West Kilbride announced as one of Scotland’s most Creative Place
“Five exceptional winners wowed the judges with their outstanding contributions to Scotland’s cultural Landscape” Paul Miller reported in the Creative Place Awards 2012 supplement, Glasgow Herald/Sunday Herald January 2012
Maggie Broadley, Craft Town Scotland would like to thank the many local people who have sent congratulations on its recent success at the Year of Creative Scotland 2012, Creative Place Awards. “Everyone involved, from volunteers to our Board of Directors and staff, are still grinning from ear to ear every time we think of winning such a prestigious award against competition from some of Scotland’s most creative communities. Our success has sent ripples across Scotland, with congratulations winging their way back to West Kilbride from individuals and organisations throughout the country”.
The Creative Place Awards aim to celebrate the value of creativity to the social and economic wellbeing of smaller communities across Scotland, and to reward the hard work and imagination of such places. Nominees were chosen for the involvement of the community, as well as the creativity of their existing plans.
After hearing they had been nominated as one of three finalists in their category in November 2011, the build up to judgment day on the 24th January seemed to flash past. However, nerves had certainly begun to jangle in the week leading up to the Awards Ceremony. Organised by Creative Scotland and Event Scotland, the ceremony took place in Edinburgh at the Scottish Storytelling Centre.
Kay Hall (WKCIL Chair), Angus Kerr (Barony Project Design & Construction), Jean Kerr (Barony Centre Arts Education) and Maggie Broadley (Craft Town Scotland Creative Executive) all travelled through to Edinburgh. Sitting in the auditorium listening to details of the other nominees and their impressive artistic and creative programmes, they all said they felt very proud to have been considered equal to these.
Kay Hall said, “The build up to the announcement of the winners was quite incredible – to hear West Kilbride named the winner of our category was just amazing and was greeted with whoops of delight from us all! This is a huge accolade for all of our Volunteers, Directors and Committee but it is also recognition of the work over recent years to establish Craft Town Scotland as a creative hub. We can now put into operation all of our plans to roll out a much wider programme of activities and events for our community and visitors”.
Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, said; “Scotland is a creative nation and I am hugely impressed by the wealth of creative communities we have in every corner of the country. To win a Creative Place Award, and in the Year of Creative Scotland 2012, is a great achievement which demonstrates the truly exceptional standard of the successful programmes”
Category winners will receive a cash prize specifically to enhance their creative activity further. West Kilbride will receive £100,000 in the category for places with fewer than 10,000 residents. Maggie Broadley continues, “This is a very specific award which is designed to add creative events and activities as part of a national programme. Before we receive any monies we have to provide Creative Scotland with a detailed budget which will cover the cost of the proposed activities and events as described in our submission.
We have a beautiful, well-designed building in the Barony Centre, this award allows us to fund top quality activities to match. For example, we will be able to buy in top class exhibitions and have agreed to host the “Modern Languages” exhibition, curated by Katy West, and are in negotiations to bring “Lab Craft: Digital adventures in contemporary craft”, the new Crafts Council touring exhibition to the Barony Centre. In addition to buying in the exhibitions, the award will allow us to fund residencies for top class makers and to lead a Youth and Cross-Generational project which will link in with the exhibitions.
We will also be able to fund Youth Activity for 14-24 year olds and provide a dedicated craft and new media based youth programme over 28 weeks. In addition, we can now fund a ‘Kindercraft’ project aimed at parents/carers and toddlers which will provide craft play classes once a week over 12 weeks. We have already had provisional discussions with West Kilbride Primary school and this award means we can fund a project which will involve the whole school. Community events like the Scarecrow Festival and WK Gala can also be supported and we plan to offer free workshops during those events”
First off, we want to arrange a very special craft and local history project based around the ‘Barony Brides and Babes’ to help create a community exhibition in a specially dedicated area for community and educational display. We’d love to speak to anyone out there who was married or christened in the Barony and who have any photographs or stories to share.
For further details of this and the Barony Centre programme please contact:
Tel: 01294 829179
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