CatStrand Youth Arts
2017 - 2018
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018
About CatStrand Youth Arts
CatStrand Youth Arts has been delivering activity across the Glenkens for young people and children aged 4-25 over the past 10 years as a project under the Glenkens Community & Art Trust (GCAT).
In 2017 Holywood Trust funding allowed for a renewed 2 year programme of activity engaging young people with the arts in the Glenkens.
Since March 2017 this has included regular group delivery across a range of arts practices, one off taster workshops, exhibitions, film screenings, writer’s retreats and partnership projects with other arts and youth service deliverers and schools in Dumfries & Galloway.
The delivery has been grouped into three target age brackets:
Creative Sparks (4-12 years) -> Nurturing Interest & Creative Thinking
Creative Skills (12-16 years) -> Developing Talents & Expanding Experience
Creative Careers (15-25 years) -> Preparing for a career in the Creative Industries
The outcomes sought from the 2 year programme:
- Access to professional artistic events and sessions for yp - Opportunities to try new artistic activities and develop skills and abilities - Opportunities to acquire artistic professional accreditation and UCAS points for artistic endeavours - Opportunities to learn new vocational skills - Increased awareness of identity and sense of place, particularly for young people engaged in our transitions and landscape arts projects. - Opportunities to learn and develop new skills - Increased awareness of the scope of the arts to improve lives and wellbeing - A more profound understanding of the diversity of cultural heritage from around the world - Improved personal profiles - Connection to a community of like-minded young people - Opportunities to design & develop their own artistic projects - Increased awareness of the value of collaborative and partnership working
To enable the achievement of these outcomes a more young person led approach was undertaken incorporating evaluation and monitoring of previous provision. This evaluation is ongoing to create a programme through CatStrand that meets the creative needs and wants of young people in the area.
As we head into the second year of delivery under this new structure this report has been produced to reflect on what has been delivered so far, what has been achieved by young people involved in the programme and what we hope to offer going forward into Scotland’s year of young people.
Aidan Nicol
Youth Arts Coordinator
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Marketing & Communication
A new website and social media presence has been developed with assistance of youth volunteers and marketing activity has been young person led and focused with new brochures and online communication under the banner CatStrand Youth. This includes monthly mail chimp e newsletters & a youth notice board at CatStrand.
www.catstrandyouth.co.uk
@catstrandyouth
CatStrand Youth Summer & Winter Brochures
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 CatStrand Youth Achievements
The youth vols group were successful in their application to D&G
Choices Fund to transform the village phonebox
A youth Board
Member was appointed to CatStrand to represent.
Choreo Skills Lab dancers achieved Bronze Arts Awards for their participation & engagement with dance.
CatStrand Youth
Players took 1st place 6 young people aged
at the Stewarty 16-22 completed
Theatre Festival with traineeships with their play Exit Stage CatStrand or in
Left partnerships
Hana from our Random Writers group has had a short story published in Upland’s Confluence book.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 CatStrand Youth in Numbers
2017
133
youth arts sessions delivered 95
individual young people engaged
8 average
attendance at 595 groups
attendances recorded
180
attended events through the youth access scheme
average 21 attendance at
events
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Summary of Delivery Creative Sparks
Animate (7+) – weekly animation group teaching traditional stop motion animation techniques including hand drawn and plasticine modelling
Animate Cine Club (7+) – monthly early evening screenings of animated film, showcasing a variety of animation techniques and styles. Also an opportunity to screen videos created by the Animate group.
Saturday Art Club (4+) – bi weekly artist taster sessions on Saturday mornings in village halls around the Glenkens. Activities have included knitting, watercolour painting, felting, wreath making. Bringing in specialist artists to run longer term projects with the group has included felt artist Linda Irving who has been working with the group to make a large felt banner of the Glenkens. The group has also extended into spaces around the Glenkens, using local village halls in Balmaclellan, Carsphairn, Dalry and New Galloway.
Forest School (5+) - Bi weekly Saturday morning sessions at Balmaclellan Hidden Mill’s permaculture forest. Run by a local forest school teacher and artist Sisi, the group explore the woods and create art with natural materials.
Margaret Morris Dance (5+) – Sara Lockwood delivers dance and movement for little ones at CatStrand on Monday afternoons.
Arts Awards Take Overs (5+) – artist led in school project with primary pupils at Carsphairn. Pupils created a mosaic artwork in the school grounds with artist Mary Smith, researched mosaic artists old and new and created log books over the course of a week culminating in a sharing day for parents and carers. Creative Skills
Youth Volunteers (12+)- monthly meet ups for 12-19 year olds to have their say on the youth arts programme, sign up to volunteer at youth arts events and other events e.g stewarding/ assisting with clubs etc. The group also run their own projects, they organised and ran snail racing at the Alternative Games and have just gained funding for their youth booth phone box project in New Galloway. Youth Players (12+) – youth drama group run by Brian and Zoe – the group meet weekly during productions and this year won first place in the Stewartry Drama Association festival in Castle Douglas for their one act play Exit Stage Left.
Choreo Skills Lab (12+) – Sara Lockwood offers support for young people to develop their choreography skills, coming up with their own dance routines and pieces and performing them bi annually at CatStrand. Three members of the group have this year completed a Bronze Arts Award.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Rehearsal Rooms (12+) – rehearsal and recording space for young musicians, led by local musician and band member Ruari. Bands under 30 have come into CatStrand for recording sessions where they have also had videos produced.
Sketch (12+) – a course in Sketching techniques ran for 6 weeks in February with local artist Mary Smith.
Jumpcut Film Making (12+) – leading in from sessions delivered with Dalry High School and Castle Douglas High, Jump Cut, offers a chance for young people to meet on a Monday evening and work on their film ideas as a group. The group are currently producing a short film written by a member of the group .
Random Writers (12+) - writing group for 12-16s continues to meet at Dalry High School, but will shortly be moving into the library in Dalry to increase accessibility. The group meet once monthly to share what they have been working on and to work on projects. The group have had workshops from Anne Errington, where they contributed stories and poetry to the Confluence project. One short story by Hana Ade will be published in the book this Spring. They also attended the Wigtown Book Festival and a writing retreat during Scottish Book Week at Mabie Forest.
Nail Art Trips (12+) – following a successful Summer taster Blackburns salon in Castle Douglas has hosted nail art sessions and a Halloween horror sfx make up session with a group.
Game Tech (12+) - Following a successful Summer taster Game Jam (game making course) with Rockstar North & students at Abertay University’s gaming department we have launched a monthly meet up for gamers aged 12+ to play on the big screen using our xbox and game rental service and to have talks and workshops throughout the year from the game industry. This included a game design & pitch session with the University West of Scotland’s game rep Madeleine.
Underground (12+) – the youth volunteers have programmed films for 12-16 year old audience which have screened in the CatStrand cinema. They are programming a new series of films that will be shown in pop up locations around the Glenkens for this age group and will be advertised through secret coded messages.
Mental Health Arts Week (12+)
Mary Smith delivered two days of arts activity at Dalry High School as part of their mental health awareness week. Exploring emotions through arts activities for S1 –S4 pupils.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Creative Careers
Working one on one in most instances we have been able to deliver tailored, practical experience for young people across a range of arts disciplines and interests.
Internships Delivered:
Theatre Development – Zoe (19)
Zoe is being supported to deliver her idea for a youth theatre festival in New Galloway. She has applied for funding to Create 18 and Dumfries & Galloway Council to support her project. She is organising the festival for young people aged 12-16 based on the National Theatre Festival she attended in Ayr last year as an Amigo (youth leader). The festival will run residentially over two nights offering theatre workshops, a chance to perform some devised pieces around New Galloway and to watch a professional theatre show being programmed by Zoe under the guidance of D&G Arts Live. She is additionally working with local schools and an Ayrshire based theatre company to offer a forest based theatre show for primary school children in the area.
Zoe also represents the youth volunteers on the board of CatStrand.
Sound Production/Film Programming – Ruari (22)
Ruari has been volunteer training as a film programmer with CatStrand, visiting events such as the ICO’s screening day for young audiences in Sheffield, Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Scottish Screening day and Glasgow Film Festival. He took part in the Movies After Dark programming project for 15-25 year olds and programmed the films for CatStrand’s mid-winter film festival. He undertook projection training and assisted with community screenings at Dalry Film Club and Balmaclellan Village Hall.
Ruari has now taken on a 12 week sound production internship under CatStrand in partnership with Circa 16 Studios in Dumfries. Spending time in the studio in Dumfries with Dave Miller Ruari is 4 weeks into the internship where he is learning hands on about studio recording and being trained at CatStrand in live performance tech.
Tech Production & Game Development – Cameron (19)
Cameron received training on the tech at CatStrand, assisting at events throughout the Summer including live music, cinema and theatre events. As a game programming student at University West of Scotland Cameron designed the game events as part of the 2017 Summer programme at CatStrand and delivered one of the two day sessions himself.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Graphic Design – Michaela (19) & Finlay (16)
Michaela was funded to attend a photoshop training course at Edinburgh College as part of this graphic design placement. Taking this training on board she then worked on designing materials for CatStrand Youth Arts and Connecting in Communities projects including a pull up banner and leaflets and posters for Movies After Dark. Michaela went on to be offered a full time position at local company United Bricks as a graphic designer.
Finlay received peer to peer training from Michaela on the photo shop package and has been creating materials including working with Zoe, our theatre intern, to design a logo and flyers for the youth theatre festival. He is currently designing a cover for our Summer programme and making advertising material for the Mens Shed for the Connecting in Communities project.
Arts Admin & Fundraising – Joe (17)
Joe led on our Keep CatStrand Dry Campaign, launching an online crowdfunding campaign for the flood wall project and managing the administration of the donations. He additionally set up the new CatStrand Youth Arts website. Joe’s fundraising campaign successfully raised £40,000 the money for the flood wall.
Supporting Emerging Visual Artists
We have hosted two exhibitions from local artists under 25 in the CatStrand Gallery in 2017.
Emily Cooper (22) from Blueprint100 was commissioned to create a piece for our permanent collection and additionally curated an exhibition of local emerging artists work. A total of 6 artists participated in the project and had their work on display in CatStrand over the duration of the exhibition.
Luke Fitch (24) & Fraser Irvine (23)
Corsock based portrait artist, Luke, and Dumfries based landscape artist, Fraser, held an exhibition of their work at CatStrand. Work was inspired by the local area and local people. Luke’s pieces included several local faces from New Galloway. This exhibition was run in partnership with Upland who were mentoring Luke as part of their Emerge programme.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Additionally Funded Projects
Movies After Dark - Film Programming Project
Funded by BFI
Ruari (22) Luke (20) Eilidh (19) received training in programming films from CatStrand’s programmers and Driftwood Cinema to programme and deliver a series of films for 15-25s that would be screened with partner organisations Tollbooth Arts Centre & Dalry Film club. They additionally had training in projection set up from Driftwood Cinema.
Scottish Book Week - Mabie Forest Writing Retreat
Funded by Scottish Book Trust
The members of the random writers group attended a retreat in the Mabie Forest as part of book week Scotland’s events, this included a visit from author Julie Bertagna.
Glenkens Youth Voice- Youth Consultation
Funded by D&G Council
A youth consultation project has been carried out throughout Summer and Autumn 2017. The results of which will be presented in a separate report. In total 70 young people took part in the survey covering all aspects of life in the Glenkens for 12-25 year olds.
The results of this will be collated and presented at the end of March 2018.
Youth Booth – phone box take over
D&G Choices Fund Our youth volunteers group applied to D&G Choices fund for £500 towards their phone box project which was voted on by other young people in the region. They will work with local glass artist Lorrie Kyle to make stained glass panels to fit out the phone box, they will gather information from charities and groups about issues relevant to them – they have already trialled D&G Youth Enquiry Services ‘I Feel S**t Kits’ for mental health and made a list of important phone numbers and plan to fit out the youth booth with information on services, buses and what’s on to be accessible 24/7.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018
Partnerships
We have delivered activity with schools in the area including running sessions at Dalry High School as part of their afternoon activities programme and working with Castle Douglas High School’s new film making group to share equipment, expertise and opportunities.
We will be delivering an arts award take over at Carsphairn Primary School during March where the whole school will participate in an arts project and achieve Discover Arts Award accreditation.
We are working with a film making group at Castle Douglas High School to share film equipment for young people’s use and delivering specialist sessions for example in screenwriting as part of the English curriculum classes.
CatStrand Youth Arts have created a partnership agreement with Dumfries & Galloway Libraries to use library spaces in Castle Douglas and St John’s Town of Dalry for youth activity including the Random Writers sessions, sketching group and revision & chill programme.
We are working with Blue Print 100 to offer joint opportunities for young people 20-25 for example curation of youth exhibition by Blueprint member Emily (21) with support from a Stove mentor and the art director at CatStrand, arranging bus transport for groups to attend film screening and artist exhibits and involving Blueprint in the organisation of a writing retreat for older young people that will take place in the Spring.
CatStrand Youth Arts worked with Dalry Film Club, Tollbooth Arts Centre and Driftwood Cinema to deliver the Movies After Dark British Film Institute funded project.
We are planning a project bringing together Wigtown Festival Company and the national writing centre Moniach Mhor on a youth writing exchange project planned for Autum 2018.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Our internships have been designed with partners, Bunbury Banter Theatre Company and Circa 16 Sound Recording Studios in Dumfries to offer extended professional development opportunities for young people out with CatStrand.
We have engaged with groups in the community working with young people, particularly Castle Douglas Young Carers group to offer free transport and tickets to events to young people involved in the group.
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018 Looking Ahead
As we head into the second year of delivery under the Holywood Trust grant for our youth arts programme we are looking forward to continuing to offer career development opportunities for young people in the area with a further 4 internships planned. We are also planning an arts college trip in partnership with local secondary schools and a creative industries careers event at CatStrand.
Working more closely with local primary schools we will deliver arts award takeovers at Kells primary and offer transition classes (P7- S1) a walking theatre show in partnership with the forestry commission.
We have two exhibition slots in the Summer which will be dedicated to emerging graduate artists in partnership with Upland’s Emerge mentorship scheme and the other a ‘Work in Progress’ exhibition to show case the behind the scenes processes behind the completed projects of our young people – which will be curated by Faye McKellar (14) e.g animate sketches and plans with projections of the completed animations, script segments, call sheets & production photographs along with screenings of JumpCut Films, sketch groups finished portraits alongside excerpts from their sketch book journals. This will give an insight into the work that’s gone into finished products from the young people involved and will be a chance to share the work and processes they’ve been through.
We will be delivering a full year round programme of activity for 4-12s and 12-18s with a new song writing & melody writing project in development, more writing retreats, youth led Fresh Face theatre festival in the Summer and the transformation of the New Galloway phone box into a work of art and valuable youth information resource for the community.
Report completed by Aidan Nicol, Youth Arts Coordinator.
CatStrand Youth Arts is funded by The Holywood Trust.
An initiative of GCAT- Glenkens Community & Arts Trust, registered Scottish Charity SC032050
#catstrandyouth
CatStrand Youth Arts, CatStrand, High St, New Galloway DG7 3RN 01644 420 374 www.catstrandyouth.co.uk [email protected] March 2018