My pART in the project

Fantastic News for Sittingbourne - Litter Angels and The Sittingbourne Retail Association have been awarded £35,000 from the Governments High Street Innovation Fund to help bring vibrancy and interest back into Sittingbourne High Street.

I have been hard working with Nick Smith - the SRA Chair for the past 2 months writing and rewriting the bid to get it right. So we are very excited that at last we can tell everyone.

I just wanted to explain abit more about my pART in the project and what it means to us all. 

ALOT - there thats over. 

What we do need is loads of help on this project - Litter Angels (my pART) will be involved with getting hold of an empty shop and turning it into a creative hub! by JUNE!!!
  
There will be an exhibition space, a selling space, a workshop space, and an office space for the event co-ordinator (me)and an information space to promote all events and happenings here in Sittingbourne/Swale.

Exhibitions will be seasonally themed July/August=Summer, September/October=Autumn,  November/December =Winter

Workshops will be themed: Green(Eco) month, Poets month, Music month, Photographic month, Painting month, Christmas Decoration month

LA Workshops £5 for 2 hours - Thursday 10.30-12.30 Adults, Saturday 2-4pm 7-15yr. 

There will be Litter picking activities around the town.

Artists days can include drawing evenings, street music, SRA and SAF meeting areas. Special exhibition area in addition to shop space, knit and knatter, stitch and bitch, music days and performance days, Artists talks, film workshops, promoting and developing local talent, Competitions, Big Draw, Love your Parks week, Love where you live. Whatever you want to promote - just volunteer.

Exhibiting and showcasing your work 

Swale Arts Forum paid up members will get preferential treatment and rates = £10 for 3 pieces of "art" for 2 months - if you are selling small jewellery etc it will be 20 pieces for £10 for 2 months. We take 1/5th commission. You will also be asked to sign an artists agreement. The shop will not be insured for contents. so all work will be left at the artist own risk.

Non members £25 to hang and 1/3 commission (2 months)

All artists must have Public Liability.

All workshop artist must have CRB checks this is a free space if you charge the public we will take 1/5th commission.

All work must be picked up after 2 months - we will have no storage space.

Musician and poets will not be charged to perform

We hope to be doing street entertainment but are looking into that further.

We are looking for old Shelves/Units for display that can be painted up for the shop.

But the most important thing is this shop is for 6 months - We need lots of volunteers.

We can offer no money but tea and coffee and the opportunity for you to promote you own work and really get to know your community. We are looking for people with passion and commitment. Who want to show how amazing we are here in Sunny Swale to encourage others to get involved in the arts to explain what ART is, make it accessible and FUN. I believe with my very soul that art can be centered in the heart of a community. It can do a massive amount of good, get hard hitting messages across and not be arrogant or high minded but touch peoples lives in a small and meaningful manner. I want that for my area - please join me. 

We will be having loads of meetings to get this up and running so keep an eye in the papers and facebook. See you all in Sittingbourne High Street this summer and Thank you