Branching out
Blog by Helen Willmott (Programme Director)
Today we announced that Arts Council England have awarded us additional investment to expand the reach of our programme to cover the borough of Wellingborough. You can read the official press release here.
Alongside the official announcement, I wanted to take this opportunity to explain what this means for Made in Corby, reflect on what we’ve achieved and start to explore what might be about to change.
We’ve been delivered exciting new arts activities in Corby for five and a half years now. We’ve run performances, workshops, exhibitions and festivals, working with numerous community groups across Corby to place local people at the heart of decision making about our programme. And through this, we’ve enabled over 100,000 engagements with arts activity.
As we start to create new cultural experiences in Wellingborough, some things will inevitably change. We’ll need a new name for starters. We’ll be welcoming new organisations, including GreatWell Homes and Teamwork Trust, to our consortium board, and working with new delivery partners, such as Warts and All Theatre and the Nenescape Landscape Partnership Scheme. And we’ll need to expand our staff team, volunteer programme and community partners.
Having grown-up on the outskirts of Wellingborough, I’m really excited by the opportunity to work alongside local community groups, events and venues to create new cultural activities together.
Our commitment to Corby is not going to change. We’re working on plans to continue to develop our Corby programme, including the final Grow Festival in February 2020 and major new strands of activity aimed at families with early-years children and older people, as well as planning activity for the next few years.
But our values will never change. In both Corby and Wellingborough, our programme will still be led by local people, through conversations, consultation and community panels. We’ll still be working with community groups to reach new audiences and engage those people who are least likely to attend traditional cultural activities. And we’ll be working towards making our activities exciting, ambitious and accessible.
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