Is a Director Needed?
There is the argument that every Festival needs
a Director to really work. ‘It has to be basically one person's vision.
It can't be a group effort - suggestions yes but not a mish mash. That just
becomes vague and lacks focus.’ This seems to be a good point. However, from my experience co-ordinating the Lambeth Riverside Festivals in 2005
and 2006, it is almost impossible to have a vision beyond the aim of trying to
involve as diverse a range of local organisations and their activities as
possible, and showcasing local talent. The argument for a Director is much
stronger where a Festival is commemorating an individual or a specific
historical event or movement, as was the case with the 2012 Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor Festival. The latter worked well because the (unpaid) Artistic
Director Jonathan Butcher had the vision and a dedicated volunteer team.
Dependence on Volunteers
Another reservation about Whitgift being in charge
is that it does not have the expertise and relies on expert volunteers and
groups to put on the events. Well of course; there is no other way. Without a
proper budget it is a weakness and a strength as is the experience of the
Lambeth and Wandsworth Festivals. It is almost impossible to attract speakers
who require a fee; it is impossible to bring in heritage based arts activities.
In last year’s planning process White Label tried
to tap into people’s knowledge and expertise without offering a consultancy fee.
At least one person felt patronised and used. As many of my friends and
acquaintances keep saying to me ‘if one is a volunteer, when others are being
paid, there is a real sense that 'they' are the experts, despite 'them'
probably not having actual qualifications in many areas.’ ‘How dare they
make money on the back of our expertise.’ Several now refuse to share their
knowledge and expertise with production companies which will not pay a fee. I
have done that myself including with the firm that makes Who Do You Think You Are. But I was happy to help Kush Films with
one of their Freedom Riders film
shows last year. This is not so applicable to the Croydon Festival; someone has
to be paid to co-ordinate, and make sure the venues are booked and the
publicity created. This year it is largely a member of the Foundation staff
team. In that sense it is no different from the Council now GLL officers in Wandsworth
or Lambeth Archive staff undertaking that role.
As I know from several
years involvement in the Wandsworth Heritage Festival it takes time to
build up a momentum from one year to the next. One of the problems facing
groups that want to take part is that given their year round busy schedules,
they do not always have the member resources to put on events in a Festival or
to run stalls. But such Festivals allow one to seize the
opportunity and rise to the challenge.
Wandsworth Heritage Festival
Last year I deliberately stepped aside from
organising anything in the Wandsworth Festival. This year because I am still
focussed on the commemoration of John Archer as Battersea’s black mayor
(1913-14) through to November, I am planning four walks and a couple of talks
about him. I am also trying to organise an opening Saturday events of stalls, displays,
talks and walks. The four speakers I have lined up for the day are people I
know on my personal, rather than through the local heritage networks.
Lack of money is a problem though as long as many
events can take place in the Libraries there are no hall booking fees. Wandsworth’s
libraries were and continue to be available now that GLL manages them for the
Council, along with the Heritage Service. It has also taken on the task of leading
the Heritage Partnership which I am member of and co-ordinates the
Festival. Fortunately the finance for
the printed brochure is available in the GLL contract, and there have been
recent discussions on how to improve publicity especially through social
networks.
Lambeth Festival
Inspired by the Wandsworth Festival, Lambeth
started one last year, building on the collaborative working of the Local
History Forum and its Archives Open Day. I gave a talk for and at LASSCO, the
architectural salvage business at Vauxhall Cross. This year’s Festival is now being planned.
Both Festivals show what can be done on a shoestring budget.
The difference between
the experience in Lambeth and Wandsworth and in Croydon appears to be that
rather than approach the Festival in a partnership way, Croydon’s has been
presented as something that will happen. This was obviously not the case given
last year’s emerged from discussion with the Local Studies Forum. What has gone
wrong this year appears to be the fact that Whitgift did not inherit from White
Label a database of all those involved last year, and therefore is still trying
to find out who it should be contacting. As a result I am one of those who was
not contacted.
Inadequate Planning Time
The first announcement for
this year seems to have been made towards the end of January. There may well be
individuals, like my neighbour David Clark, whose History of Norbury was published by Streatham Society last year.
David has offered some activities for the Festival. But there may be others who do not yet know that is being planned, and
who may need to be paired up with a group as the organiser of an event for them.
A mechanism needs to be developed which networks people together wider than the
organisations that are members of the Forum. This may be something that could fall
within the remit of the newly launched Croydon Arts Network given the
inspiration of heritage for arts activities. Time is now too short to try and
discuss with people outside the Borough organising events with them, like Kush
Films to show Freedom Riders, Tayo
Aluko to perform his Paul Robeson and Langston Hughes shows, Martin Hoyles to
talk about Ira Aldridge, staff of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership to
discuss Croydon and slavery. Time is too short to develop activity about the
Chartist and radical poet Gerald Massey whose archive is at Upper Norwood
Library, or on the textiles history of the Borough, or on the histories of new groups settling in
Croydon like the Ukrainians, who will be celebrating the 200th
Anniversary of Taras Shevchenko, their ‘Robert Burns’, an artist, poet and
nationalist who knew Ira Aldridge. The number of topics is ever expanding
including Croydon contribution to the campaigns against smallpox vaccination, to
nationalise the land or tax land values. If the Festival continues through 2014
to 108 then there is the whole question of what should be included in
activities relating to the remembrance of the First World War. Lambeth and
Wandsworth are already fleshing out their frameworks for this. I suppose this
is where the concept of ‘vision’ discussed in Part 1 comes in.
The Challenge of Involving Schools
Involving schools is a
key challenge for Heritage Festival
organisers, often suffering from overload and decreasing resources. Because
of my network contacts I was invited to lead two assemblies and a couple of
workshops on Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in last October’s Black History Month at
Winterbourne boys primary. I was happy to do that unpaid. However, there was no
way I and others could been involved working with pupils in the Nubian Jak
Community Trust John Archer Project in Wandsworth (2009-10), or its British
Black Music 1900-1920 Project (2012-13) in Lambeth, Waltham Forest and Wandsworth,
without fees payable from Heritage Lottery Fund grants. If Whitgift made money available every school
could be offered during the Festival the opportunity to have an incoming ‘expert’,
and have a guided walk. It may also need to pay for the cost of any transport
needed.
Developing Community Ownership
It is through earlier
planning and widening involvement that the Festival can develop with a much greater sense of community ownership. This last couple of years
has seen several community and other heritage initiatives inc. the Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor Festival, the Friends of Church Alley Broad Green project, and
the Lightup Foundation’s Now and Then Project. South Croydon Community
Association is working up a heritage trail project. Showcasing such projects in
an annual Heritage Festival helps to widen the audiences they reach and
increases knowledge and understanding among the wider public. It may also
stimulate other community groups to set up their own projects.
Whitgift’s Potential Wider ‘Public Benefit’
With its considerable resources
(buildings, archives, fields, etc) Whitgift could use the Festival as a test
exercise in developing a strategy to add value to arts, culture, education and
heritage in Croydon throughout the year, strengthening meeting its legal
requirement as a charity in relation of ‘public benefit’. By the time
the Festival takes place, the local elections will be over. If Labour wins Whitgift
will probably have to start have to re-think its role in Croydon within the framework
of the cultural and heritage strategy that Labour will need to adopt, and with
the strategy which will be developed by the new independent Arts Network.
Festival Contact Details
To take part in this year’s Festival please contact
Catherine Shirley
Marketing and Communications Manager
The Whitgift Foundation
020 8256 1579
Background Discussion on Croydon Heritage Issues
http://thecroydoncitizen.com/history/the-right-to-public-assembly-is-the-chartists-legacy-in-croydon
Forthcoming on Croydon Citizen:
Taras Shevchenko
South Croydon History – 3 parter
