At Last!
My ex phoned on Sunday, we tend to exchange calls around our birthdays, his was recent. I found out he'd been reading this blog which was a surprise. I'm fascinated that anyone finds these musings of interest. I am aware that it is in a public domain but I write it for me. He'd got an alert about the blog during my Featherstone gathering from google plus apparently. He's a former prominent member of the group that in many ways led the way for the Faeries etc but they've been mired in 'organisational stuff' for as long as I can remember and seem to be stuck in many ways. A prominent member characterised it in a Facebook post as "I don't want to retire to Broadstairs!" -because they're an ageing group with a deeply conservative (small c... mostly) streak. I think I've said before that a "love child" of the two groups might be perfection... for some at least lol. That's the thing about "building community": heaven to one is hell for another. One of the things I appreciate about the Faeries is that they find it easier to accept difference: for me ECC IS its rules- dogma even. My experience has been that the vibrant diversity that made me fall in love with the organisation was firmly beaten out of it by a brigade of older "tutters" confident in their displays of disdain for (comparative) young'uns cavorting through the woods at night on assorted organic stimulants or "blasting" music all day and generally not having the prescribed "holistic" experience. Fifteen years after I stopped participating over an over-reaction to publicity, they're STILL talking about attracting younger bods. But why would younger people particularly want to join such an entrenched group of oldies? I also found out that the money I thought they had in trust is a LOT less than I'd been led to believe. -Still enough for a substantial down-payment on a care home! I am still amazed nobody has created a queer care home here and I think ECC might be a good group to start one. I was thinking about some of the older Faeries who simply won't be with us for that much longer and it breaks my heart to think of them not surrounded by people who care for them when they go. Hell!: I'm not THAT far off those considerations myself!
So, I submitted the papers for the Expression of Interest on the building where I used to work. I hope it will be OK. To get a "yes" on this would be amazing: it would give CHN the chance to reclaim a couple of strategic development projects that were dropped by their risk averse Trustees since 2011. Intercultural Arts was an agency supporting and promoting creative professionals from minority ethnic communities to raise their profiles with the "mainstream" venues and to find them new audiences. The name was my idea and I like it, it was a pathetic talking shop for African and Asian (male) elders when I got hold of it and had a cumbersome name that made a horrible acronym. I claim credit for what it became, but if there is even a micron of resistance to me reclaiming it I'll rename it something provocative like "The North East Black List". There is also the possibility of resurrecting North East Sustained Theatre,developing the regional LGBT archive project we delivered last year, providing space and support for several creative groups and supporting a group of local residents to run a community cafe. All we'll need is space that we can manage without the interference of a group of people more interested in their own social standing and image than in the delivery of the principles they claim to be championing.
With the EOI out of the way there's no excuse but to work up my back-up plan of applying for state assistance and for jobs. I've paid my taxes; why not benefit from them?! I've got an appointment today and know that if I don't take charge of the situation like the manager I am, they will have me applying for toilet attendant jobs or lose what subsidy they finally give me. So I will take the list of jobs I've short-listed for myself and for which I have started to draft outline applications, although in all honesty, none of them excite me in the least. I'm really hoping I can get some independent stuff going through CHN just to avoid having to report to yet another set of risk-averse posers with no imagination. It would be fantastic- just for once to be able to see a set of ideas through to their logical conclusions without some Trustee getting hysterical because its "too big" or "too fast" or in truth they never believed that what was being created was actually possible but it was useful for them to be SEEN to be on a Board to serve their social or political advancement.
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