D. Funding

Group D: Funding

A record of the group’s considerations is presented below. Please feel free to add any comments / raise additional points.

• The Scottish Writers’ Centre received a one off grant from Glasgow City Culture and Sport of £1,500 towards the end of 2008. This is to be used to set up the website and to organise various meetings throughout 2009. There will be no further consideration of grant money being made available from Glasgow Culture and Sport until April 2010 at the earliest.
• Consideration should be given to adding the word National to the name of the proposed centre to counteract any belief that it only covers one geographic area i.e. Glasgow. National Scottish Writers’ Centre = NSWC
• In order to make any application to the lottery, or indeed any major funding organisation, a formal AGM must be held and officials, Chairperson, Secretary, Treasurer etc, be elected. This therefore has to happen before any funding application can be made.
• National Aims require to be set.
• It was agreed that the most sensible way forward would be to apply for a Lottery Feasibility Grant. With this a consultant would be employed who would undertake a feasibility study of the need and uses of such a centre and would also explore appropriate forms of future funding. Current turnaround for Feasibility Grant funding from the Lottery Board is approx 12 weeks.
• Charity status should be pursued if it is not already in hand.
• Capital Funding should be, where possible, be kept separate from ‘working’ funding. European Structure Funding may be suitable.
• Any building should be aimed to be self financing within five years. This could be achieved through: room rental to other organisations, a public café/bar, a shop/ a gallery/ etc etc. It may be the case that the NSWC could become an umbrella landlord for a number of related groups.
• If the Scottish Writers’ Centre is registered as a Limited Company, then any member shall have to pay a membership fee. In other organisations this is usually a token fee of one pound. Also all members will have equal rights. Therefore a sliding membership fee scale is probably not possible under Limited Company regulations.
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• It would be highly beneficial to write now to all Local Authorities in Scotland outlining the proposals for NSWC and asking for their moral, if not financial, support and asking how they believe NSWC could benefit writers in their area.
• It would be useful to have some discussion with the Arts Council and Creative Scotland along with GCVS, and its equivalent in other areas.