Harnessing and Enabling Community Enterprises

Orla Flynn Head of CIT Crawford College of Art & Design

November 2012

Introduction

• Help us achieve a best practice!• The Medi@tic project will enable digital

materials to be accessible to all citizens.• Has potential to create new employment

opportunities in the region.• Specific interest in voluntary, community-

based activities in the Cork region.

Community-based Initiatives

• Engage with and/or utilise audio visual tools;• Are typically managed and run by volunteers

and community workers;• Have some support from City Council;• Typically have little engagement with private

sector;

Cork Regional Film Archive

• Established in 2007 as a voluntary organisation for the purpose of providing the citizens of Cork with an archive of the moving image.

• Grew from the work of a community group which established the Cork Youth International Film, Video and Arts Festival, over 30 years ago, running workshops and classes on film-making for young people.

Cork Regional Film Archive

Cork Regional Film Archive

Cork Regional Film Archive

Cork Regional Film Archive

Cork Regional Film Archive

Challenges

• Preserve the films made by the participants;• Provide a platform for making the materials

available to the wider public;• Provide links to other organisations such as

educational institutions or private companies, to whom such footage would be of interest;

• Utilise the material to stimulate tourism and international interest in the region.

Objective

• To digitise and archive the existing film collection and to provide a platform for interacting with the collection.

But …

• How best to acquire funding to enable this to happen?

• How best to manage the project?• How best to harness the various stakeholders

e.g. city council, museums, voluntary sector, educational organisation and private sector to ensure shared vision and delivery?

• How best to ensure the growth and sustainability of the project?

Cork Northside Folklore Project

• Grew from designation of Cork as City of Culture 2005

• A research project from the Department of Folklore and Heritage at University College Cork

• Memory Map project – gathering oral testimonies from people about the places in which they lived and grew up.

Cork Northside Folklore Project

Cork Film Festival

• The 57th annual Corona Cork Film Festival will be held from November 11th to 18th.

• (http://www.corkfilmfest.org) • How to link the festival with events in schools

and private industries?• Development of a fringe festival?• Generating start-ups and employment?

Corona Cork Film Festival

Cork Community Television

• CCTv established in 2007 (http://www.corkcommunitytv.ie/)

• Aim is to enable communities to make, manage and broadcast television programming to reflect the interests, activities and concerns of these communities, in order to effect positive social change.

• Some funding, but mostly VOLUNTARY!

Cork Community Television

Potential

• Public engagement from a young age with digital media – and film/video in particular;

• Easier pathways to third level education in digital media-related areas;

• Improved job creation/employment possibilities via the creative industries;

• Sharing rich cultural heritage with visitors to the area.

Challenges and Questions

• Commercial engagement critical to ensure sustainability.

• Do these voluntary socially-based activities take place in other regions?

• How are they funded?• How do they interact with each other and

with commercial (private) sector?

Return to Core Aims and Objectives

• Preserve the digital artefacts developed/ gathered/made by the participants, many of whom are voluntary and community-based;

• Provide a platform for making the artefacts available to the wider public;

• Provide links to other organisations such as educational institutions or private companies, to whom such artefacts would be of interest;

• Utilise the artefacts to stimulate tourism and international interest in the region.

Transferability

• All regions have active communities, with volunteers engaged with social practices through arts, sport etc.

• In Cork we are particularly interested in hearing how other regions have possibly already harnessed these synergies to good advantage.

THANK YOU!