Announcing a New Joint Cultural and Community Action Programme at Centre@270 Trust

Avenues for joint venture action on key issues relating to local development have been explored in this blog from 2006 onwards. We have taken care that all proposals should reflect the needs and aspirations of local communities and stakeholder groups and community organisations.  The London Borough of Newham has provided the first opportunity, based on the commitment of the Ramgarhia Sikh Community but working through a new trust, which is under incorporation. Known as Centre@270 Trust, the new site will be a culmination of several years of aspirational work. However, the site, which presents major opportunities for launching new programmes, will itself need major repairs and refurbishment before it can become fully usable to tackle the ambitious programme outlined below.

Centre @270 Trust

In association with Ramgharia Gurdwara, Newham and Kalwant Ajimal Associates Ltd and The Centre @270 Trust (under incorporation). Ramgharia Gurdwara is the owner of all programmes to be carried out under the auspices of the Centre @270 Trust, as the programme sponsor and patron until the Centre is able to run its operations following incorporation.  

Background

The Trustees of the Ramgarhia Gurdwara, or the Sikh Temple, met with Grant Aitken, Head of Culture at Newham Council a few months ago. Reference was made to the work that Kalwant Ajimal carried out for Newham Council in 2006/07 when Peter Appleton was Head of Culture at the council. As an integral part of a review, Kalwant Ajimal has highlighted a number of new diversity projects and also put forward proposals for ‘mainstreaming’[1] new work at the Centre at 270 Neville Road.

 Action

During the next 4-5 months, Kalwant Ajimal will be launching and embedding the Culture@270 programme at 270 Neville Road. The Trustees of Ramgarhia Gurdwara at Neville Road have approved the work programme and investment in collaboration with local organisations and individuals has been agreed. The Centre is expected to assume full control of the work programme in borough in the long term as its own working committees and programme teams are able to develop action for local delivery.

Asian Arts Access has run a large number of successful arts events and productions, always in conjunction with leading artists and partners, with Kalwant Ajimal acting as ‘executive producer’. Please see www.asianartsaccess.org for some of the background. However, for work at Centre@270 Programme to be successful, a great deal of new work will need to be generated to reflect local needs and the policy priorities of the Newham Council.

The feasibility study for Newham Council, referred to above, outlined the following work to be developed in Newham for presentation to local and regional audiences:

• Drumbeat- An International Festival of Percussion to be connected with Newham Bhangra Explosion
• The East London River Festival
• A Festival of Ephemeral Arts (www.ephemeralarts.com)
• Masks with Meaning– new work under development by Asian Arts Access is to form the basis for an application to run the project at the Centre.

In addition, Asian Arts Access has been in consultation with Screen South, the southern region screen agency of the Film Council, UK. It is felt that most of this work is also transferrable to East London, with policies to reflect the needs of London film funding priorities.

Developing a Portfolio of Work for Culture@270 programme, and other projects.

The Centre@270 Trust expects to operate a series of initiatives. As indicated above, the name of the organisation responsible for effective management and utilisation of the premises and facilities shall be The Centre@270 Trust Limited (with the title ‘Limited’ dropped from the name by permission of registrars at Companies House).

The individual programmes of the centre may have generic names such as those listed below to create a uniform identity in order to achieve benefits of branding the services and the outputs of the Centre. Examples are:

–       Culture@270 programme, a uniform logo shown below

–       Communities@270 programme

–       Youth @270 programme

–       Learning and Skills@270 Programme, and so on.

–       Care for the elderly, to be summarised as Care@270 programme

–       Action for engagement of women, to be presented as Women@270 Programme, with women to be involved in the development and leadership of the programme.

A detailed guide to the work programme is presented on the right under PAGES

 

 

 

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[1] Mainstreaming refers to making culturally diverse work accessible to mainstream markets. This work is now being carried out by ‘Mirador Culture’ and ‘Mirador Creative Economics’, two programmes created by Kalwant Ajimal to offer the work of Asian Arts Access to mainstream markets. ‘Mirador Community Futures’ is another service run by Kalwant Ajimal to provide inputs into community development programmes in conjunction with various partners and clients.