Please come and join us for our AGM on Tuesday 27th October!

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8^th August, 2022

During lockdown we knew we weren’t going to be in the building for a while, so we began to think about an update to our brand and eventually our website. It was the perfect opportunity to begin to develop our digital offering here at WHALE Arts. Fast forward to 2022 and the rebrand is ready to launch and has become especially timely because it’s our 30^th Birthday this month – perfect to launch a new logo and an updated new look to mark the occasion of a most important birthday!

In 2020 Leah Black, our CEO, successfully applied for the Brand for Growth programme, run specifically for charities in Scotland. Brand for Growth is a competitive programme aimed at social enterprises with strong growth and high impact potential who can bring something to the table themselves. The programme is being delivered by Bold, who are based in Glasgow and part of the Community Enterprise family. Learn more about Bold Studio HERE

When we were developing ideas for the rebrand with Bold, we took a broad collaborative approach. Staff and board we included, but we also ensured that WHALE Arts members had a strong input and the design team at Bold said it was the broadest collaborative process they have been part of.

‘Of all the rebrands we have done, working with WHALE Arts was the most extensive community consultation we’ve ever experienced.’
– Doug Summers, Creative Director at Bold Studio

We decided it was important to retain the image of a whale and the designer has gone for a brush stroke effect with we think is very Zen and fits with the arts and crafts we do here at WHALE Arts. It’s also charming to have an emblem of one of the largest mammals on the planet representing us, as it’s such a peaceful, musical, gentle and kind creature.

We hope you enjoy!

4^th August 2022

Leah Black, who has been our Chief Executive for almost 4.5 years is embarking on a new project and will be going on a 12-month secondment from 15^th August 2022. Leah will be seconded to Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council (EVOC) to test some of her emerging ideas around long-term and unrestricted funding. Many working in the third sector understand well some of the challenges around short-term restricted funding. The idea behind this project is to take some time to work out if and how a 10-year unrestricted fund could be created for Edinburgh. This project is currently called Regenerative Futures Fund, the idea is that this would support community-based organisations to work towards two ambitious goals in Edinburgh – ending poverty and net zero by 2030 – we cannot do this with short-term funding.

The aim is to try to bring new philanthropic money into the sector, with principles based on innovative approaches such as Wellbeing Economy and Doughnut Economics. The project will also look at how power can be genuinely shifted towards local people across Edinburgh to make decisions about where funding is allocated within their communities. A group of funders – including The National Lottery Community Fund, The William Grant Foundation, Corra Foundation, Turn2Us Edinburgh Trust and City of Edinburgh Council – are supporting the 12-month development phase.

During these 12 months Leah will hand over to Kate Griffin who will step into the role of Interim Chief Executive from August 2022. Kate is one of our longest serving and most experienced members of the team. As Head of Programmes and Projects she has overseen our creative programme of activities for all – her focus before this was our award winning work with young people, children, and families. She has led and developed Street Arts our outreach sessions across Wester Hailes, a multitude of holiday and afterschool and early years family projects, exhibitions and performances with our cultural partners and our Accessible Arts programme for children and young people with Additional Support Needs and/ or disabilities and their families.

We recently recruited Zoe Squair as our new Head of Operations and Development and Jessica Mankowska as our new Young People’s Programme Lead, to support Kate and the team over the next 12 months.

Keep an eye on Whale Arts social media and sign up to the newsletter (HERE) to follow developments and get involved. There are a huge range of exciting projects happening this year including our big 30^th birthday party on 20^th August, the opening of our new community café, progression of the Community Asset Transfer (bringing the land that Whale Arts sits on into community ownership) and future building improvements and developments. There will be lots of opportunities for members to get involved, and many new volunteering opportunities for local people.

To keep in touch with Leah’s development of the Regenerative Futures Fund and her secondment to EVOC have a look at her Twitter account Leah Black (@LeahRBlack) / Twitter or her Medium account Leah Black – Medium

WHALE Community Development Coordinator Tiki Muir and creative freelancer Morvern Cunningham have been working together for the last six months on the Creative Community Hubs project – looking at ways to support a network of creative community hubs across Edinburgh. They have produced a report, Working Better Together, which focuses on partnership working between community hubs and cultural institutions in the city.

Working Better Together was printed and launched last week at participating hub Out of the Blueprint, a riso printing social enterprise based at Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Leith which seeks to provide opportunities for young people to work in the creative industries. At the launch, Tiki and Morvern gave an overview of the report and encouraged attendees to think about ideas for further collaboration amongst the hubs, as the project is extending into 2023. Watch this space for more developments!

You can see images of the launch above and read the report here.

Thanks to Out of The Blueprint for designing & printing the report.

We are looking for people who have an idea, or something they like making or doing and would like to take that idea forward in some way. If you work for an organisation, maybe you’d like to get involved. We would like to invite you to our drop-in workshop. Feel free to come a long for an hour, or pop in for 5 minutes. We would love to tell you a bit more about the project, and give you some space to feed in ideas to progress an idea together, creatively. We would like to find out a bit more about you, what inspires you, and how we could support you to take your ideas forward. Whale Arts, @NorthEdinburghArts , @SCOREscotland and @Passion4Fusion are working on a new project in #Westerhailes and #Muirhouse called #Create #Community #Wealth. At its most simple, we are looking to encourage the individuals in those communities to create small enterprises to encourage the wealth to stay local. Community Wealth is much more than that, and is about nurturing the talents and potential of people within our #communities, #together, and for the benefit of everyone going forward. Throughout the course of this project, we will be bringing in different #artists to work with individuals and groups, and intend to provide a place for people to #sell or #showcase what they create. We imagine setting up #markets #stalls, #digital selling platforms, #exhibitions and/or #music #events. The #possibilities are up to you all to decide. If you would rather just come a long and make something, hang out and eat #cake, we would love you to come and make a paper flower to help us grow our garden picture. We’d really appreciate it. Tea, coffee, juice and cake provided! If possible, it would be great to know if you are intending to come. Please email either angela@whalearts.co.uk or shirin@whalearts.co.uk