Open letter to the Island and Carnival Supporters

Dear friends - You are no doubt aware that there are due to be massive cuts in the IOW Council budgets in the next few months. This, and the way that adult education will now be funded, or not, means the future of the Carnival Learning Centre is under serious threat.

BUT MAY BE IT IS AN OPPORTUNITY!

If there is sufficient community support there might be a way forward to ensure the survival of the centre and the carnival development programme that is recognised nationally as a best practice model. The bare bones of a plan would entail:-

• Establishing an independent organisation with charitable legal structure, management committee and robust business plan. The Carnival Academy??
• Like minded projects and organisations would need to be based here with a clear understanding of how they can work independently and collectively to develop work both on and off the Island.
• Agreeing an asset transfer arrangement with the Council. The Centre was refurbished and much of the equipment was purchased with external funding. There are caveats within the funding agreement that the building and it’s contents should be retained for arts and learning purposes for a number of years.
• Successfully tendering for contracts from the IOW Council (or whoever will be responsible for delivering adult and community learning) to deliver outcomes for the Skills Funding Agency. These would need to be delivered through activities of the core organisations working from the building.
• Agreeing a three year funding package with the Arts Council. The Arts Council are aware of these early plans and are supportive. They believe there is a considerable legacy to protect.
• Retaining all of the existing contracts with organisations like Art Asia, Youth Music, PUSH, WWLP and developing new ones.

Obviously there is a long way to go in a short space of time. To make this have any chance of becoming a raging success we need to be sure that the carnival community is behind the idea and wants to be an active part of the plan.

As such we are calling an initial meeting so interested parties can contribute to a plan. The above may be it - probably a better one will emerge!

So - if you can contribute, if you have an opinion or an idea, please come to a blue sky meeting at the Carnival Learning Centre on Thursday 2nd December at 7.30 - 8.30. (Frankie and I will buy the mince pies). If you can’t make it, but want to help, support, offer advice please give me a ring or email.

With very best wishes

Chris

Carnival Centre Development Manager
Carnival Learning Centre
Westridge
Brading Road
Ryde
Isle of Wight
PO33 1QS
Tel 01983 817283 | Mob 07976 009040 | Fax 01983 817280

www.thecarnivallearningcentre.org

This entry was posted on 28/11/2010 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Raising Awareness, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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