A month in the life of an ACE worker |
 | | Tommy Beavitt |
TOMMY BEAVITT reports on the stresses, strains and ultimate satisfactions in helping mount the Wester Ross Festival – even if it did turn much of the month into one big blur of activity. |
WORKING AS the Arts in the Community Enabler (ACE worker) for Ross-shire for the Highland Festival has been an incredibly rewarding and learning experience for me, ever since I started the position in April 2003. The ACE Worker position is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation which, as well as paying for my wages, also provides me with a commissioning budget to be spent on developing local art and artists. Although the stresses of the part time position are equal to or greater than many full-time jobs I have done before, it has been eye-opening (to say the least) to see what the production work that takes place behind the scenes of arts events entails. I think that every artist should do a compulsory spell of production work before they are allowed into the marketplace!
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Early September …
September has been a big month for me. Although I had the benefit of being part of the Highland Festival team during the 2003 Festival in June, I was mainly playing a supporting role to the full-time Highland Festival staff. The bulk of my time since has been spent preparing for the 2nd Wester Ross Festival, consisting of events in communities from Applecross to Ullapool on the weekend of 12-14 September.
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The month began off the back of the Assynt Crofters Trust 10th Anniversary Celebration, Fling in the Fank. Jan Robinson, my assistant coordinator at Wester Ross Events, and I had been asked to step in at fairly short notice to project manage the Fling.
Despite certain misgivings about the amount of time it would take out of the Wester Ross Festival we decided to go ahead. Two main reasons behind this decision were to (a) get used to the event management roles and (b) to gain invaluable ancillary income for the Wester Ross Events.
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The first Wester Ross Festival had ended up with a deficit, which was temporarily resolved by a long-term, interest-free loan by a private individual. In order to pay this money back it was agreed by the Wester Ross Events committee to hire our project management skills to other projects. The Assynt event seemed like the golden opportunity to put this principle into practice.
As it turned out, the Fling was a resounding success. The music event we were primarily involved with was associated with a land reform conference. Both events took place in an enormous tent on Stoer Green, the conference during the day and the music in the evenings. There was a ceilidh on Thursday and Saturday nights and a concert/dance on the Friday headlined by the Peatbog Faeries.
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The event management brief consisted of liaising with suppliers and artists, resolving licensing issues, working with volunteer groups to prepare the site and man the event, and being present throughout the event in a site management capacity.
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© Tommy Beavitt, 2003 |
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