Letter from Simon Holmes, MVC Principal:

Dear Parent/Carer

In the last few weeks South Cambridgeshire District Council has decided to cut the funding for the 5 Arts Development Manager posts in the district. Each Arts Development manager is based at one or more secondary colleges and works both within the college and the local community. In just 6 months time a partnership that has lasted 10 years will be brought to an end.

Here are just some of the things that our ADM, Kirstin Bicknell, has been doing for the college and community:

• Connects MVC to the wider local community through the arts e.g. the summer carnival projects visiting Moorlands and Vicarage Close
• Brings in funding for MVC e.g. nearly £5000 for new sound and lighting equipment in the hall
• Brings in professional artists to work with MVC students – over 20 artists have worked with MVC students in the past two years including musicians, poets and dancers as well as visual artists
• Creates a partnership with Wysing Arts Centre providing work experience, workshops and other opportunities as well as partnerships and projects with other professional arts organisations such as The Junction
• Co-ordinates local community arts projects such as the Unpicked Meadows project in Stockbridge Meadows, Melbourn and will be supporting the Melbourn Hub development
• Supports local artists and local arts community groups such as the new Melbourn Amateur Dramatic Society
• Helps MVC achieve Artsmark Gold (MVC is the only school in the area to have gained Artsmark Gold 4 consecutive times) and supports the Arts Award programme at MVC
• Supports arts projects with the primary schools such as the year 5 carnival day in the summer
• Connects MVC to other Village Colleges and district wide projects through the stART network (http://www.start-arts.org.uk/)

Cutting this funding puts this work at risk and so we are currently campaigning against these cuts. At the very least we are asking for additional time to allow the college to find alternative partners to keep the work going. We are grateful to Wysing Arts who currently support our ADM and hope that given extra time we can find other partners who value the work and the opportunities it provides to the whole community.

Please see http://www.scambs.gov.uk/CommunityandLiving/GrantsReview.htm for further information and fill out the consultation survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/R9V6P88

If you wish to support these posts.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Holmes

Principal,
Melbourn Village College