Five Scottish communities are celebrating awards, totalling £380,000, in recognition of being one of the country's most creative places.
The Creative Place Awards celebrate and recognise the hard work and imagination that contributes to the rich cultural life of a community, as well as its social and economic well-being. The Awards are part of the Year of Creative Scotland 2012, a year-long celebration of our nation’s cultural and creative strengths.
Wigtown received £50,000 in the category for places with fewer than 2,500 residents. The runners up were Creetown and Kilmartin Glen.
Each year over 15,000 people flock to Wigtown for its hugely successful Book Festival, the award will allow this to be developed into a year-round programme - including a residential creative writing course and a high-profile Wigtown Lecture.
West Kilbride received £100,000 in the category for places with fewer than 10,000 residents. The runners up were Huntly and Prestonpans.
The award will allow Craft Town Scotland, a community initiative, to develop a new series of exhibitions for The Barony Centre and develop new programmes to involve younger, and older, members of the community in their creative programme.
St Andrews received £150,000 in the category for places with fewer than 100,000 residents. The runners up were Irvine and Perth.
St Andrews will be hosting its own Year of Celebration in 2012 and the award will allow the town to promote its already rich cultural programme to the UK and international visitors and to support a new community musical theatre production as the year’s centre piece production.
In addition, the judges made two Special Awards of £40,000 to Creetown and Huntly who impressed with their long-standing creative programmes which involve the whole community. Creetown won a Special Award for community engagement and high levels of participation in quality arts and creativity.
Huntly received a Special Award for its creative use of artists. Huntly has re-branded the town through the use of arts; many of its projects have been led by top international artists.
MB 25/1/2012 (Based on a Creative Scotland Press Release)
For further information about West Kilbride and the Barony Centre, please follow this LINK
The Protecting Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007 is now in force, with a new membership scheme for people who work with children and protected adults. This replaces the disclosure arrangements for people whose post requires an enhanced disclosure to them to work with children and other vulnerable groups..
The Scottish Government has published Creating Safety,
child protection guidelines for Scotland's arts, screen and creative industries. This publication
provides guidance on child protection for individuals and organisations involved in offering artistic, cultural and creative projects for children and young people in Scotland.
The guidelines are available to assist individual freelancers, working with children, or a small, medium or large-sized organisations or companies employing staff and volunteers to work with children. The work may be a once-off activity, or a project that will run indefinitely. Whatever the context, the overall aim will be to create the safest possible environment for children, where they can feel safe and comfortable, are treated equitably and with respect, and where they are given freedom to have fun and develop their independence and creativity.
Creating Safety (2011) has been revised and updated since it was last published in 2004 to reflect important changes in legislation and policy. This version includes the new National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland, and Disclosure Scotland and the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme. It also takes account of changes in approaches to child protection over recent years, which have evolved to ensure that focus on minimising risk does not mean that children miss out on enjoying the healthy range of opportunities that are so important for their development.
Creating Safety has been produced as joint project between Children in Scotland and Creative Scotland.