STATEMENT FOR AUDIENCES AND PARTNERS IN NEWHAM:
Announcing a New Joint Cultural and Community Action Programme at Centre@270 Trust
Centre @270 Trust
In association with Ramgharia Gurdwara, Newham and Kalwant Ajimal Associates Ltd and The Centre @270 Trust (under incorporation). Ramgharia Gurdwara is the owner of all programmes to be carried out under the auspices of the Centre @270 Trust, as the programme sponsor and patron until the Centre is able to run its operations following incorporation.
Background
Kalwant Ajimal of Mirador Culture carried out for Newham Council in 2006/07 when Peter Appleton was Head of Culture at the council. As an integral part of a review, Kalwant Ajimal had highlighted a number of new diversity projects and also put forward proposals for ‘mainstreaming’[1] new work at the Centre at 270 Neville Road.
Action
During the next 4-5 months, Kalwant Ajimal will be launching and embedding the Culture@270 programme at 270 Neville Road. The Trustees of Ramgarhia Gurdwara at Neville Road have approved the work programme and investment in collaboration with local organisations and individuals has been agreed. The Centre is expected to assume full control of the work programme in borough in the long term as its own working committees and programme teams are able to develop action for local delivery.
Asian Arts Access has run a large number of successful arts events and productions, always in conjunction with leading artists and partners, with Kalwant Ajimal acting as ‘executive producer’. Please see www.asianartsaccess.org for some of the background. However, for work at Centre@270 Programme to be successful, a great deal of new work will need to be generated to reflect local needs and the policy priorities of the Newham Council.
The feasibility study for Newham Council, referred to above, outlined the following work to be developed in Newham for presentation to local audiences:
- Drumbeat- An International Festival of Percussion to be connected with Newham Bhangra Explosion
- The East London River Festival
- A Festival of Ephemeral Arts (www.ephemeralarts.com)
- Masks with Meaning- new work under development by Asian Arts Access is to form the basis for an application to run the project at the Centre.
In addition, Asian Arts Access has been in consultation with Screen South, the southern region screen agency of the Film Council, UK. It is felt that most of this work is also transferrable to East London, with policies to reflect the needs of London film funding priorities.
Developing a Portfolio of Work for Culture@270 programme, and other projects.
The Centre@270 Trust expects to operate a series of initiatives. As indicated above, the name of the organisation responsible for effective management and utilisation of the premises and facilities shall be The Centre@270 Trust Limited (with the title ‘Limited’ dropped from the name by permission of registrars at Companies House).
The individual programmes of the centre may have generic names such as those listed below to create a uniform identity in order to achieve benefits of branding the services and the outputs of the Centre. Examples are:
- Culture@270 programme, a uniform logo shown below
- Communities@270 programme
- Youth @270 programme
- Learning and Skills@270 Programme, and so on.
- Care for the elderly, to be summarised as Care@270 programme
- Action for engagement of women, to be presented as Women@270 Programme, with women to be involved in the development and leadership of the programme.
The Use of Logos and the branding of events:
It is proposed that marketing labels and logos shall be consistently used to enhance the recognition of the programmes of the Centre and highlight the ownership of the projects by the Centre.
Only the programmes originated, managed and controlled by the Centre@270 Trust shall be entitled to use the following generic logotypes, for example:
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Culture@270 |
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Communities@270 |
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Youth@270 |
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Care@270
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Leisure@270 |
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Women@270 |
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Skills @270 |
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Conferences@270
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These generic logos will also appear on all marketing and promotional leaflets, banners, advertising and Press Releases as well as any newsletters, publications and reports developed by the Centre. Collaboration with local media will be a key feature of the work programme and approaches are to be made to local newspapers.
Culture@270 will be developing new work in conjunction with local partners in East London and Newham Council. In the first year, starting October 2009, some of the work will be brought in for delivery at the Centre at 270 to ensure that successful work of high quality is immediately available to create access to local partners. At the same time, Culture@270 will seek to develop its own proposals for developing and delivering new cultural product. References have been made to the work of Jugnu Bhangra Company, based in Gravesend, Kent.
It is proposed that the Culture@270 should invest in the development of ‘Newham Bhangra Explosion’, a new version of Jugnu’s work for East London, noting that bhangra is now also well entrenched into the work of many Bangladeshi groups. The presence of young men and women will also enhance the production and delivery of bhangra work for Newham producers and audiences.
Further proposals for work programming should also await consultation with local artists and partners. However, it is well known that generating work of high quality needs extensive investment of time and funding.
- Asian Arts Access is in a unique position where at least one of its festivals, that is, Ephemeral Arts Festivals is ready for transfer to East London markets and for joint development for local collaborations. It is proposed that communities, artists, schools and all cultural delivery services of Newham Council should be invited to work with Centre@270 and to launch new offshoots of the Ephemeral Arts programme as far as possible. It has already added new material on its blog, which is located at http://miradorculture.wordpress.com This site was first created in 2006, signifying early interest by Mirador Culture to work in London Boroughs.
- Newham based artists, communities and service agencies will be actively engaged in the delivery of the new projects. A note of copyrights is presented below.
Aims
The aims of this collaborative programme are:
To foster the development of new cultural work at Culture@270, the site of 270 Neville Road is a property of Ramgharia Gurdwara, Newham. Proposals for extensive refurbishment and upgrading of the premises are to be announced.
To launch the five initial work programmes of the Centre @270 based on collaboration with Newham Council, local artists and communities to create an operational centre of excellence
To work in collaboration with Asian Arts Access, which will a) Generate new work and aim to develop local collaborations and b) Create new programme collaborations.
Owing to the economics of programme development and the long time during which collaborations are normally productive, this programme is initially projected to be held between 1st September 2009 and December 2012. However, the role of the collaboration in the 2012 Olympics and its legacy would extend the arrangements subject to confirmation.
Additional Information to Confirm Accountability and Probity of funding options:
Programme Management Board:
| SARUP SINGH KALSI, Chairman Chairman of the Board of TrusteesRamgharia Gurdwara, Newham | KEWAL SINGH CHANA, Trustee Trustee of theRamgharia Gurdwara, Newham | ||||
| SUKHDEV SINGH MARWA, Trustee | |||||
| Chairman of the Management CommitteeRamgharia Gurdwara, Newham | TARSEM SINGH BHOGAL, Trustee Trustee of theRamgarhia Gurdwara, Newham | ||||
| KALWANT SINGH AJIMAL | |||||
| Programme DirectorFor and on Behalf of K. Ajimal Associates Limited | |||||
Outline of Proposed Organisation Structure
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Copyrights and Intellectual Ownership of work:
Asian Arts Access will of course retain rights to all intellectual copyright in keeping with standard provisions that apply to the ownership of generic creative work. However, the intention is to maximise opportunities for local organisations in Newham and to help to create new ones or to help with the consolidation of their work programmes.
Contacts:
The Centre@270 Trust is now being incorporated and its own email contacts and address details are to be released soon. In the meantime, information on the policies and work programmes may be obtained from:
Kalwant Ajimal FRSA, Programme Director, The Centre@270 Trust, Email: kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com
Mobile: 07973 168331
[1] Mainstreaming refers to making culturally diverse work accessible to mainstream markets. This work is now being carried out by ‘Mirador Culture’ and ‘Mirador Creative Economics’, two programmes created by Kalwant Ajimal to offer the work of Asian Arts Access to mainstream markets. ‘Mirador Community Futures’ is another service run by Kalwant Ajimal to provide inputs into community development programmes in conjunction with various partners and clients.
