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March 6, 2019
Put yourself on the map
Scratch below the surface of any community and you are almost certain to bump up against some form of activity that has a connection with the creative arts. The voluntary arts movement is reckoned to have the widest base of participation in the country – 10,000+ groups. Often organised on an informal, unfunded or unconstituted basis, they are nonetheless the bedrock of community life. But that informality, while often a strength, can also be a barrier for new people to get involved. To this end a mapping of who’s who and where, is being undertaken. It’s a big job.
For those who would like to join a creative group, lack of knowledge about where to find up-to-date information about activities in a local area remains a significant barrier to participation. Voluntary Arts has recently attempted to address this, and support those groups keen to recruit new members, through its crowd-sourced Creativity Map – an online map which aims to link the people who are looking for creative activities on their doorstep to the diversity of existing creative groups across the UK and Ireland.