All Culture is Local

Front matter

THE

CAMRA

TOOLKIT

Foreword

Local Government NSW

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Local Government NSW is pleased to partner with the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney, on The CAMRA Project Toolkit.

This collection of case studies details NSW councils’ cultural activities and highlights the significant inroads councils are making in the areas

of cultural policy planning and implementation, and data collection.

NSW councils are involved in myriad community cultural activities — from ‘what’s on’ newsletters to developing and running community-based

arts precincts — and this toolkit demonstrates their contribution to local development and community wellbeing.

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Central to many of these cultural case studies is a keen sense of ‘place’. These examples reveal the ways in which policy and strategies, developed in consultation with the community, can produce initiatives that are locally meaningful and meld arts and culture into communities.

Written in accessible language and full of practical advice, the CAMRA Toolkit will be extremely useful for councils and their communities across Australia.

Janice Summerhayes Chair, Regional Arts NSW

Director of Environmental and Community Services, Wagga Wagga City Council

The ‘All Culture is Local’ Toolkit, and the wider CAMRA project generally, is a welcome demonstration of the sort of communal narrative that needs to be occurring more often across rural and regional communities in Australia and their representative bodies. This collaborative and inclusive exchange of facts and ideas ensures that muchneeded skills and knowledge held

by local councils and regional arts bodies can be shared and built upon. This sort of capacity building is both innovative and pragmatic.

As many regional areas of Australia adapt and change traditional agricultural production to a variety of functions and resources, there

is an increased need for the arts and cultural industries to be part of mainstream consideration within the fields of regional development and planning.

Of key interest to Regional Arts NSW in reading and reflecting upon these case studies is the way in which they contribute to a greater understanding of the interrelationship between cultural industries and regional development. As the peak body for 14 regional arts boards across the state, and a leading member of Regional Arts Australia, we are deeply interested in the ways in which networks and partnerships can help to maximise capacities and resources, and how the Regional Arts Development Officers can be conduits for knowledge transfer as well as the means by which bridges can be built between local stakeholders, regional tourism, economic development agencies and community well-being initiatives.

It is heartening to read of the ways

in which locally-based activities

are increasing their impact through ‘levelling up’: Victorian Opera fruitfully collaborating with Urana Shire,

for example, or Arts North West developing, in consultation with their constituency, an arts policy template for use by local governments and their communities.

Underpinning our work are the values of cooperation, collaboration and partnerships — values which marry wonderfully with the stories and efforts contained in this Toolkit.

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UTS ePRESS

The CAMRA Toolkit is published by UTSePress The url for this publication is http://hdl.handle.net/10453/24007

© 2013 in the collection, CAMRA Project © 2013 individual contributions, author/s

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of study, research, criticism, review or as otherwise permitted under the Copyright Act no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to CAMRA Project, UTS Shopfront, PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007.

ISBN: 978-1-86365-433-3 Toolkit design by Nicky Hardcastle

This toolkit was developed with the support of the following people and organisations:

<: BD oc cnoptront working with the community

UTS: Library

(Local Government NSW);

Mal Booth (UTS Library); Alex Byrne (State Library of NSW); Mary Darwell and Greg Kenny (Arts NSW);

Pauline O’Loughlin and Rosie Catalano (UTS Shopfront); and Elizabeth Rogers and Estelle Pigot (Regional Arts NSW).

Introduction 02 SECTION ONE SECTION TWO CULTURAL MAPPING CULTURAL PLANNING

AND DATA COLLECTION

1 Central Darling Shire and Uralla Shire 10 North West NSW Asking a Local Making It Your Own Lisa Andersen 06 Fane Kreis 62 @® Eurobodalla Shire @ Urana Shire Council as Information Broker Making the Most of Every Opportunity Monika McInerney 14 Dave Fahey 68 @ Central West NSW T2 Coolamon Shire Gathering to Grow Keeping Up-to-Date Maryanne Jaques and Tracey Callinan 20 Tony Donoghue 76 @ Wingecarribee Shire 43 Cootamundra Shire ArtsInfo Newsletter A Playing Field For Arts Jenny Kena 26 Isabel Scott 82 © City of Wagga Wagga 14 Tamworth Regional Council Faces of Ashmont Giving Patience a Structure Scott Howie 30 Meg Larkin, Bruce Mercer and Petria Jukes 88 © Albury City 15 Clarence Valley Council, Ku-ring-gai Council SpeakOut and Auburn City Council Jacqui Hemsley and Narelle Vogel 37 Embedding Planning Skills Sue Boaden 94 Wollongong City Council © Pimp My Bile X 16 Penrith City Council Andrews Warren 42 Making Squeaky Wheels Jeni Pollard, Heather Chaffey and Cali Vandyk-Dunlevy 98 (8) Wollongong City Council The Cool, Creative Mapping Lounge oo : Chris Gibson and Chris Brennan-Horley 48 17 Darebin City Council Accessible from the Outset Craig Rogers 106 @ Penrith City Council Dreaming Up a Park , Jeni Pollard, Heather Chaffey Image credits 112 and Cali Vandyk-Dunlevy 54 contents l

Introduction

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The CAMRA Toolkit is an outcome from a five year Australian Research Council funded research project. Over this time four universities, four local governments, and peak regional, state and federal agencies sought to develop knowledge that would enable better informed planning for arts and cultural development in rural and regional communities.

Twenty per cent of public investment in cultural activity in Australia comes from local government. However, over the course of the CAMRA Project, it became strongly evident that what is missing for many local governments is place-specific knowledge to inform planning. At the same time, many local government staff and cultural decision makers are keen to learn from others. This Toolkit is CAMRA’s response to that need.

The CAMRA research was located in regional New South Wales. So locating the case studies — with one exception — in this state was a deliberate editorial choice based on our networks and knowledge of good practice with

our two key industry partners, Local Government NSW and Regional

Arts NSW. The case studies have been written with the aim of making ideas and processes transferrable for any regional local authority with the resource implications made clear. We make no claim to be comprehensive in our selection of ‘good practice’; although our choices were considered and you will find no ‘romantic case studies’ here. This collection forms a start for further information sharing and development of good practice.

Good data makes good planning,

so this Toolkit has two sections:

(1) Cultural Mapping and Data Collection, and (2) Cultural Planning. Case studies are ordered (with a corresponding colour label) using Australian Standard Geographical Classification-Remoteness Areas for local government area, by:

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The case studies in Section One repeatedly demonstrate a number of elements to good practice. They are:

— Re-use existing data to save money

— Use creative engagement processes and you'll get better results

— Include everyone — not just the ‘usual suspects’ (you probably already know what they’re going to say as they said it last time) or the loudest voices

— Use internal Council research expertise for data management and analysis, and work with the cultural sector to share and use findings

— Broaden your understanding of what is local, vernacular creativity in defining creative industries for your area

— Level up — work collaboratively on win-win data solutions at regional, state and federal levels to share expertise and save money

The lessons here are to start with the data that already exists — whether that is an Australian Bureau of Statistics data set or eight years of data from your local arts newsletter.

If you are going to collect new data look to partnering, take risks, change the conversation and listen broadly. People enjoying creative engagement methods will naturally talk about their creativity and local cultural strengths. So don’t be restricted by ‘top-down’ ‘tick box’ categories of arts and cultural practice. Finally, have a plan for how the data you collect will be embedded and used in whole-of-council planning.

Case studies on cultural planning

in Section Two also emphasise the importance of levelling up — working with consultants in mentoring capacities, forming long term relationships with experts from ‘away’ and using external ideas, processes and templates to develop your plan. But the context of place is critical. Each place has its own strengths

for a plan to respond to. But three things are certain in regional Australia: nothing happens quickly, community cultural activity is volunteer-led

and driven and creative industry operates on the periphery — with a disproportionately small share of markets, knowledge and technology. So the aim of local government cultural planning should include:

— engaging the community to set the next long-term goals and (in Meg Larkin’s words) ‘giving patience a structure’

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— enabling volunteer-led actions and structures and

— facilitating ‘access’ both for the community and local, professional creative industries

Some issues seem too hard to

tackle head-on in planning — where do you start? But a cultural plan is

an aspirational document that tells outsiders a great deal about your community and each successive plan measures the journey travelled. When scoping content for this Toolkit, we hoped to showcase an example of good planning practice for disability access and inclusion. This was hard to find until Accessible Arts introduced us to Darebin City Council’s earnest, whole-of-council approach. It seems appropriate that the Toolkit ends with this case study (which is also the only one not located in NSW).

Universal outcomes for each local government included skilled up, engaged and connected staff, and enhanced relationships with the community. Finally, the common feature of all is practice that is democratic and underpinned by respect for the expertise of the local community.

Enjoy the Toolkit; we enjoyed working with the authors to tell their story and thank them for their generosity. While each case study is place-focused, the ‘recipes’ are written to be transferrable - do try this at home!

INTRODUCTION 3 or

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CULTURAL MAPPING & DATA COLLECTION

CASE STUDIES

01 Central Darling Shire & Uralla Shire 02 Eurobodalla Shire

03 Central West NSW

04 Wingecarribee Shire

05 City of Wagga Wagga 06 AlburyCity Council

07 Wollongong City Council 08 Wollongong City Council

09 Penrith City Council

CASE STUDY 01 Central Darling Shire & Uralla Shire

Lisa Andersen was Senior Researcher-on the GAMRA Project.andis Community Engagement Coordinator at the University-of Technology, Sydney

Lisa.Andersen@uts.edu.au

Who better to tell you about what’s local and special than local people? This case study looks at how the University of Technology, Sydney, worked with Central Darling Shire and Uralla Shire on research to engage local residents in both articulating what cultural assets are most important to them, and mapping local cultural industries. What’s a cultural asset, you ask? Read on...

Asking A Local mapping cultural assets with

In every community there are cultural assets that have shared value and contribute to the imagination, happiness, pride, social connections and dreaming of that unique place.

Cultural assets may be concrete things like McCrossins Mill in Uralla — with its unique collection of local heritage and arts — or incorporeal, like the ghost story set around

one particular River Red Gum on the banks of the Darling River in Wilcannia, or a joke enjoyed in Ivanhoe with its one sealed approach road (Visitor: ‘What’s the best way to get to Broken Hill?’ Local: ‘Are residents you driving?’ Visitor: ‘Yes’. Local: “That’s the best way’.)

They may be native — like the leopardwood that grows in the stony hills and sand plains of far western NSW and is used in traditional Barkindji carved work of artists like Waddy Harris, or the red berries

of the Sea-Berry Saltbush from the same area used as dye or in artworks — or they may be introduced from ‘away;’ like the fine wool farmed from sheep in Uralla Shire only

or cinematographer and brewer Stephen Dobson, who moved to the village of Kentucky to run Eastview Estate Winery, stage music events and film local places that fascinate him.

CENTRAL DARLING SHIRE

Size 53,000 km? (largest local government area in NSW)

Remoteness Very remote/ remote

Location Far Western NSW

Population 1,991 1 person per 26.6km?

Centres Towns of Ivanhoe, Menindee, Wilcannia and White Cliffs and localities of Darnick, Mossgiel, Sunset Strip and Tilpa

Industry Pastoral (grazing properties account for 96 per cent of the area) and mining

Demographics Home of Barkindji and Ngiyaampaa people; Indigenous people make up 38 per cent of residents; the average Indigenous age is a young 23.6 years. Unemployment rate is 10 per cent

URALLA SHIRE

Location New England Northern Tablelands of NSW

Centres Town of Uralla, localities include Bundarra, Yarrowyck, and Kingstown, Kentucky and Wollun

Key assets twenty national parks within a two hour drive; McCrossins Mill volunteer-run museum, arts and community centre; Uralla Library

Demographics Indigenous population is 5.8 per cent, more than double national average

Cultural assets may be a skill or knowledge, like Ngiyaampaa Elder Beryl Carmichael’s understanding of techniques with thrown wooden hunting weapons, or her reading

of impending weather patterns

in the growth behaviour of local flora. Or climatic: locals and visitors make special trips to see Autumn at Gostwyck Chapel (also a popular film location), while a still atmosphere and clear, dark skies make Ivanhoe a top location for amateur astronomers. They may be natural sites — like Uralla’s Mount Mitchell with its totem, the echidna, that inspires local artists and bushwalkers — or human-made, like the traditional Christmas plum pudding recipe made annually by women from the Menindee Country Women’s Association to raise money for charity.

During the CAMRA Project we worked on developing research methods and tools to map local cultural assets and cultural industries. The great challenge of this research was to ask the right questions in the right way; and this case study focuses on what we learned about the asking.

In my experience, it is difficult to get people who are not-artists from non-metropolitan areas to ‘open up’ about arts and creativity — particularly to a stranger-researcher who’s asking them to fill something in, speak into a recorder or sign a consent form.

Often they will demur (‘I’m not arty, I wouldn’t be able to say anything about that’) or not connect with

the topic (‘I’m just not into that stuff’). This may be because they feel insecure talking about their own experiences of creativity, and also because talking about ‘Art with a capital A’ is intimidating and outside their comfort zone. Many people in rural areas (and men in particular) equate the terms ‘arts’ and ‘culture’ with ‘high’ or ‘heritage’.