The Heritage Crafts Association seeks input from craftspeople

Deadline: 28 February 2010

Dear supporter,

The Heritage Crafts Association’s aim is to support and promote heritage crafts as a fundamental part of our living heritage. Since the HCA website went live earlier this year, we have attracted hundreds of supporters all keen to help ensure a sustainable future for traditional heritage crafts.

Going into 2010, we are looking to consolidate this support, building upon our advocacy work with politicians and representatives of key agencies. In order to achieve this, we would like to complement the huge amount of anecdotal evidence we have gathered to date with a statistical analysis of our supporters’ opinions and experiences. To that effect we are asking as many traditional craftspeople as possible in the UK to fill in a simple survey.

The survey consists of ten questions and should take no longer than fifteen minutes to complete. To do so, please go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/6FNQF6L.

We would also be very grateful if you could forward this notice to as many of your craftspeople friends and colleagues as possible, and, if you work for a crafts organisation, to post it in your newsletters and email circulars.

Many thanks in advance for your continuing support.

Best wishes,
Robin Wood, HCA Chair

Traditional crafts matter to the HCA

Craft Matters is a Crafts Council initiative to highlight the importance of crafts in people's lives. It believes that craft matters and it wants to show that it matters to thousands of people across the UK. The Heritage Crafts Association supports this initiative in the field of heritage crafts.

In the next few months, the Crafts Council will be posting the names of all its signatories on its website so that it can demonstrate the real support for craft. It wants to launch the new webpage with over 1,000 signatures, so please ask your friends and colleagues to show that craft matters to them too.

To sign up to the statement 'I'm signing up to Make Craft Count because Craft Matters to me', visit www.craftscouncil.org.uk/craftmatters.

Craft Club – a national campaign for craft in schools (England)

Craft Club is a national campaign for craft in schools. It aims to unite skilled and enthusiastic craftspeople with children and young people through after-school clubs. Working together they can engage learners beyond the curriculum and enthuse them about making.

Crafts Club believes that the future of craft lies in nurturing talent – children and young people must be able to learn about craft at school and have access to excellent teaching throughout their education. It offers advice, resources and support to inspire teachers, pupils and volunteers to set up clubs during lunchtimes or after-hours in their school or venue.

Register an interest at www.craftclub.org.uk.

Traditional Crafts on Radio 4 Farming Today

Rural crafts are being featured on BBC Radio 4's Farming Today program this week. For those who are not up at 6am to listen you can listen online using BBC iplayer (just click the link then drag the slider to 9.25 when the feature starts).

We hear quite a lot of press on good stories in the traditional crafts at the moment, though most are in conservation or building crafts. The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has put nearly £10 million into these crafts over the last five years through its bursary scheme.

HLF is a reactive rather than proactive funder and, in part, it has been a result of the smaller traditional crafts themselves not having an organised voice to campaign for support that has led to them being left out. We look forward seeing support and promotion for the basketmakers, potters, weavers and urban crafts such as Sheffield cutlery in the future.

Thanks to HCA supporter Julian for pointing this one out.

Monty Don's Mastercrafts on the BBC

Back in February the Heritage Crafts Association was contacted about a new BBC TV series on traditional crafts. Mastercrafts, fronted by Monty Don, is now on its way - details on the BBC website.



Each week on Mastercrafts, three hopefuls get the chance to study under some of the country's leading master craftsmen and women. They will be trained to a high standard in the craft of their choice, including metal work, wood craft, stone masonry, glass-making, thatching and weaving. The aim is to equip them with the practical knowledge and skills to give them a head start in their chosen craft.

Monty will be charting the students' progress during their training and exploring the fascinating and often forgotten history of each craft. The aim is to put traditional crafts firmly back on the map in modern Britain.

BBC TV commission search for craftspeople

Media company Twofour has been commissioned by BBC1 to produce a new series that will transmit next Spring. It wants to find people who have been making their crafts for many years, but perhaps are looking for a way to bring their products to a wider market.

The producers already have lots of young, contemporary designer-makers apply to be involved with the show, but really feel that they are missing a more traditional kind of craftsperson - people who make beautiful or functional items but perhaps would not be contactable via the channels they have been using so far (craft websites and contemporary craft organisations etc.).

The series is fronted by the perfume guru Jo Malone, a British entrepreneur who built a luxury brand from her kitchen. She will be helping the people she selects to take their product to a larger, national market.

If you are interested in being involved, email info@heritagecrafts.org.uk and we will forward your details to Twofour.

Help the Heritage Crafts Association in its next stage of development!

The Heritage Crafts Association aims to support and promote heritage crafts as a fundamental part of our living heritage - through surveying, advocating, celebrating, safeguarding and supporting traditional craftspeople. To help us achieve this we wish to become a registered charity. Becoming a charity will open up a range of new funding opportunities and other benefits.

To register as a charity, we need to show that we have at least £5,000. We have already raised £3,000 from work done for CCSkills by committee members, and the the Chair and Vice Chair have each donated £500, leaving just £1,000 still to find. If each of our website supporters and Facebook friends donated £2 we could easily raise this amount. If they donated £5, £10 or more, then we can do even more to support and protect heritage crafts in the UK.

The money will be used to fund various projects. For example, we are hoping to run an internet marketing course for craftspeople with places subsidised to around £30 per person to help showcase and celebrate traditional crafts. We have also been offered free space at various high profile events around the country during 2010, which will be staffed by volunteers, but we need stand fittings and promotional material to show the quality of traditional craftsmanship in the UK. We are also continuing our advocacy work to raise the profile of heritage crafts, with meetings with the Heritage Lottery Fund and Shadow Arts Minister Ed Vaisey in early November.

If you would like to help us achieve these aims we would be most grateful for a donation, however small. To donate, visit www.heritagecrafts.org.uk/donate.html. You can donate using your PayPal account, or if you don't have a PayPal account, using your debit or credit card.

Many thanks for your continuing support!

www.heritagecrafts.org.uk/donate.html