Arts Group Story Telling Time

Our Cultural Heritage Arts brief is now in circulation amongst the community!

We invite local arts people, visual, performance, film-makers, authors and poets to participate in building this brief that will be given to a contracted author.

Your stories could obviously be history based as outlined but in particular the story you have as an artist living in the region is vital in illustrating the regional arts.

Just a few questions that can shape the type of stories we are looking for:

Why/when did you come to live in the region?

What creative inspiration from the surrounding wilderness influences your work?

How much of the natural environment is reflected in your work?

Where do you exhibit/perform?

Have other local artists inspired your work?

How has living in the region changed you as an artist?

What emotion does the natural surroundings evoke in you?

Are you part of an arts organisation and how long has it been operating?

What sets this region apart from other places that you have worked?

We appreciate you are all busy, but if you could send us your stories/comments over the next week, we can then start the busy task of collating the information to finalise our authors brief. You can email to Andrew Gray: agray@sear.org.au.

We look forward to hearing your stories - the more the merrier!

Festivals and Events: Naturally Inspired

At the first SCT Board meeting for 2012 this week the importance of Local Festivals and Events throughout the Shire was discussed including:  The Bermagui Seaside Fair,  The Cobargo Folk Festival, Sculpture on the Edge, Four Winds Music  Festival, the Merimbula Jazz Festival,  Candelo Village Festival, The Eden Whale Festival were mentioned as well as a number of sporting/ extreme events including the George Bass Surfboat Marathon, The Merimbula Classic, The Tathra Wharf to Waves Swim as well as discussion of a number of other potential  significant events.

It was recognized that all these festivals and events already attract visitors as participants and audiences, most of them are run by dedicated volunteers and nearly all of the festivals and events have the potential for growth.  If you are involved with the organization of a festival or event in the region here are ten questions we would like your input on:

1.     What is the name of your festival or event?

2.     What distinguishes your festival and event from any other festival or event on the eastern sea board ?  

3.     Why do people come ?

4.     Where do they come from and how do they get here ?

5.     How would you like to see your festival grow or developed?

6.     What resources are you aware of in the shire that are available to help you ?

7.     What resources would you like to see developed in the shire to help you?

8.     How can you help ?

9.     What is the economic impact of your festival or event on the local community ?

10. What role do you see for Sapphire Coast Tourism?

Story Briefs taking shape

This week our working group has been moving full steam ahead with the foundation "Story Brief" taking shape for most of our identified stories. Meeting of the Waters and Shadow of the Mountains are well underway with input from the marine, historical and geology members of the group who have actively sought like minded people to contribute to the story.

Well done everyone who has made time for this project over the Christmas break - what a great start to 2012!

Reference Groups

A number of people have asked “how much work is involved with a reference group?”

If you put your hand up for one of our reference groups we do not expect you to attend meetings - lets face it we are all busy and the shire covers a large area.  What we want is your time with input to the particular area of interest -  not travelling to and attending meetings.

We have to be clever how we use our time and we can do this through the internet.

As with the Cultural Heritage Working Group,  the reference groups members will be people who are already engaged with the regions heritage, that is its History, Geology, Marine, Indigenous and the Arts. It is your existing level engagement with this heritage that we would like to tap into for information, insight and ideas

We expect that you will respond to emails and those responses can be as extensive, thoughtful or as simple and brief as you want to make them.

We are not starting from scratch. You will see that the Cultural Heritage Working Group through last years Heritage Strategy has already identified that there is rich tapestry of stories in the region. The next phase is to shape these into information packages for the experience seeker, the informed traveller  - our guests who are coming to the region.

Success for Merimbula-Imlay Historical Society

After completing a challenging year long program assessing their practice against The National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries, the hard working volunteer group of the MERIMBULA OLD SCHOOL MUSEUM have been rewarded a certificate that will see the Museum published in the state-wide publication of all the Museums.

The Old School Museum is an outstanding heritage asset and based on the advice and feedback of the Standards Program, the volunteer run museum is now developing a plan to work with school groups to raise awareness and bring history to the community.

Olwen Morris, a member of the Merimbula Old School management committee explained that the whole project has been well worth the effort and has provided strong impetus for volunteers to work towards the image of the Old School Museum making it a showpiece for our local community.

The Merimbula Old School Museum is located in a beautifully restored heritage listed stone building dating from 1873. The collection on display tell the stories of Merimbula and it's development.

December Update

In the mad rush before Christmas our working group members have begun seeking expressions of interest from like minded people in the community to engage with us on this project and to contribute to the foundation reference groups for each of our identified stories - History, Geology, Marine, Indigenous and Cultural Arts. Early in the new year a community awareness campaign will be launched encouraging people of the Sapphire Coast to stay in touch, submit information and generally become involved in this exciting project. Until then, Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year to you all!

Project Meeting

The Cultural Heritage Working Group held a meeting for this project  last week and discussed:

A.     The Community Consultation Process:

a.     The group felt that it was important to maintain the Cultural Heritage Working Group as the “in region” Key Reference group for the Project. They acknowledge the importance of engaging people outside the region with specific areas of knowledge and interest and therefore endorsed the establishment of an “out of Region” reference group and to invite people from Bombala and Eurobodalla, the adjoining shires to participate as well as other individuals with a specific interest in tourism and cultural heritage at a state and national level.

b.     Establishing reference groups for each of the five themes be established and the we canvas public interest for these groups. If you have a particular interest in participating in this process or being a member of a reference group please  let us know heritage@sapphirecoast.com.au

B.     The Importance of a position to facilitate the social media and meeting strategy was discussed and seen as a first priority

C.     Recent developments and opportunities in the region where celebrated - they included:

a.     The new ceramic mosaic walls at the Eden Killer Whale Museum

b.     The Four Winds Regional Development Grant to develop Nature’s Concert Hall – the Sound Shell which will be in place for next Easters Festival at Bermagui

c.      News that the well known and much loved late Mrs Shirley Hannan’s private collection may be offered to an art insitution. A group of locals are meeting to discuss the possibilities of keeping this unique and valued asset in the region. This is a national treasure, a real asset to the community and we need to do something about keeping it in the shire. Don't forget the next Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award is at the Bega Regional Gallery in 2012. What can we do to keep her Private collection here?