Culture funding is music to our ears

Community groups quids in thanks to council

The latest round of groups hoping to benefit from a £1million fund aimed at boosting Paisley’s creative scene have been named.

Next week, councillors will be asked to approve an £83,130 spend from Renfrewshire’s Culture, Heritage and Events Fund.

This would allow 13 different cultural and charity groups to run various arts-related projects ahead of the town’s UK City of Culture 2021 bid.

The CHE Fund was set up to help unlock Renfrewshire’s creative potential in the run-up to and during the Paisley 2021 bid, increase the number of people involved in cultural activity and show the contribution culture can make to quality of life.

This will be the fourth round of funding since the CHE Fund was set up – and saw 35 applications and a total ask of more than £ 300,000 for the judges to sift through.

Projects recommended for approval include:

 £2,650 to fund a pop-up one-day African film festival in the town

 £5,000 to host the launch of the 2017 Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival in Paisley this October, including an exclusive spoken-word event

 £11,900 to St Matthew’s Church to run a competition to create and screen a series of silent movies as part of the above festival;

 £ 5,000 for Paisley Thread Mill Museum to run an outreach project and oral history programme to capture the memories of mill workers for future generations

 £10,000 to Serious Events Ltd to fund a week-long residency in Paisley for musicians, at which they will develop new work to be toured around the UK

 £9,900 to Erskine Music and Media Studio – recent winners of the 2017 Young Scot Award for Enterprise – to produce an album of local unsigned bands.

There are also smaller grants to local groups for projects including creative writing workshops and traditional music lessons in the community.

The CHE Fund was created last year, with the initial £500,000 investment doubled by Renfrewshire Council this year.

If these grants are rubberstamped by members of the council’s Leadership Board when they meet on Tuesday, it would mean a total of £469,961has been awarded to 65 projects so far.

Some of the projects supported to date include Paisley First’s gable- end art murals now appearing around the town and teenage Kilbarchan animator Morgan Spence’s incredible Paisley 2021 Lego movie, which was viewed by millions of people around the world.

Council leader Iain Nicolson, who is also chairman of the Paisley 2021 partnership board, said: “We know Renfrewshire has a wealth of talent and creativity to call on – and this fund is aimed at helping create a platform for that.

“As with every CHE Fund round to date, the number of applications far exceeded the money available, and the judges had a tough job to whittle down some great applications

Paisley’s bid to be UK City of Culture 2021 was lodged in April.