In my last post, I talked about how collaboration between Glossop’s Creatives had allowed us to submit a significant bid to the Community Renewal fund in record time. We are now 2 months on from submitting that bid, and sadly we were not successful. But for me that is not important.
The substance of the bid
Despite being unsuccessful, the Community Renewal Fund (CRF) bid, which ultimately came in at a little over £1.2m was a piece of work that I was proud to be associated with. It brought together close to 20 high quality proposals from a dozen or so local community organisations, and demonstrated the depth and breadth of the creative talent in the town.
The feedback received from Derbyshire County Council was in general very positive and encouraging, describing the substance of the submission as highly credible and professional.
Ultimately, the bid failed because we were being too ambitious and they were not convinced of our ability to deliver such a substantial programme within the challenging timescales required by the CRF programme. An assessment with which, in the cold light of day, I would struggle to argue!
Why so upbeat about a failed bid?
For me, whether you win or lose a particular “battle” is not that important. What is more important is are you on the right path to achieve your long term goals. The process of putting together the bid definitely took us in the right direction in terms of what we are trying to achieve in the town. It build and strengthened relationships in the creative community and brought forward a number of great ideas that are now poised on the starting blocks, waiting for the resources to take them forward.
It has also developed our relationship with DCC and HPBC in a very positive way.
In addition to the above we learned a lot about the process of applying for and priorities of the grant funding bodies which will help us over the coming months and years when new opportunities arise
On to the future
So where do we go from here? – Our objective is still to build an organic and flexible community of creative individuals and organisations who want to enhance Glossop and the surrounding area by making it a place where creativity is nurtured and allowed to thrive.
Alongside that we want to ensure that the heritage buildings in the town (specifically The Town Hall/Market complex and Victoria Hall) become key assets, used (and maybe run) by the local creative community.
Ultimately our aim is that through all of this we make Glossop a more fun and interesting place to live and work.
How to get involved
To make this a reality, we will need outside help and funding. Amongst other things, working on the CRF bid has raised our ambitions and made us keen to sustain the core paid team we now have in place. In the short term I am sure we will be able to secure resources to achieve this through bids to public funds like the Community Renewal Fund. I am also confident that what we learned from our recent bid to the CRF will lead to successful bids in the future.
But to be sustainable it can not and should not rely solely on grant funding. The vision needs to be owned and driven and yes paid for by the community. Whilst we already have a dedicated community of people helping to make this vision a reality, there is always room for more.
If you want to get involved, or simply want us to keep you updated with what is going on, then become a Member or Supporter of the Glossop Creative Trust. If on the other hand, you run a local business, and would like to support our vision financially, then we have some great sponsorship opportunities, that we would love to talk to you about.