How can the district council best support East Devon's arts organisations?

Arts organisations in East Devon are being asked to give their views on how the district council can best support them.

They're being asked to complete a survey put together by the public forum Arts & Culture East Devon (ACED), by Friday, April 9.

ACED aims to help cultural services such as theatres, museums, galleries and the organisers of festivals, connect them with one another, promote their activities and share best practice.

The individuals and organisations who respond to the survey will be invited to attend a Zoom meeting on April 29.

ACED and East Devon District Council say the Covid pandemic has highlighted the importance of the arts in boosting mental wellbeing.

The leader of the council, Cllr Paul Arnott, said: "This survey is a mark of how seriously our council takes the arts, culture and entertainment sectors in the life of East Devon.

"We'd love to get a response from all such East Devon-based cultural organisations and communities, please, to help us to understand how ACED can interact with the entire network, and what the forum's priorities for the future should be."

The aims of ACED are to:

• Provide support for professional and artistic development, enabling partnership,
• Develop and promote local authority arts and culture-led economic growth initiatives,
• Support advocacy work for local arts and culture services and identify areas for collaboration,
• Share news, best practice, plans and ambitions- aiding communication between arts practitioners, arts organisations, non-arts organisations, local government and regional and national bodies,
• Embed the role of the arts in the cultural, social, educational, environmental and economic life of the district,
• Increase participation in cultural activity in the district, developing a healthy social and cultural ecology which engages and enriches communities.

The plan is to host three Network Member Zooms a year and two Executive Membership meetings (including East Devon district councillors) a year, and distribute a bi-monthly newsletter.

The survey can be found here. The deadline for completing it is Friday, April 9, 2021.

The results will be shared in the first Network Member Forum on 29 April, 10.20 – 12.20 (Zoom link on ACED website).