Voluntary Arts England Launch the Epic Awards

Howard Lake | 7 June 2010 | News

• Tagged with:
• Arts Council England
• Awards
• England

Media Information: Monday 7 June

For Immediate Release

VOLUNTARY ARTS ENGLAND LAUNCH THE EPIC AWARDS

VOLUNTARY ARTS ENGLAND SUPPORTED BY ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND present The epic awards, an award scheme designed to recognise and shine a spotlight on the excellent work taking place within the 50,000 voluntary and amateur art and craft groups operating throughout the country. Nominations open now.

The epic awards invite voluntary and amateur art and craft groups to nominate themselves in four categories; engagement, partnerships, innovation and creativity, with the winners receiving a package of benefits including training, equipment and publicity as well as being invited to a winners’ reception towards the end of the year.

Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England:

The epic awards 2010 are a timely opportunity to recognise the excellent work undertaken by thousands of amateur arts groups across the country and encourage greater use of digital technologies amongst what is sometimes quite an isolated sector In 2008 , I challenged those participating in the voluntary and amateur arts in England to demonstrate its excellence: the epic awards will put voluntary and amateur excellence firmly in the spotlight.

Robin Simpson, Chief Executive Voluntary Arts:

We are delighted to be launching the epic awards which will recognise excellence in the voluntary and amateur arts. We know that high quality work is taking place week upon week, year upon year in community groups, school halls and living rooms up and down the country and the epic awards will shine a spotlight upon all these projects.

www.epicawards.co.uk

-ENDS-

Editor’s notes:

Images and logos available from ji**@***********rg.uk

Voluntary Arts England

Voluntary Arts England is the national development agency for arts participation. VAE raise awareness of the contribution that the voluntary and amateur arts and crafts make to the well-being of communities, social inclusion, lifelong learning, active citizenship and volunteering.

epic awards

The epic awards aim to identify and promote excellent art and craft practice that exists within the voluntary arts sector.

The epic awards will highlight excellence in four key areas:

e- engagement

p -partnerships

i – innovation

c – creativity

There will be an award for each category.

Engagement Award

For the engagement category entrants will need to fulfil one or more of the following criteria:

Increased artistic membership

Initiatives that have increased membership considerably within the group, these programmes can have been delivered through any medium; social networking sites, newspapers, letter box drops.

Increased volunteering opportunities/schemes

Initiatives that focus on a number of volunteers involved within the group, this could be through the streamlining of a programme, a recruitment drive or a programme linked to partners such as a community group, school or college.

Broaden the range of people engaging with the group

Initiatives which have successfully managed to engage with a wide range of individuals, for example people from BME communities, people with disabilities, younger or older people

Increased audiences

Initiatives that have increased audiences for voluntary arts performances, exhibitions and displays.

Partnerships Award

For the partnership category entrants will need to fulfil one or more of the following criteria involving innovative or creative ways of working with partners within:

The private or professional sector

These kind of initiatives might include working with corporate companies, or commercial arts organisations or professional artists and organisations

The public sector

This would involve groups working with statutory funded organisations such as local authorities and their service providers.

The voluntary and community sector

This would involve working with self-governing organisations who deliver work for the public benefit.

Working with another art form

This would involve groups working with a group who practice a different art and craft form, for example woodworkers working with a drama group.

Innovation Award

The innovation award aims to recognise the collaborative and interdisciplinary work that is taking place in voluntary arts groups, mainly focusing on digital innovation.

The nature of the innovation could include:

ICT initiatives

Building your own website, utilising software free or otherwise, creating networks.

Showcasing skills photography, moving image, audio, and podcasts

Highlighting what can be done with moving image and audio, it’s not necessarily the content we are after, but how the content was used and what it actually achieved.

Utilising social media

Groups who have used social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr to great effect

Marketing

Groups who have shown great innovation when it comes to the art of marketing, this could be both online and offline. This might include innovation such as having a column in a local newspaper, viral campaigns, volunteer led campaigns.

Creativity Award

For the creativity category entrants will need to fulfil one of the two following criteria:

Organisational creative development

This relates to groups who have creatively developed their organisation in areas other than engagement, partnerships and innovation.

This could be unusual/different ways of:

Organising events

Fundraising

Managing the group –ways of working and running the group

Overcoming obstacles

Creative uses of the art form itself – such as flash mob theatre

Personal creative development within the group

This relates to a creative personal journey within the group.

This could be:

Learning new skills to bring to the group

Attending workshops to develop the skills of the group

Attending conferences

Entries

Voluntary sector umbrella bodies can nominate organisations or groups to be short listed for the awards. Furthermore, umbrella bodies will be disseminating information to their membership. Groups can also nominate themselves,

Phases of competition/entries

Nominations open Tuesday 2nd June 2010

Deadline for entries Friday 10th September 2010

Shortlisted entries will be listed on the site on or around the 15th September with winning groups announced in October 2010.

More detailed information about the shortlisted groups will be available on the website.

The award ceremony will take place in October/November

Once the awards have taken place, the photographs and information about the ‘winners’ will be showcased on the site.

Press Contact:

Jill Hargreaves

Marketing and Communications Officer

epic awards

Voluntary Arts England

1st floor, 7 Old Eldon Square

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 7JG

ji**@***********rg.uk

0191 230 4464

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.