Working Neighbourhoods Fund Small Grants

What could your Great Yarmouth group do with £10,000?

Groups in Great Yarmouth are being given the opportunity to apply for a grant of up to £10,000 from the Working Neighbourhoods Fund Small Grants programme to help tackle worklessness and low levels of skills and enterprise in the Borough of Great Yarmouth.

WNF Small Grants is a sponsored initiative, funded by Great Yarmouth Borough Council and run in partnership with Voluntary Norfolk.

The closing date for applications is Wednesday 4 August at 12.00pm.

For further information please contact Helen Johnson on 01493 845 925 or helen.johnson@voluntarynorfolk.org.uk

Message from Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England

You may be aware that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport recently announced a consultation on the return of the lottery shares to their original causes.

If agreed by Parliament, this would re-balance the share of the lottery, restoring arts, heritage and sport shares to their original 20% each by 2012.

This is a very positive move for the arts and I would like to encourage you to respond to the consultation document. It’s vital that Government hears directly from front line arts organisations about how the distinct benefits of additional lottery funding would help you to deliver your work on the ground. Your views are particularly valuable in light of the reductions to public funding we know are coming in future years, and which will make the lottery contribution to the arts all the more important.

The consultation proposes re-balancing lottery shares in two stages, returning 18% each to arts, heritage and sports by April 2011, and to 20% by April 2012. This would eventually reduce the share currently held by the Big Lottery Fund to 40%.

Details of the consultation can be found on the DCMS website at www.dcms.gov.uk/consultations/7070.aspx. The consultation closes on 21 August.

Norfolk County Council – Arts Project Fund

Deadlines: 1 October 2010 & 28 January 2011

The Arts Project Fund supports activities and events in all art form and multi-artform areas. This includes the development and promotion of a wide range of arts activity throughout Norfolk. Individuals, community groups, professional and amateur organisations are eligible to apply.

The maximum award available from the Arts Project Fund is £1000, though most awards are likely to be in the region of £300 – £500 due to pressure on the fund. The Arts Project Fund prioritises support to projects and activities that demonstrate significant community impact and benefit, and which most closely fulfil the Norfolk County Council Arts Policy Objectives.

For more information on Norfolk County Council website click here

Choral Ambition – New fund for choirs

Choral Ambition is a brand new scheme run by the BBC Performing Arts Fund in association with Making Music to provide funding for choirs across the UK.
The fund is for adult or youth choirs of any genre. The maximum grant is £5,000, the minimum is £500. The grant can be used for commissioning new music, training anddevelopment, masterclasses, workshops and projects to attract new members
Deadline: 30 October 2009
To find out more visit www.bbc.co.uk/performingartsfund/choral_ambition

Awards for All Funding

Could your organisation do with some extra funding? The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) wants to spend more money in Great Yarmouth from its Awards for All programme (which can make grants from £300 to £10,000 for a range of activities and items).

For more information about Awards For All click here.

Voluntary Arts England

EastCoastNet recommends signing up to receive Voluntary Arts England’s weekly e-newsletter to receive the latest news, including  jobs, funding and events. 

Voluntary Arts England is the national development agency for arts participation, raising awareness of the contribution that the voluntary and amateur arts and crafts make to the well-being of communities, social inclusion, lifelong learning, active citizenship and volunteering. 

For example, there is useful information about Grassroots Grants which has funded thousands of projects, from sports for the disabled to arts for older people, activities for young people, counselling services, employment programmes, food parcel services, music groups and village halls. It is these small, volunteer led groups that make a real difference to the lives of local people, and often a small amount of money can go a long way.

To view the wealth of information available on the website click here.

Art in Empty Spaces

If you are using or thinking of using empty retail spaces to display art or run an art project, you might be interested to know that Arts Council England’s £500,000 initiative to help artists use vacant high street shops is now open for applications.

Artists are able to apply for grants to support artistic activity that will transform empty retail units into creative spaces – anything from an art gallery to recording studios or family arts workshops – which the whole community can enjoy.

The programme, ‘Art in empty spaces’ will run in partnership with the Department for Communities and Local Government’s scheme ‘Looking After Our Town Centres’ which will invest £3 million to reinvigorate ailing town centres during the recession.

More information about the scheme and how to apply can be found at www.artscouncil.org.uk/artinemptyspaces.