have led to local people producing their first ever film or exhibition. These qualitative aspects of our work contribute to all seven Sustainable Community Strategy outcomes as follows: • People in Darlington are healthy and supported: (1), (8), (9), (10) •People in Darlington are educated and skilled: (5), (6), (7), (10) •People in Darlington are financially secure: (3), (4), (5), (6), (7) •Individuals are not disadvantaged by their family circumstances at birth or where they reside; people live in cohesive and resilient communities: (1), (2), (5), (8) •People in Darlington live in sustainable neighbourhoods: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (8) •Our communities are safe and free from crime: (1), (8) •Darlington is an ambitious and entrepreneurial place in which businesses thrive and create wealth: (3), (4), (5), (6), (7). But DMG’s work has also proved very good value for money. As noted above, we recorded 6,712 visits to our workshop in the first three months of 2011, a remarkable figure given the location of the workshop to the rear of Darlington Arts Centre, and our relative lack of a marketing budget in comparison to the local authority’s offer at the front of the building. (This issue will be addressed during the next three years, in close collaboration with the local authority, through our Around Town project, explained below). It should also be recognised that our principle interaction with the wider public is participative - only our exhibition programme can be said to be attracting purely spectators.
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5. Programme of Work 2012-2015 i) Organisational Structure, Governance, Membership After 27 years as an unincorporated association , DMG’s Executive Committee proposed to the 2010 Annual General Meeting, held on 26 November 2010, a new legal form for the Group. Based on the Coop UK model of a multistakeholder cooperative, as well as establishing DMG as a legal entity it better serves our developing operational structure. Increasingly, professional artists are working on a range of freelance contracts. As massive technological changes have transformed the media, the range of professional skills required to service our programme of work has grown and diversified. At DMG these skills are now provided by a mix of volunteer and paid artists. To bring our model of community management up to date, we required a governance structure that took these changes into account. The multistakeholder coop does just this. Users, freelance artists and community organisations all have an equal say in the election of a Board, which oversees the programme of work of DMG on behalf of its membership. Membership is open, cheap (£10 per annum), and encouraged for all users of our skills and facilities. These changes were unanimously agreed, and a new constitution was ratified at an Extraordinary General Meeting in May 2011. A Company Secretary was appointed, and the new organisation will be registered at Companies House by the end of 2011.
Current active membership of DMG numbers around 80, including four paid life members and one honorary life member. Active numbers change year on year as new users often join for just one or two years as they become involved in a project, allow their membership to lapse, then rejoin again a few years later. When such on-off members are taken into account, our membership list rises to around 150. The Executive Committee that was elected in 2011, and will become our first Board under the new constitution, consists of 12 members with a range of talents: Jason Berge: Film-maker, new media expert, strategic policy, freelance DMG worker Paul Dillon: Visual Artist, teacher, freelance DMG worker Phil Dixon: Photographer, worker with young people with special needs, exhibitions organiser Dot Dodds: Company Secretary Geoff Dodds: Photographer, exhibitions assistant Richard Grassick: Photographer, film-maker, gallery curator, strategic policy Jim Lycett: Photographer, fine printer, exhibitions organiser Peter Lycett: Photographer, tutor, exhibitions assistant Gregg Marshall: Website designer, photographer D a r l i n g t o n M e d i a G r o u p!
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Pat Maycroft : representing Vane Women, photographer, teacher Huw Mortimer: Worker with MIND, photographer, exhibitions assistant Rosi Thornton: Community and Youth Worker, community arts This committee is responsible for the day-to-day running of the DMG programme. As all are involved in a degree of voluntary input, that management is very “hands on”, giving both paid workers regular support and contact during their working hours. ii) Core Participatory Services DMG will engage local people in creative media and visual arts through a diverse programme of open access, education, creative production opportunities and support: •Open Access 4 days a week, providing professional artist support to visiting members of the general public. •Deliver a range of media and visual arts courses and workshops, include ‘free to users’ courses, Open Arts Studio sessions, digital photography courses, video production courses, arts cafe workshops, water colour and oil painting courses •An ongoing exhibition programme that embraces both work of global significance and opportunities for local artists •Engage with local communities on discreet media projects, including video, photography, DMG TV content and digital media projects; initiate a small number of creative video production projects, offering local people opportunities to participate at a professional level •Deliver one or two commercial commissions during the year as a means of financing community-oriented work. Open Access Darlington Media Workshop is currently open to the public on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, typically for 6 hours each day. During opening times, DMG provides freelance artist-supported support for any members of the public wishing to use our photography, digital, internet and video facilities. It is also used on Mondays and Wednesdays for courses and Open Arts Studio use, and 4 evenings per week for evening courses, a total of around 46 open hours per week. We also operate a “keylist” system to enable DMG members involved in projects or aspects of our programme to gain access outside these hours. In total, the workshop is used for around 60 hours each week. This will continue as long as our workshop is based at Darlington Arts Centre. In our current exploration of alternative venues, should the Arts Centre finally close in 2012, we are seeking a location that will provide at least the 46 hours of public access identified above. Documenting the 2011 Community Carnival
One aspect of Open Access that might be threatened by a move is our wet darkroom, now the last publicly-available facility of its kind in the region. Interest in the darkroom has grown considerably amongst a generation of young photographers that has grown up with purely digital technology. This facility will have to be taken into account should any alternative venue be assessed. Courses & Workshops
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DMG currently has the skills base to manage both media and other visual arts courses. These have run for a number of years, variously under the organisational control of the local authority and DMG itself. Either way, such courses have been self-financing, and in fact generate a small surplus that can be recycled into contributing towards overheads and other costs. This will continue over the period of this business plan, with established courses in photography, video production, oil and water colour continuing as long as they are financially viable. New courses, for example in particular aspects of digital media, are typically introduced following free “taster” sessions, or Saturday morning Arts Cafe events. Having a strong base of artist members, we are able to deliver these free of charge in the hope that in certain cases sufficient interest is aroused to enable us to establish a regular course. We shall aim to offer one taster session or Arts Cafe event each month. Exhibition Programme Decisive Moment Gallery opened in 2005 as Darlington’s only dedicated photography gallery. DMG members utilised vacant wall space around the Media Workshop to construct four exhibition areas, Sabine Bungert Exhibition Opening 2008
giving a combined hanging space of some 25 linear metres. The policy driving our programme has consistently been to both support and enable local people to participate in the exhibition programme by giving them a range of opportunities to produce work to exhibition standard, but also to encourage aspiration by inviting inspiring artists from around the world to exhibit in Darlington. Appendix 2 lists our exhibition to date, a mix of local and internationally renowned photographers. A glance indicates the practical application of our policy. Besides encouraging a wide range of local photographers to pull together an exhibition of their work, we have established a number of opportunities for less experienced local photographers to
show their work in group shows - Big Snap, the Photo Successionists and the DMG Members’ Exhibition. The popularity of our exhibitions are reflected in the audiences at exhibition openings, which have been between 20 and 100, and the repeated media interest in our work, including two Tyne Tees Television visits for Iran: Sisters in Chanel and Chador and Beauty and the Bike. Historically the programme has been funded by occasional project funds, but relies on significant skilled volunteer labour hours from local artist members to survive. After July 2012, it is clear that our exhibition programme will likely be the only surviving visual arts exhibition programme in Darlington. We therefore envisage broadening our brief, complimenting our courses programme by incorporating the visual arts more generally in our exhibition plans. Our programming policy will remain - to inspire by bringing excellent work to the town, and offer opportunities by programming a range of local exhibitions. The programme will continue to consist of 6 exhibitions each year. Media Projects DMG regularly works with a number of community groups on discreet video, photography and digital media projects. These arise as and when demand occurs, are often short-term in nature, and therefore difficult to identify at this stage. In the past we have worked at events like International Day and the Community Carnival, whilst our Little Stories series of short films, produced on an ongoing basis, enable local aspiring film-makers to take part in a short production alongside experienced film professionals. D a r l i n g t o n M e d i a G r o u p!
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With courses in video production proving popular, interest in creative video production is currently extremely strong. Moreover, last year’s major DMG production Beauty and the Bike goes from strength to strength globally, with more than 100 public screenings in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, Canada, the USA and throughout the United Kingdom. We aim to build on this interest by working on the development of a number of Darlington-based short film scripts/treatments, both drama and documentary. Successful funding will enable one or more of these to proceed to the production stage. In 2011 we established DMG TV on our website, an online outlet for exhibiting the video production work of the group. DMG TV contains four channels, which reflect our ongoing commitment to production in four areas - Little Stories (produced by local film-makers, amateur and professional together), Docs (professional DMG productions), Decisive Moments (documenting on video some of our exhibition programme), and Open Channel (for film students, community projects, and other no budget gems). Content at these channels will grow over the three year period of this plan, providing a lasting testament to the creativity of the town’s film-makers. Commercial Commissions In order to help finance low cost or free open access to skills and facilities, DMG undergoes a limited number of commercial commissions, using our facilities and skilled labour at an agreed commercial rate. Profit from these commissions is recycled into the main programme of community activity. Commercial commissions are a useful way of supplementing income during times when major projects are in development. Like projects, they generate income through equipment hire charges and labour charged at standard national rates. DMG members who work on such commissions will usually offer their skills at a reduced rate to the Group, enabling DMG to use the surplus for community projects. A few of these commissions have been on behalf of the local authority and other Third Sector groups, and as our portfolio grows such organisations are becoming more aware of DMG as a competitor for such work. iii) Visual & Media Arts Cluster DMG currently hosts Open Arts Studio sessions for adults with learning difficulties and children on Mondays and Fridays. At times DMG leads sessions in media art, at other times visiting artists lead workshop sessions. This work is supported by the local PCT, who have indicated their desire to see the programme continue. This close collaboration has proved fruitful to both organisations, broadening both the participant base of the Media Workshop and the skills base available to the Open Arts Studio. Meanwhile, other individual artists and artists groups have been making regular use of facilities to the rear of the Arts Centre, in and around the Blanche Pease annexe. Artist Lawrence Ward hosts regular sessions for groups with learning disabilities, whilst a kiln and etching press are used by a range of artist and community groups. Musician Syd Collumbine, the composer of the original music for Beauty and the Bike, is regularly teaching or creating to the rear of the arts centre. What unites this eclectic grouping of artists and community groups is participation and production. The arts for us all means creative involvement. We are interested in visiting artists only to the extent that their work can inspire our own creative output. With plans for arts venues in the town in flux, and whilst supporting attempts by Darlington for Culture to save the Arts Centre, DMG is searching for new alternative premises with the retention of this Visual & Media Arts Cluster in mind. As this Plan is being written, two options have already become available for our cluster Cockerton Library, and Lingfield Point. These both offer opportunities as well as threats to the strength of the cluster. However, we are clear that any final D a r l i n g t o n M e d i a G r o u p!
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decision about a move to new premises will be taken with our cluster partners. iv) Strategic Support to Darlington’s Cultural Sector - Around Town Around Town is a fully costed proposal to develop a new form of marketing the arts in Darlington, based on the increasingly ubiquitous use of mobile technology. Our proposal is a response to the marketing needs of Vision for the Arts in Darlington, based on the development of a small marketing team that services all creative activity in the town with a single online portal for what’s on, background information, and debate. The Around Town project has three components: a) Technical. Around Town will be produced by an experienced applications developer. A web presence will augment, and in design match, this, produced by an experienced web designer. These are both one-off costs. The app will be free to download on the client side, whilst the server side will be designed to be adaptable to any local arts service, offering future options for income generation. It will link to online booking systems for all content. The process of harmonising such systems - or indeed working with small arts organisations without online booking systems - will be a focus for ongoing research during the period of the project. b) Structural. The project team will consist of a project coordinator and a part-time marketing assistant. Subject to successful fund-raising, we shall extend the hours of Jason Berge, currently working 10 hours per week, to cover project coordination time. He will concentrate on technical delivery, liaise with the app and website developers, work on postproduction of content, and oversee the work of the marketing assistant. We shall also commission a local photographer to produce a range of stills work throughout the period of the project. Echoing our aim of developing a cooperative structure to arts marketing amongst arts groups, we shall also approach recently-developed online presences that could productively work with us, such as the Darlington Daily. Such initiatives are still very much in their infancy, and rely heavily on commercial input for content. They could benefit considerably from the Around Town service. c) Creative. DMG is currently seeking funding for a range of video and audio productions that will form core content in the Around Town app. For example: •We are exploring with Theatre Hullabaloo shooting discreet scenes from a production in rehearsal with a 360º video camera. 360º video material, when played on a mobile device, interacts with the user in such a way that, as s/he moves whilst holding the device, the segment of the video being viewed changes with him/her. The experience becomes more immersive than is the case as a member of a live audience. •We have discussed with The Forum a series of audio pieces exploring the composition and production of new music at their venue. •We have talked with those responsible for Darlington Borough Council’s online mapping of public art in Darlington, with a view to adding new video and audio content. •We shall produce artist interviews that explore further work that is currently featured in our exhibition or education programme. DMG is perfectly placed to develop this work. We have the technical know-how to coordinate specialist app and web designers, we have the skills to produce video and photographic content that can supplement simple textual information, and we are part of the Third Sector matrix that will be delivering the town’s cultural offer in the coming months and years. The development of Around Town will require both time and money to implement, and for this reason we see the project spanning the three years of this business plan until 2015. Funding will need to be located, a coordinated approach will need to be developed in conjunction with the local authority’s strategic arts arm, the app will need to be developed and tested, a production cycle for video and photography content generation will need to be established, and a marketing D a r l i n g t o n M e d i a G r o u p!
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assistant will need to be employed to ensure a continuing flow of base information about what is going on around the town. But once these structures are in place, we believe that Around Town will prove to be a highly cost effective way of reaching a wide local and regional audience. A key aim behind the project is to give the town a more effective cultural profile, in the face of increasing cultural centralisation around mega-venues such as MIMA in Middlesbrough and SAGE in Gateshead. If Darlington is indeed to be a cohesive and resilient community, it will surely benefit from a stronger sense of cultural identity. Around Town aims to help deliver this by bringing together the currently disjointed cultural activities in the town into a single and coherent whole.
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6. Staffing and Funding The coming period will inevitably be one of transition, as we seek to establish organisational stability. The backbone of our service - open access to skills and facilities - will continue to require paid staffing. But we now need to be more imaginative and flexible in the way we deliver this. Following the voluntary redundancy of our paid member of staff in April 2011, we have maintained open access staffing through two interim freelance contracts, one of which is with our former member of staff Paul Dillon.
complimentary skills to our recent young recruit to the team, film-maker and social media expert Jason Berge. Given our decision to develop a visual arts arm to our service, and as a statement of gratitude to Paul Dillon’s long service with DMG, in 2012 Paul Dillon will be the first DMG artist in residence, with a remit to deliver visual arts courses, workshops, open access support and to develop a body of his own creative work. As and when we are successful with fund-raising for this post, we aim to stabilise the latter’s role as key member of staff with an enhanced contract of employment. Details of how these posts will be funded follow below. In 2011/12, with a cut of 15% in our core grant and austerity measures forecast for the foreseeable future, and with the group relying increasingly on freelance artists to deliver our programme, we took the painful decision to make our salaried worker redundant. The cost of this was funded by our entire reserves, built up over 30 years, and some earned income. This will mean that we start 2012 with no reserves at all, and a pressing need to reintroduce a regular capital equipment renewal programme, suspended in 2010/11. On the other hand, it prepares us for an expected rise in overhead costs, and gives us a degree of financial flexibility that was not possible when we had a salaried member of staff. Our regular volunteer hours currently cover 1 day a week of open workshop access, as well as the complete running of our exhibition programme. Volunteers also contribute to video production and admin support. But they cannot be relied upon to deliver a complete service in the long-term. By definition, they are not obliged to arrive at our workplace. For this reason, starting from a base of four days per week staffed open access, throughout the period of this plan we shall aim to slowly raise the hours of paid staff. Our key worker Jason Berge currently works 2 relatively short (5 hours) days per week. Our first aim is to raise this to 7 hours per day over the coming two years. As well as servicing open access, this will give him more time to help coordinate our exhibitions, develop our web-based presence, work on the Around Town proposal, and raise funding for production projects. The proposal to offer Paul Dillon a visual artist-in-residence post will be funded by existing income from his visual arts courses (previously administered by DBC), an element of our DBC funding to cover his open access duties on 2 days each week, and new funding which will be sought specifically for the post during 2012-13.
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Young people from the RAID project editing their film Putting It About.
Over the next five years, we wish to introduce a new, time-limited role of artist-in-residence to provide
The attached figures give an outline of our expected budgets. Assumptions have had to be made about overheads, pending a possible relocation of our workshop, but a rise in costs is being expected from July 2012. Our project activity, and particularly Around Town, is tied to successful fund-raising. Similarly the content of our exhibition programme will be determined by our success or otherwise in raising new funding, although a base programme of 5 local exhibitions and 1 international artist per year is guaranteed by our core grant and earned income. Commercial commission projections are conservative, based on recent experience, and anyway will vary depending on time availability due to other projects finding funding. Our capital equipment renewal programme is now focussed on our key open access facilities, a suite of 7 Mac computers and ancillary equipment now largely 10 years old. We had already embarked on a renewal programme in 2009, but this has had to be suspended in 2011 due to funding cuts. We shall recommence this in 2012.
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7. S.W.O.T. Analysis i) Strengths •Workshop use is at an all-time high. We have never been busier or more in demand by the local population •DMG’s 30 years of working in the town has resulted in strong and deep roots in the local community •Practitioner-led services are inherently more economic due to lower management costs •The skills base of the group has grown considerably as have the skills and experience of individuals within the group •Artists bring to the group strong links with other artists from around the world, offering potential additions to the exhibition programme (Iran, Germany, Slovakia etc) •Recent recruit Jason Berge represents a new generation of media artist with a fresh approach to new media •Membership numbers are solid and historically as high as ever •Commitment amongst volunteers is high, as reflected by the number of hours put in •Recent project grants have expanded our capital base to include HD video production ii) Weaknesses •A majority of active members are in their 50’s or 60’s. More young blood is needed •Financial reserves were drained in 2011 by a redundancy payment •Project grants have not covered the need to replace aging capital equipment. A self-funded scheme was paused in 2011 •Time management for paid and unpaid staff is becoming increasingly difficult as user numbers have mushroomed •Few member volunteers are willing to carry out the increasing admin work load. Practical help from outside organisations has been extremely limited •Marketing has been patchy, with little or no budget and few staff hours available •Our location at the rear of the Arts Centre is still a hidden mystery to some people in the town iii) Opportunities •Recent collaborative work with other arts organisations and the local authority has raised our profile and strengthened our work on the ground •A change of venue from Blanche Pease is likely to give us a stronger public presence, whether in the main Arts Centre building or in an alternative venue like Cockerton Library •National policy changes around Big Society are in theory supportive of grass roots organisations like DMG •The Localism Act could give Darlington for Culture the chance to run Darlington Arts Centre, with DMG an active partner •If realised, the Around Town app could be sold nationwide, generating a useful additional income •New media is becoming ubiquitous amongst young people in a way that analogue technology never was. Creative opportunities for photography and film-making with everyday gadgets are increasing. D a r l i n g t o n M e d i a G r o u p!
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iv) Threats •The Arts Centre could close in 2012 with no alternative venue for DMG and other arts groups in place. An increasingly likely double dip recession could kill dead council plans to fund a new arts centre •An alternative venue may not be able to accommodate all our existing services, in particular our wet darkroom •Arts Council England have recently favoured large-scale projects, to the detriment of grass roots groups like ourselves •Paperwork associated with delivering our services continues to grow, threatening to swamp our limited work time as volunteers are turned off by its bureaucratic nature. •Big Society could be delivered with a corporatist mindset, weak on ideas of self-management
Conclusion Darlington, like the rest of the country, is going through a series of difficult changes . Whether economically sound or not, a policy of austerity will dominate the community over the coming years. DMG is willing to take up this challenge, and in a new spirit of cooperation with other service providers find new ways in which to help the town prosper and grow. We believe the programme of work outlined in this plan will deliver a strong contribution to the town’s Sustainable Community Strategy, despite central government’s austerity. We shall be working with a wide range of partners from the cultural sector, particularly to deliver Around Town. Through our emphasis on participation, and the need for a strong and coherent cultural sector in the town, we shall be contributing significantly to the development of Darlington Together. By harnessing the potential of new media for creativity and self-expression, we also want to see the people of the town better equipped to live in the digital age. Darlington Media Group has a long track record of delivery going back 30 years. For the first time in our history we are being asked to step up to the plate, and help deliver the town’s cultural strategy. We are ready for that challenge.
Darlington Media Group Executive Committee December 2011
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Appendix 1 - Exhibition Programme Work Analysis Below is a list of the typical technical requirements and skills required to deliver one exhibition in our programme. Curation : !
Call for local exhibitions, mentoring support for local photographers in workshop, contact with curators and photographers around the world for relevant/inspiring work. 25-50 hours per exhibition
Printing: !
Technical support for local photographers, possible full printing of international work. 5-40 hours, £150 materials per exhibition
Mounting:!
Cutting mounts, mounting prints. 5 hours, £40 per exhibition
Framing:!
Replace any faulty frames or glass, frame between 14 and 30 images per exhibition 5 hours, £25 per exhibition
Prepare Gallery Walls:! Dismount and remove previous exhibition from frames. Retouching and filling of exhibition walls. 10 hours per exhibition Hanging:$
Between 14 and 30 images per exhibition 16 hours per exhibition
Marketing:!
Prepare press release and press images, distribute to press and local community; prepare invitations for opening, distribute to press and local community; arrange travel and accommodation for visiting photographers; prepare food and drink for opening; hold event, clear up afterwards. 20 hours, £30-£150 per exhibition
For each exhibition, a degree of paid worker time is available. Out of a total of between 86 and 146 hours per exhibition, this is typically around 10 hours, or 2 x 5-hour days, per exhibition, leaving anything from 76 to 136 hours of volunteer time. We cost our volunteer labour at the same rate as our paid labour, £10 per hour. Thus each exhibition requires between £760 and £1360 of volunteer labour, or between £4560 and £8160 for 6 exhibitions in a year. On this basis, the figure for the 2010-2011 programme was calculated at £7,680.
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Appendix 2 - Decisive Moment Gallery exhibitions 2005 Appleby Fair by Dave Thomas (Darlington) Growing Green by Richard Glynn (Darlington) The GP’s Patch by Dr. John Clarke (Crook) Grohner Düne‘by Andreas Bohnhoff (Bremen, Germany)
2006 Chronotopia by Simon Norfolk (London) In Vino Veritas by Lucy Carolan (Darlington) Cummins by Richard Grassick (Darlington) Stormin‘ the Castle by Richard Glynn (Darlington) Echoes by Northern Echo Photographers (Darlington)
2007 Magic Party Place by CJ Clarke (London) Big Snap 2007 - Open Photo Exhibition (Darlington) Darlington Carnival 25th Anniversary (Darlington) Burma – What Human Rights?’ by Dean Chapman (Newcastle) Photogenus - Local Photographers Collective (Darlington)
2008 Big Snap 2008 – Hidden Gems (Darlington) Making the Weight by Paul Alexander Knox (Gateshead) Lost Industrial Teesside Communities by Derek Smith (London) Corrina and Anna by Sabine Bungert (Essen, Germany) Iran: Sisters in Chanel and Chador by Newsha Tavakolian (Tehran, Iran) Money Well Spent by Phil Dixon (Darlington) D a r l i n g t o n M e d i a G r o u p!
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2009 Big Snap 2009 – Faces and Places (Darlington) Ramshackles by Dave Thomas (Darlington) Lost World by Georg Krause (Berlin, Germany) Photogenus II – Exploration of the Pinhole (Darlington) Beauty and the Bike by Sabine Bungert and Phil Dixon (Darlington/Essen, Germany)
2010 Moments in Time by Mark Snowdon (Darlington) DMG Members’ Exhibition 2010 (Darlington) Post Industrial by Richard Grassick (Darlington) Echo Photographers’ Exhibition (Darlington) Training Land by Jill Cole (Teesdale) Marsden Bay by Paul Gibson (North Yorkshire)
2011 Fresh Perspectives by Geoff Bradshaw, Bob McAvoy Geoff Pemberton and Richard Collier (Darlington) Masham Cattle Auction Mart by Henry Brown (Northallerton) DMG Members’ Exhibition 2011 - 25 local photographers exhibit their work (Darlington) Alternative Landscape by Dave Thomas (Darlington) Disparate Integrations by Photo Successionists (Darlington) Twenty Years Later by Brenda Burrell (Seaham)
2012 Suburbia by Andrej Balco (Slovakia) Travellers by Linda Taylor (Darlington)
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Appendix 3 - Core Tasks of Paid Staff (i)
To ensure all items on the DMG equipment list are kept in good order and available for use. To attend and inform the Executive Committee at monthly meetings of any problems, required repairs, replacements or items removed from this list.
(ii)
To open the workshop/gallery at the agreed times, and to over see the safe use of this equipment and to provide technical support during workshop opening hours to tutors and other users.
(iii) To maintain the exhibition space in a fit state for the purpose intended. To assist the exhibitions committee in the execution of the exhibition programme, including mounting, framing, hanging and publicity. (iv)
To record and bank all monies paid into, or from, the accounts of DMG. These records will be kept in the manner prescribed by the EC/Board, kept up to date and available in the workshop for inspection by the Treasurer/Company Secretary. A report showing current balances and comparison with set budgets will be submitted quarterly to the EC/ Board and annual accounts prepared in April for the financial year ending the previous March.
(v)
To programme courses and to work with tutors to develop our advertised public courses. To offer help and advice to all other persons in finding tutors, and the scheduling and running of DMG’s community programme.
(vi)
To answer, or report to the EC/Board as appropriate, all enquires, by mail, telephone, email or in person about DMG and its activities. Correspondence addressed to to the Chair or other officers/members of the Media Group will be opened only with their prior consent.
(vii) To work with the EC/Board to develop funding applications and strategy documents that can be used to shape funding policies. (viii) To maintain and keep up to date DMG’s web presence.
As well as the above tasks, paid staff will be expected to participate in individual projects as and when requested, subject to time constraints, including video production, workshops, exhibition openings.
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