scots music group

The Board of the Scots Music Group met earlier this week to respond to the Scottish Arts Council’s decision not to offer us funding for next financial year. Follow this link to read decisions of the SAC about which proposals are to receive funds and which are not.

We decided that there are grounds for appeal, and we’ll follow that route, according to the procedure set out by the SAC.

We also ask all our supporters to write to their MSPs and the press. Your MSP can be found here. Don’t forget that besides your constituency MSP, you also have 7 list MSPs – if you can write to them all, that is best.

While personal letters and e-mails are most effective, the points we want to get across are:

• This is a grass-roots organisation, run by volunteers, with over 500 members and over 1500 enrolments this year
• The arts are not just about performance, they are about participation, and we make a real impact in communities across Edinburgh and much further afield, spreading playing, dance and song beyond the classes we run
• We represent good value for money, and provide regular employment to top-class tutors. Students of the Scots Music Group have gone on to make a living from their music.
• Add your own personal views on any other benefits you have experienced through being involved with the Scots Music Group
  
  Our plans for extending the work, and reaching out to groups who do not normally participate in Scots music and song are threatened by this decision. At a time of increasing interest in all aspects of Scottish culture, this is a short-sighted and mean-spirited decision.

Please ask your MSPs to raise this decision with Linda Fabiani MSP, the minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture, and ask her what she plans to do to secure the health and well-being of the Scots Music Group in 2009 and beyond.

Eilidhs fiddlers got a round of applause from some passing locals when they took the class outside to play in the evening sun tonight

We are planning on contacting members soon by email and post, with more information about our plans for dealing with our funding situation. It would be really helpful for us if current and previous members could check that the contact details we have for them are correct. You can do this by registering with on website and entering your current details, if you haven’t already done so. If you are already registered with the website, it would be really helpful if you could log in and click on ‘my details’ and check that all the contact details we have for you are up to date.

Many thanks!

The Scots Music Group got the bad news from the Scottish Arts Council at the end of April that our application for funds for next financial year – 2009–10 – has been turned down. We have had financial support from the SAC since 1992, so this is a big blow. The £60,000 we were seeking is about one-third of our budgeted income for that year.

We believe we have grounds for an appeal, and propose to follow that route, but we cannot rely on success. We need support from everyone who wishes us well. A Board meeting on 6 May will decide on the immediate action.

We feel strongly that at a time of a revival of Scottish culture, to which we have contributed, it is perverse to cut off much-needed funds to a grass-roots development body like ourselves.

We will be appealing to students, ex-students, tutors and supporters in a variety of ways in the coming weeks and months. We will have our programme as usual in September. Watch this space and give us your help however you can. We will survive!

Download a copy of the most recent newsletter here