Plan B?

So, it looks as though "The Temple" has finally been 'lost' to some Chinese restaurateurs! [though I won't get official confirmation for a couple of days]. What could have been a dynamic centre for art, creative professional career development, culture, comunity enterprise and diverse activities will be a giant Chinese restaurant and karaoke bar!

It has been a long haul against implacable resistance and I realised a while back that there was much more I could have done... but I'm not good a schmoozing! I don't know anyone worth sidling up to anyway- well, certainly not up here and it has been hard representing people who were too scared to stand up when they needed to be counted. I'm pretty sure I would have got further if I had gone a-empire-building, but it really isn't my style. I feel more comfortable in a creative democracy than a dictatorship even if I'm in charge! I like people who get passionate about stuff like I do- even if its about different stuff to me, just as long as I can see that there are things that excite them. 

"But these are not times to be exciting!"

"We're in a recession you know! Arts budgets are being cut, jobs lost, belts tightened etc etc..."

I hear this stuff and because I understand them I think this is exactly the moment for the voluntary sector in particular to step up!

I didn't 'buy' the "Big Society" con for a moment. I saw it as "Small government" tweaked. It is immoral to prop up financial institutions at the expense of public services. Imagine what the £595billion used to bail-out UK banks could have done to the voluntary sector... Imagine the facilities and the jobs and the services that could be happening RIGHT NOW! Imagine the sustainable contributions that could be being made by community sector organisations everywhere in this country as a result of that investment, think of the organisations who could be taking over traditionally council delivered services and returning additional benefits for less expense... Well I can!... Instead the voluntary and community sectors are being carved up like sacrificial lambs as we're told its for the good of the country. I don't believe it! I don't see it! 

If the surviving voluntary and community sector organisations aren't VERY careful, the hole into which they're gently being lowered will get so deep they'll never get out of it. THIS is the moment for radical ideas like REAL collaboration between organisations. This is the moment to stop hoarding resources -especially information and working together. This is the moment to realise that the minorities working together can be formidable- sometimes even the majority. This is not the moment to be reigning in- which is nothing like saying there should be a frenzied free-for all...

I look at and have been studying some truly disastrous capital projects in the community arts sector in the last ten or so years. Over and again there is a point in the development where 'assumptions' were made in stead of stringent checks only in the end for disaster to ensue. England is littered with cultural capital projects that simply don't work: they cost huge amounts, attract tiny audiences, make almost no money and require constant cash infusions to keep them breathing-often at the expense at anything new that's innovative and enterprising.

So, there may end up being no Temple... but 'Plan B' has been simmering for a while: It is MUCH bigger, more expensive, but ironically... it may just be more profitable too.

"Success is the best revenge"

So, "once more unto the breach" etc!