The Manchester Camerata Trust has launched a campaign to raise £1m before the 40th birthday of the Manchester Camerata chamber orchestra in 2012. The Sostenuto Campaign specifically encourages “extraordinary giving”, asking supporters to make donations of shares, real estate and legacy gifts, which will be held in trust to enable the orchestra to undertake new artistic and educational projects. This campaign builds on the work started by Mission, Models Money, the national action research project which focused on sustainability within the arts. A lead gift of £200,000 was announced at the launch.
The 24 Hour Museum will be changing its name to Culture24 in the New Year. It will offer a wider range of consultancy, training and data sharing opportunities as well as it core websites, which will be relaunched in spring 2008 including a new resource discovery section for teachers. w: http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk; http://www.show.me.uk
Community Arts North West has won a £500,000 Reaching Communities Grant from Big Lottery Fund to support its ground-breaking work with refugees and asylum seekers over the next three years in the Greater Manchester area. The funds will support the development of new grass roots participatory arts projects amongst refugee communities, and generate a range of opportunities for freelance artists and project managers.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, supported by Arts Council England, has launched a film by Dan Williams called Everything Stopped on DVD, documenting the way in which the arts can reach out to young people in difficult circumstances. The film follows the work of Protein Dance during a three-week intensive residency at the Arts Depot in Barnet, working with students from a local Pupil Referral Unit. The DVD is available free of charge. e: dvd@nrassociates.co.uk
AIR (Artists’ Interaction and Representation), the membership scheme for practising visual and applied artists launched in 2006, has created a visual arts-specific and affordable public and products liability scheme, providing up to £5m cover for member artists. The insurance is underwritten by Great Lakes Reinsurance (UK) PLC and provided through an arrangement made by a-n The Artists Information Company on behalf of AIR members with Hencilla Canworth Limited. w: http://www.a-n.co.uk/air_insurance
Culture West Midlands will be hosting an inaugural symposium, ‘Climate Change Is A Cultural Issue’, on 5 December at the Electric Cinema in Birmingham. The event, which will enable discussion on how the cultural sector can help tackle climate change in the region, follows on from a paper, ‘Climate Change and the Cultural Sector in the West Midlands’, written by climate expert, Professor John Thornes. To register, contact Sam Stephens. e: s.stephens@culturewm.org.uk
A project jointly run by University College London, the V&A Theatre Collections and the Arts and Humanities Research Council is examining the purposes and uses of archives documenting the performing artsin the UK. ArtsProfessional readers can have their say by completing the survey by 21 December. w: http://opinio.ucl.ac.uk/s?s=perfarchives&i=16483&k=mhpd&ro=
The MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) has announced a new strategy to avoid duplication and waste, aiming to reduce its costs by 25%. It awaits treasury approval to transfer MLA corporate services to Birmingham, and plans further consultation with staff. The Board has also agreed to reshape the MLA Council to foster more flexible and strategic working.
The Liverpool Culture Company and Merseytravel are giving out free information packs to the city’s hackney cab drivers to equip them for the European Capital of Culture celebrations. The packs include a special quiz of 50 questions to test taxi drivers’ knowledge of Liverpool’s history, heritage and culture. More than 500 hackney cab drivers have taken the Culture Company’s ‘welcome’ training course.