Today I posted a quick note about a workshop being held in the OhYeah building (with special thanks to OhYeah and NoMoreArt for helping pull it together). The event itself was conceived during an OpenCoffeeMorning conversation between myself and Marty Neill of NoMoreArt – as he puts it, democracy without bureaucracy.
The workshop is designed to help those in the “creative industries” find the time to fill in the forms for the Creative Industries Innovation Fund. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this Fund and extolled it’s virtues and I hear a lot of the same story – it’s something they’ll get around to.
Well, time is up. The closing date for this first call is Thursday the 5th of February and if you miss this one it’s months until the next. And the best reason in the world to hold a workshop is to help people focus the mind. Ideally we’re aiming for a largish group of people all focussed on filling in their forms and getting the paperwork out of the way.
There will be two sessions: one from 11 am to 1 pm and the second from 4:30 pm to 6 pm. The content for both is the same and it straddles part of lunch and just after work so that people from all walks of life can make some time to come in and at least get the forms.
The workshop itself is not about guidance – it’s not about trying to ensure success – it’s about getting the forms in on time, because if they’re not in then you’ve got no chance. I have invited representatives from the Arts Council (who are managing the fund), NIMIC and NIScreen (who are especially relevant to the digital content industry) and the Digital Circle Steering Group – hopefully an individual might be able to talk to these representatives and maybe get some guidance or inspiration from people who have experience with this sort of thing.
It’s meant to be collaborative, it’s meant to be a learning experience and it’s meant to be a shared social experience. At the most basic level it’s a heap of forms and pens and desks and chairs. What’s more is that it’ll be a collection of people who all have something creative inside them which they feel is deserving of public funding in order to have it realised.
There’s a form for registry – just to help us get an idea of how many people will turn up so I’d appreciate it if people could register beforehand. The format will be informal and it will be about completing forms.