Creative Northland and Whangarei's CHART (Culture Heritage Art Resource Trust) are putting their money where their mouth is, commissioning an economic impact report for the region's arts sector, but one prominent Northlander says it's a waste of time and money.
Northland Regional Council (NRC) member Ian Walker says Creative Northland is dreaming if it thinks the creative sector has a show of significantly lifting regional economic performance while CN/CHART chief executive Chris Carey says Northland creative talent has the potential to be a key economic driver for the region.
The NRC helps fund Creative Northland, while the Whangarei District Council is the cornerstone funder for CHART.
Creative Northland's job is to support and stimulate regional creativity and distribute Creative New Zealand funding to bring in high-quality performance otherwise inaccessible to Northlanders. CHART does the same for Whangarei district.
Good jobs and good roads are what is needed, says Mr Walker.
He is steaming that the NRC recently agreed to continue supporting Creative Northland with $50,000 annual grants, to run 2012-2015, hedged by agreed key performance indicators, and that councillor Graeme Ramsey was appointed to serve on Creative Northland's board. This creates a clear conflict of interest, Mr Walker says.
"The funder should not be part of governance," he says. Mr Ramsey disagrees: He says it is a good idea because it ensures good liaison between the two.
The decision to make annual grants through to 2015 follows a previous grant cycle of three $50,000 annual grants (2009-2012), initially allocated to the parent organisation of CN/CHART, the Arts Promotion Trust (Northland) 2000 Inc. APT morphed into CHART and Creative Northland in 2010.
The two entities have commissioned the economic impact report from Wellington-based consulting firm Martin Jenkins. Funding was a joint effort by the ASB Community Trust (a major grant), NorthTec, the Whangarei District Council, along with the NRC contribution.
The brief is: "Quantify the current activity and assess future potential for arts-driven economic development in the region ... and provide essential statistics and indicators for the formation of effective strategies and policies at every level for Northland."
Mr Walker says he's sick of words and the initiative will be "just another doorstop report which will be filed somewhere with all the others".
"They are only doing it because it's a document to present to funding agencies. It's nothing to do with developing the sector, and actually I am interested in developing the sector, but not like this," he says.
"We don't need conferences or economic summits or reports. If we really want to make a difference, stop talking and get the northern highway constructed. I could write what we need on the back of an envelope: port rationalisation, fibre optics and further development of the strategically-important SH1 route."
Mr Walker said he had reluctantly supported the original three-year cycle of grants on the strict understanding that it was a one-off exercise while Creative Northland gained traction, but opposed continuing the grants, let alone for the 10-year extension sought.
His motion to reject the application lapsed for want of a second, but members cut the grant period to three years.
Mr Carey says the impact of the arts/cultural sector is far wider than most people realised, ranging from drama to dance, design, film, art-work, debating, music, theatre sports, library use, architecture, song, and features such as Whangarei's new sculpture walk and more.
It was was not just the spice of life and an introduction to possibilities people may never have dreamed of, he says, but crucially, a vital spur to the creative thought essential to economic survival in the modern world.
He has previously challenged Northland businesses to "think weird" to forge new pathways to success, inspired by the late Sir Paul Callaghan, a scientist who said New Zealand's strength was in "the weird things we do."
"Sir Paul said we have the ingredients to become a hotbed of innovative ideas and should be asking ourselves what is our weird talent? How can the weird give us a brighter future, a brighter economy?
"Reid Hoffman said 'constantly invest in yourself as a work in progress' and we should apply this to the Northland community. This is what Creative Northland is about, along with developing Northland as an arts and cultural destination."
He agrees with Mr Walker on one point: fibre optics.
"I couldn't agree more about its importance and I think we urgently need to explore ways of using this to the max and developing creative uses that will help the Northland economy.
"It's a winding road to Auckland but fibre optics is a straight road to the world economies.
"It's what we send down that pipeline that we must think about and the creative sector is the best place to develop that talent."
SUPPORT FOR ARTS SECTOR
ART BUSINESS: Sarah Boon, Creative Northland regional arts development manager, successfully lobbied to have the sector's potential for lifting regional economic performance recognised by a new category in the Northland Chamber of Commerce's annual Northland Business Excellence Awards, Excellence In Arts Business. The category attracted the third highest number of entries out of 13 categories.
LEARNING CURVE: CN/CHART's inaugural creative conference, Totems And Totara, held in May and featuring community development authority Peter Kageyama of the United States and New Zealander Dame Cheryl Sothern (The Creative Economy), ran at a small loss but CN/CHART chief executive Chris Carey said the ripple effect in the community was considerable. This included the strong impression made by Kageyama when he spoke at civic and business events outside the conference; and networking resulting in the Awesome Whangarei Project. This sees $1000 collected by various means and then awarded to the person coming up with the best promotional or business idea. Entries close August 6. The group hopes to run two or three competitions a year.
INTEREST FROM OZ: Sarah Boon has been invited to speak at the Australian Performing Arts Centres Association conference in Darwin this month, to discuss what is being done in Northland, and CN relationships with local authorities, Creative New Zealand and the arts community.
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