Arts / Local creative community seeks talks with Shetland Arts
A FORMER visual arts development officer with Shetland Arts is proposing to facilitate meetings between the creative community and the arts development agency to help overcome some considerable and deep-seated differences over the way forward for the local sector.
Clair Aldington is one of many from the local arts community who responded to two letters (Robust dialogue required, 5 Sep, and Has Shetland Arts lost its way? 7 Sep) published by Shetland News last week.
Written by author and former Shetland Arts chairman Donald Murray and by painter Peter Davies, both letters express some grave concern over the way the organisation is run and its commitment towards promoting and developing the arts.
The letters were written in response to the arts development agency’s AGM at the end of August, held online and described by Murray as a “20-minute monologue”.
Questions to the board of trustees could be submitted ahead of the AGM with responses being read out as part of the meeting.
The AGM was held not long after Shetland Arts had announced it was introducing a voluntary redundancy scheme for some employees in a bid to reduce costs.
So far, both letters have attracted more than 100 comments on Shetland News’ Facebook page, (here and here) mainly from people from within the sector who have largely been agreeing with the concern raised.
Aldington said she was made redundant from Shetland Arts in 2015 along with most of her arts development colleagues after their roles had been deleted in a restructuring of the charity.
“It has always seemed an odd decision at best, and misguided at worst, to delete all the arts development roles in an organisation that has arts development (Shetland Arts Development Agency) in its title and as its mission,” she said.
“This was an even odder decision when, as others have said, Shetland Arts development used to be seen as the model in Scotland for how arts development should be done.”
Aldington is now running the restorative justice charity space2face and has offered her skills to work out a way forward. This, she said, she would be done independently rather than as part of her normal work.
“With my restorative justice hat on, I offer to facilitate a ‘restorative circle’ that includes Shetland Arts representatives about these concerns – where everyone is enabled to speak in a safe way,” she said.
“It would be an opportunity to look at what’s happened, the consequences of it and what needs to happen now. Over to you Graeme [Howell, chief executive] and the board.”
Aldington added that a small group of people has already formed with the aim of approaching trustees and management at Shetland Arts.
Both chief executive Graeme Howell and chair of the board of trustees Susan Mail have over recent weeks repeatedly declined media interview requests, not just from Shetland News.
Meanwhile, a statement made by Shetland Arts during the recent AGM about the amount of public money the local council had used to support the Tall Ships Races appear to be more or less correct.
Shetland News had received representations that the £1.5 million quoted was on the high side.
Shetland Islands Council’s development department confirmed that £1.238 million of council funding had been awarded to the Shetland Tall Ships company.
In addition, the council also paid £152,000 as a contract fee to become a host port.
Meanwhile EventScotland contributed £130,000 to the four-day event in July.
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