CACN is getting a little bigger, better and brighter this autumn.
Thanks to a recent grant of £29,900 from Arts Council England, we will be delivering more training, mentoring and business support for individual creative practitioners and cultural organisations.
We will also be developing the Network as a more sustainable organisation – here to support the sector in years to come. That means building and consolidating our tiny staffing team and developing governance arrangements. Almost all of what we have achieved so far has been free to everyone. Now we need to grow our own income strands in order to reduce dependence on grant aid in the longer term. We’ll be looking at different ways to do that.
This new phase in our development sees CACN being valued as a key part of the cultural infrastructure in Cumbria. We know from those who already engage with CACN regularly that the region’s creative community has huge potential and we want to see that emerge and grow through our support.
Thanks to existing funding streams, such as the Sellafield Social Impact Fund, we’ll continue our core work of connecting and championing the culture sector: through our popular networking events, weekly online meetings, website, podcast and social media channels.
Our new programme starts in October and we’ll be releasing full details over coming weeks.
