SCVO interview about Carnegie Award
Item Posted: Monday 4th May, 2009
Introduction
Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop teaches 90 children a week in 5 local schools, and include a schools music and Gaelic tour in the annual programme. They organise innovative community music programmes, including residential weekends for children which combine music and outdoor pursuits, a teenagers’ ceilidh group, and fiddle and groupwork classes for adults. Their top quality professional concerts combine the best of the old with what is vibrantly up to the minute. With all this activity their web site www.fiddleworkshop.co.uk) attracts 4000 visits a month, an unusually high number for a rural voluntary group.
Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop recently won a Carnegie UK Trust Rural Sparks award.
Why did you decide to enter the awards and how did you feel to win the Scottish Rural Sparks award?
When it was suggested we put our name forward, we thought it could do us no harm if a couple of people in the Carnegie UK Trust knew our name, and that we might be able to follow it up by making contact with the Trust to get advice. We did not really think about what winning might mean! To be chosen by high profile judges not in the music ‘scene’ as having done ‘extraordinary work within rural communities in the UK and Eire and running an innovative project that has improved the lives of large numbers of people in rural areas,’ was both flattering and humbling. Although the cash prize is a welcome boost to Workshop funds, we hope that the resultant publicity and contacts with others working on rural projects will help us with ideas about how we can move forward to serve the area more effectively. Awards can be a big lift to volunteers, and help raise the profile of a community group in the press and with funders. The first time we won an award (The BBC Scots Trad Music Community Group Award), the visits to our web site (www.fiddleworkshop.co.uk) jumped by 40%, so clearly people who had never heard of us were beginning to notice us.
The project has won a lot of awards over the years, but what has been your biggest achievement so far?
It is difficult to isolate one thing as our biggest achievement. Like new businesses the failure rate of new charities and community groups is sadly very high, so the mere fact of still being in existence in our seventh year has to rate high on the list of achievements. We have introduced hundreds of children and adults to playing traditional music, and many local communities have had visits from top quality musicians as a result of the initiatives we have taken – the benefits of that will survive whatever happens in the future.
And what's the biggest challenge you've faced?
This came during the past year, when we lost what funding we had for a full-time member of staff. We thought initially that we could cut back and continue to run on a voluntary basis, but it quickly became clear that the sheer size of the project had gone beyond the time restrictions and capabilities of even the most committed volunteers. ‘Volunteer burn-out’ inevitably became a real possibility, imperilling everything achieved in the previous years. Fortunately the good news is that we have just been enabled to take on a Project Manager again, and we’re working on the long term plan to make sure we’re still here not just next year but for the foreseeable future.
Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop host lots of events, what's coming up soon?
We have recently set up a charitable company, Fiddle Folk, who – with the support of SAC and Argyll and Islands LEADER project – will be hosting a new concert series ,‘Hands Across the Seas’, which will be bringing top Scottish and international musicians and bands to Argyll. The next concert will be top blue grass and old time music band the Stairwell Sisters, who will perform at Strachur, Argyll on 24th May at 2.30 p.m.
In the summer a Homecoming event ‘In the Footsteps of Columba’ will tour around Argyll, the Islands and Ireland. Our Gaelic arm, Fèis Cheann Loch Goibhle, are in the process of choosing young Irish and Argyll musicians to tour and perform concerts as a Ceilidh Trail at ten community venues in Argyll and Ireland.
In October we’re starting a series of Sunday music workshops in Strachur designed for the 8-18 age-group. We chose Strachur as the best venue, because it allows young people to attend from all over. We’d like to see youngsters from Helensburgh and Lochgilphead, and even Rothesay, as well as from Dunoon and the rest of the Cowal peninsula. For certain they will be taught by two top quality music instructors in mandolin and fiddle, and the idea is to encourage them to play and arrange music, learn a new instrument-and get to know other young musicians from a broad ‘local’ area. At the moment we’re looking at adding a third instrument-but that is not finalised-watch this space and our website!
We’re looking at mid-Argyll for more adult fiddle classes in the near future, but want to introduce adults in all future workshops to other instruments as soon as possible, eg mandolin and clarsach. When it’s all arranged we’ll let you know!
What's next for Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop?
Possibly a change of name! We’re looking at expanding our community teaching both geographically and in terms of variety. This is more likely to be done in the name of our new company, FiddleFolk, because it doesn’t have the geographic associations of Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop. But those of us who set up Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop are all from Loch Goil itself, so we’d be sad to see the name go, especially after achieving so much national recognition. …It’s an ongoing debate.
With the support of the Scottish Arts Council, the Argyll and Islands LEADER project and the Highlands and Islands Enterprise Board, we are now putting together a more formal business plan to ensure the future stability of our planned programme and indeed a properly worked-out programme of expansion.
How is the project funded?
For the last six years local volunteers and the community as a whole have done sterling work in raising money through the normal, but often overlooked, channels of raffles, coffee mornings and sponsored events. Although there are few local commercial companies, Western Ferries and Loch Fyne Trust (part of the Loch Fyne Oysters) have been generous in their support. The majority of money has, however, had to be accessed from public funds (48 funding applications in 6 years being part of the potential volunteer burn out problem!). In our community programmes we have been consistently supported by the Scottish Arts Council and Feisean nan Gaidheal-and one way or another we’ve been given a great deal of help by the Enterprise Board and the Leader programmes. This year we’re also being supported by the Robertson Trust, the Gannochy Trust and the Argyll Education Trust. Our work in schools is done in partnership with Argyll and Bute Council.
A major strand of our business plan will be a planned move towards becoming a ‘Social Enterprise’, which means we work hard at identifying where we can raise income from our services and assets, thereby making us less reliant on public money.
What are your top tips for others setting up or involved in a similar project?
• In any community there will be a small group of people who will assure you that ‘it can’t be done’ or ‘nobody will be interested.’ Ignore them!
• Get advice from SCVO or another group involved in community work. If nothing else you will avoid some of the pitfalls of trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’
• You are either going to have to charge realistically for your services from Day One, or recognise that this is impossible without compromising your charitable status. If so, you are going to need some fundraising. Identify how much you need by when well in advance, and think carefully about how to share this responsibility.
• The days of easy subsidy for charitable efforts are gone- if they ever really existed. But it’s still easier to attract funding if you are a small charity. The difficulty is in growing past the local stage and keeping going.
• If you think the project might be newsworthy, arrange to see the editor of your local paper to see what support they might give you. Our local paper, the Dunoon Observer, became our press partner which, particularly initially, was invaluable in spreading the word about our events.
• Collect as many email addresses as you can, and send out updates about the project. This can lead to contributions, sponsorship, and enable you to set up a ‘Friends’ group.
• If your project is mainly benefiting one part of your community, think through how the project can involve others in the area. This way you will get more support, encouragement and extra volunteers.
• Keep a photographic record of your project. A picture paints a thousand words is maybe the most valid cliché around – and it is invaluable as a funding tool.
• Try not to overwork your volunteers, and remember to thank them always-but be realistically prepared for an unutterably hard slog amongst your key people, if you want to achieve anything lasting more than the first few years. In many ways it is very comparable to setting up a new business, but more rewarding in that the returns are in the form of the real rewards of working together for a common goal
• Don’t be afraid to blow your own trumpet (see the whole of the above)!