SMG Funding Campaign

The Scots Music Group was informed by the Scottish Arts Council at the end of April 2008 that our application for funds for the next 2 financial years (April 2009 to March 2011) has been turned down. Despite this setback, from September 2009 our class and events programme have continued to grow in popularity, and we now have over 550 people enrolled in classes.

Given the financial difficulties created in the current year by the lack of core funds from the Scottish Arts Council, the Board of the Scots Music Group has reluctantly told City of Edinburgh Council that as of 31 December 2009, we will no longer be able to pay them for the services of Sheila Capewell, the SMG Administrator. Sheila is the only member of the SMG staff employed by the City Council. As a result of our action, Sheila will be made redundant, and the essential administrative work will be covered by the other two members of staff and volunteers. At present SMG has sufficient funds for the project leader and development worker posts but funding for administration has proved impossible to find.

We have thought long and hard about this, and do it as a measure needed to help us balance the books in a difficult period. As a charity and Company Limited by Guarantee, SMG cannot undertake activities for which it has insufficient funds.

What you can do:

We are currently looking for help with routine admin tasks. If you are interested in finding out more about this, please Contact Ros

It will help us enormously if members could enrol for classes online wherever possible, as this greatly cuts down admin time spent processing enrolments.

We are also looking for help with:

* Designing a couple of questionnares/surveys in the next 3–4 months.

* Design/publicity

If you have experience in either of these areas, and would like to offer some help over the next 2–3 momths, please Contact Ros

Many current and ex SMG students and tutors have already offered us a huge amount of support. There’s more information about how you can help to ensure we can continue to take our music out into the community into the future, here

Many thanks to all of you who have given us so many ideas and suggestions for ways we might fill this funding shortfall, and also the many individual members who have already offered practical support and advice on specific issues
If you have any ideas on things that might help, please Contact Ros

Fundraising events

The Diggers session held a successful fundraising concert for the Scots Music Group in March which raised a total of £467. Sangstream, the Scots Music Group’s community choir, donated all profits from the Ceilidh Culture concert to SMG. This raised £720. The Playathon in May raised a further £940 for SMG funds. SMG Members also ran a summer session in the Whiski Bar, on the High Street in 2009. This raised just over £600 for SMG. Ros also made a number of dedications from the ‘One and Other’ plinth in Trafalgar Square, raising a further £200

SMG merchandise

We are developing the range of SMG merchandise. Our first new item is the ‘Slender Tree’ tea towel, which is now avaialble to buy online, or at SMG classes and events.

Funding developments contact list

Use the contact form to let us know if you want to be on a contact list to be notified of any developments in the funding campaign (give us your postal address if you don’t have email). Please also let us know if you have any press contacts we could use, if you’d like to take an active role in the campaign in any way, or if you have experience of being involved in any similar campaigns. We’ll send out occasional updates with information on our progress to everyone who has asked to have their details added to this list

After an intial email to all our current contacts, we will only contact people on this list with information on developments.

Let us know

• about any replies you get from MSPs or anyone else you wite to
• what you are doing to lend your support to our campaign

Other links:

• 2 discussion on Footstompin here and here
• Traditional Music Forum
• SAC web site

Update on funding applications

Our applications (made early in 2009) to the Inspire Fund and the SAC‘s Development Fund were both successful. While this is good news, neither of these grants replace the core funding we have lost.

The Inspire funding has allowed us to run a brief pilot project, taking traditional music learning to people who are often excluded. We havenow applied for a grant to run a full project, running workshops in conjunction with organisations that provide support to a wide variety of people. We plan to offer ongoing support to those who are interested in learning more, to enable them to join our mainstream class programme.

The Organisational Development Fund grant has enabled us to have a thorough look at how the Scots Music Group is currently running, and to consider options open to us in the future to allow us to move away from being as reliant on grant funding. The review was carried out by Community Enterprise, who gave a final report to the SMG board at the end of August

SAC, Creative Scotland, and future funding

The Scottish Arts Council will merge with Scottish Screen to become Creative Scotland early in 2010. We are lobbying to ensure there is funding for traditional music set up within this new body. SMG has met with representatives from many of the other organisations from across Scotland that do similar work to discuss issues around funding for adult traditional music education. 10 different organisations had 18 representatives at our first meeting. The group will feedback to the Traditional Music Forum, regarding funding and other issues that are around for organisations such as SMG

Press information:

• photos from the Scots Music Group
• quotes from members

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