Carrbridge, The Village of Culture

LINDA JOLLY speaks up for the work of the voluntary arts sector in the Highlands

WE WERE INTERESTED to read the report submitted by Highland Council’s Arts Development Officer for Badenoch and Strathspey (ArtsFolk, March). All very commendable work, but really its only a small part of the story in our area.

To complete the picture we would like to speak up on behalf of voluntary groups across the Highlands, and contribute a round-up of some of the arts and cultural activities being undertaken in our own small village by the local voluntary run group, Carrbridge Community Arts.

The group was formed in November, 1999, primarily to create an outdoor spectacular to celebrate the Millennium. The main theme for the event was ‘Carrbridge Past, Present and Future’. Working with the primary school and other community groups, we had more than 150 participants and an audience of several hundred.

Such was the success of the event, that we decided to organise a programme of art activities to fill the gap in local authority provision. Since then Carrbridge Community Arts has gone from strength to strength, with a commendable list of quality arts activities and events organised by the dedicated volunteer team.

Voluntary arts groups … are the unsung heroes of the growing interest in arts activities in the Highlands

As pioneers in leading the way, we were the first group in Badenoch and Strathspey to establish a regular touring performance programme bringing live music, theatre, children’s theatre and dance to our village hall.

We have also hosted professional performances in other local communities, organised associated all-inclusive school and after-school art workshops for local youngsters, and worked in partnership with some of Scotland’s foremost companies, including Scottish Opera and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Our most memorable highlights include a visit by the Edinburgh-based theatre company Boilerhouse, who set up a giant crane in our village car park to rehearse their large scale outdoor street production of ‘Sister Sister’ before its official launch at the Big in Falkirk festival.

Carrbridge Community Arts has also been instrumental in setting up and providing continued support for the street drum group, Carrumba, which is now a constituted community group in its own right, and has a hard -core team of members from communities across the strath and further afield.

We have also helped the group establish a new and thriving brass section. We have taken children to performances at Eden Court Theatre, encouraged youngsters to write their own reviews, organised a multitude of drama, music-making and art workshops, and helped stage the first ever Carrbridge village pantomime.

We have also set up and run a youth film-making project involving more than 20 local teenagers, helped support an interest in dance at Grantown Grammar School, and were proactive in helping establish an events diary in the local newspaper.

We have supported numerous other local community events, created performance opportunities for young local musicians, including stage opportunities for up and coming local young bands, and provided the chance for local people to learn new skills working alongside professional art practitioners.

We have established the hugely successful annual Carrbridge Live Festival and developed our own website. We were one of the first groups to ensure our child protection policy was in place, and have helped set up risk assessment training for other local event organisers.

We write our own funding applications, and spend a great deal of our precious time bowing to bureaucratic burdens placed upon us. We receive some funding help from the Scottish Arts Council, have received a grand total of just over £5,800 over five years from Highland Council, are members of PAN – the Promoters Art Network – and have developed contacts with professional companies across Scotland, the rest of the UK and beyond.

Although Carrbridge Community Arts is run on a shoestring, we have managed to chalk up audience figures which – including our outdoor festival events – totals more than 9,000 over the past five years, a commendable achievement for a small village with a population of just over 700 residents.

There are numerous voluntary arts groups spread across the Highlands, and for the most part it is these groups which are the very backbone of supporting and promoting the arts in the local communities where they live.

They are the unsung heroes of the growing interest in arts activities in the Highlands, and their work should be given the recognition it deserves. And by-the-way, most of us volunteers also have day jobs as well!

Linda Jolly is the Co-ordinator of Carrbridge Community Arts

© Linda Jolly, 2006