Workshop 2: Transcript

GAGOG Surgery 2: Heritage & Community Grants

SPEAKERS

Silvia Scopa, Jan Graham, Lizanne Phee, Erin Walter

 

Silvia Scopa
Welcome to tonight’s event. So this is our third surgeries,  so it’s our third Get a Grip on Grants discussion and a step by step guide to Glasgow City Heritage Trust grant processes. So, the first slide is about what we are and what we do. So we are an independent charity that provides nearly 1 million annually to promote and protect Glasgow heritage and in particularly historic built environment. And as you know, we run internal events and projects and also we fund external projects. I am Silvia Scopa, and I’m the community engagement officer at Glasgow City Heritage Trust, and I’m hosting  this event tonight with my colleague, Erin Walter who is the monitoring and evaluation officer. And so what we’ll be talking about today, we will be focusing on our community and heritage grant. This surgery is part of a series of four. So every surgery highlights two different programmes. And our next surgery we are going to be focusing on building repair and development grant. So on this surgery, we’re going to focus on the community and heritage grant programmes. And we’re going to talk about the grant process journey, the do’s and don’ts of the of the application process. And we also have two great speakers tonight, we have Jan Graham who is the coordinator of Ghost Signs  of Glasgow, and Zan Phee who is the curator and coordinator of Tenement Tiles. And at the end, as I mentioned before, there is going to be some time for questions and answers. And if you have any questions, we you can just write it in the chat that you should have at the bottom of your screen, and then I’ll ask the questions for you. And at the end, there is also going to be a slide with all our contacts. But anyway, all Glasgow City Heritage Trust’s contacts are on our website anyway. So basically, what are the heritage and community grants, so the heritage grants are available for opportunities for people to learn about and enjoy Glasgow historic built environment. And community grants are available for projects that are delivered and developed by community members to engage with matters relating to Glasgow historic built environment. So of course, these grants have taken the form of a lot of things of research projects and tours  and exhibitions, lecture festivals, performances, books, films, residencies, really sky is the limit, because very often, they are related and they work with the intangible built environment. So with social history,  social history and memories, so they can be whatever you want them to be. And they are very similar between each others. The main difference is that community grants, a community project in order to be approved need to be developed and delivered by and for a community. So there needs to be a very strong community element. And now I’m going to pass…

Erin Walter
Thanks Silvia, as Silvia said,  I’m Erin Walter, and I am the evaluation and monitoring officer. And again, my contacts will be at the end if you have any follow up questions. But I’m quickly going to take you through the application journey at GCHT. So here’s a nice infographic of it. And this presentation is downloadable on our website as a very nice foldable PDF if you’re interested. But we start with an enquiry and I’ll move through the different stages. And it’s always good to remember that you claim funding at the end of a project. And well, we’ll talk a bit about interim payments and the such, but it’s a nice way to think of the the linear progress, slide! So our enquiry progress is the is the first step that you’ll do when thinking about a project. So after you have your concept, you’ll go onto our website. And there’ll be a picture on this slide as well. There it is. If you go to the grants tab, you can go down to grant enquiry form ad, it takes about five to 10 minutes to fill out this very brief enquiry with your contact details, and a bit about how your project relates to the historical environment, what kind of outcomes it may include. You’ll see just above that we have our guidance notes, I would very much encourage you to go on and have a look. Now each grant programmes,  all five have the same kind of process of enquiry, and their different eligibility and criteria is available on the guidance notes. It also includes dates for all of our committee meetings, and a bit about what we’re looking for in terms of outcomes and strategic priorities, like so after the enquiry, you will receive an email or a phone call from a GCHT staff member. And depending on which program your project best fits within, you’ll be assigned someone who will really be with you throughout the entirety of your project from start, up until the very finish of evaluating and claiming your funds for it. And we are, when we used to be in the office. Now we’re all work from home. But we are very happy to meet you on the phone or via zoom call. And hopefully, again, one day in person. And during these meetings, we usually go through the application with you and help you especially in terms of things like budgets and outcomes, which can be a bit tricky. And sometimes you need to be creative with, we can always lend a hand there. And once you’re done with this application, which will be provided by your staff member, you’ll fill it out, it’s a PDF, it doesn’t take too long, it’s not too complicated, luckily, and you will submit it, it will be taken to a committee. So that’ll be on the next slide, our committees meet quarterly. If your grant is approved at the committee who’s made up of a number of our trustees, then you’ll be given a contract to sign and it kind of goes along with the application, saying your time frame what you’ll do how you’ll get claims. However, if your projects not approved, it’s not necessarily the end of the, we’re more than happy to offer feedback. And there’s always potential to readdress the project, or perhaps the application. And you are welcome to submit the application once again in the future. It’s also good to note that some projects have multiple applications, they go through phases. So this can be doing a feasibility study at one stage and then building repair later, or for Ghost Signs, which is also moved into different stages, which is exciting, and you’ll hear about, so there’s always longevity for these things. Next slide.  So once you’ve signed your contract, you generally have nine months to complete it. We can be flexible here and have that especially in the pandemic where a lot of projects have had to move physical works on to digital kind of platforms and seek new outcomes. If you are in need of interim payments, you can discuss this with your grant officer and they can be arranged throughout your project. Depending on when you’re sending invoices. Also for community, there is an option to get some money up front now in order to carry it through and help with some costings. So once your project is complete, all you need to do is submit receipted invoices. So it’s a very important thing to keep hold of during your program, especially if it’s nine months worth of receipts. And you submit those alongside a short evaluation report, which we have guidance notes for, and 10% of your funding is withheld until you submit the evaluation. You can do this at any point after your project is complete, you have three months to do it generally. And I’m the contact there. So I’m more than happy to help with people working that out. And again, the guidance notes provide information on each grant program and its strategic priorities and outcomes, which you’ll then report on. So this is talking about both the successes and the challenges of your program. And just because you know it was an outcome and you didn’t need it doesn’t mean it was a failure. We always see unexpected benefits. And we learned something from each project, which is important. Next slide. So building your project, I’m sure many of you here tonight have concepts in mind and are thinking about how to make them into practical projects, and especially  how to get funding for them. So first thing I would recommend is to read the guidance notes. This is kind of goes for any charity, which are dealing with the guidance notes can be a great first step in seeing if your project is eligible, and deciding if this is the right charity, for your funding. Oftentimes, you can get funding from multiple charities for a single project. And you can match up your own eligibility and criteria that way. Um, have a look at past annual reports as well as case studies. We have these on social media and website. And they might give you a good idea about what certain projects did and what they did for their communities and outcomes. Absolutely discuss this with your grant officer. We’ve seen hundreds of projects and have lots of ideas and we’d be more than happy to help you explore how your project might best be feasible and reflect on how you’re representing, promoting and protecting Glasgow built environment. So as we are a City Heritage Trust, our projects all have to do with the built environment in some way whether that’s tangible or intangible and We’re very lucky that we live in such a beautiful city that has so many different built heritage elements. So we see this, you know, very practically in terms of putting up a roof, but also with beautiful projects, like you’ll hear about tonight with our speakers. Next slide. And do’s and don’ts. Absolutely, complete an enquiry. It’s the first step. And it’s an important step in getting your project rolling and opening up a conversation about your potential. And absolutely, as well talk to talk to a staff member, one day, we’ll be open again, but right now, email, social media. These are all really easy ways to reach us. We’re a very small and receptive team, and we are more than happy to discuss projects. And don’t absolutely don’t forget to collect your receipts that can be an absolute nightmare. Don’t forget that costings are not flexible. So, once you had an accepted application, and you’ve signed a contract, you do need to stick to those works in those costings. Now, if you come up against a wall, and often this has been a case of pandemic, if you can please be in touch with your staff member, we can agree upon different costings and different outcomes. But it does need to be agreed prior to you making those purchases or changing your, your project’s aims. And don’t give up. There are oftentimes large, big problems, things arise, they can be difficult, but they’re massively important for the city for you know, the built environment as well as for the communities which they involve. So it’s an important thing to do. And we really do look forward to all the new projects coming through. And we’re happy to have had a hand in the ones that have passed. So I’ll pass back to Silvia and I think she’ll get on with hearing from some of our speakers. Yep. I’ll be around for the q&a, if anyone has any questions about that. Thanks.

Silvia Scopa
Great. Thanks, Erin. So our first speaker is Jan Graham, who is one of the coordinators of Ghost Signs of Glasgow. So for this surgery, for the first time, we asked our speakers to talk about all the challenges that they had to face when the COVID pandemic started, and particularly with the restrictions. So of course, all, everyone has been affected. All the projects , the whole of Glasgow City Heritage Trust’s projects were affected, but I think in particularly community grant projects and heritage grant projects, because there is like, there are a lot of elements of like people interactions and exhibitions and workshops. So we thought that it would have been interesting for you to listen how, to listen to like all the different ways these two grantees faced the COVID restrictions and how they managed to go ahead with their projects, which I think is quite impressive. So our first grantee, as I said, is Jan Graham. She’s one of the coordinator of Ghost Signs of Glasgow, which is a project that is very dear to me because I started the first phase of the project in 2019 as a consultant, and then they manage to develop and now it is in its second phase. So I think it’s a great example of what grants can do. So, yeah, we are now going to listen to Jan.

Jan Graham
Yeah. So as Silvia said, I’m the current coordinator of Ghost Signs of Glasgow, along with Merryn Kerrigan. So about us, we graduated from the Glasgow School of Art at the same time. So Merryn is from a design background. I was from sculpture, environmental art. So we were originally volunteers with Silvia as the coordinator, we helped create maps, we photographed signs. We wrote blogs and social media posts. So it’s a picture of us as a group of volunteers and the maps that we we helped create. yet so then a year later, we made a successful application for taking the project forward to the next phase. And then we took over as coordinators from Silvia. Next slide. Yep, so essentially, ghost Signs of Glasgow is a project that documents, researchers archives, disappearing faded signs from around the city with the help of the team of volunteers. So as the grant we were able to expand the project, so we had a conference. You can see In the picture here, and so we invited speakers from other ghost signs sites across UK and Ireland. So we had ghost signs of Dublin, ghost signs of London, ghost signs of Birmingham, of course, ghost signs of Glasgow, and that’s me and  Merryn Kerrigan hosting the conference. So it was quite a marathon ticketed event. Yep. So as well as the conference we had originally planned was a touring exhibition with a printed catalog, and a sign writing workshop with the Women’s Type Foundry. And so successes, yep in September, we had, obviously the conference with the speakers that I mentioned. And then we had a panel discussion afterwards on the conservation of ghost signs. So the exhibition and catalogue, while they’re still in the works, we do plan to do those, although they are postponed for now, what we do  instead as a kind of taster of the exhibition with a virtual exhibition that will happen later this month, and we’ll post out the exhibition catalog. And that will coincide with the same way to workshop which will also go online, and other successes… so the volunteers are still writing blogs, photographing signs, archiving. And we’re still engaging with people online, through social media. People often tag us to tell us about new signs that they’ve found. Challenges. So I guess the situation of COVID-19 has meant sort of rethinking the whole project and how we could really turn all the face to face activities, and move those things online. So the conference was held on Zoom, as I said, as a ticketed event. And then creating the virtual exhibition. I guess what that does is provide a preview of what will be in the catalog and the physical exhibition when that eventually happens. So this is an example of the kind of social media engagement that we have, quite large following on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Yet, so the way we would usually research was the Mitchell (library).  So obviously, with that being closed, we’d had to be a bit more creative about content and sort of dip into our own archives, that we had sort of unhearth  before the pandemic and the lockdown. So I guess in its own way, it was a way to showcase those stories that we already had and put those online. So challenges or opportunities as well, I guess.

Silvia Scopa
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so if you have any questions for Jan, please write them in the chat. Any questions about ghost signs? Or how they develop the project? Or what is the future of ghost signs? as well, please ask them in the chat. And we’ll be able to ask your question to Jan for you. So thank you Jan, that was very interesting. So we are now going to introduce our second speaker with Zan Phee. And she’s the curator and the coordinator of Tenement Tiles that I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with its social media. It started as a social media archive. And Zan is our current grantee, she just completed her project. And it’s a community grant, so it’s one of my grants. And it’s an amazing project and she had to face quite a lot of challenges due to the restrictions and I thought that it would have been very interesting for anyone who is thinking of a project or a project or is thinking of applying to ask for a grant. It will be very helpful to listen how Zan managed, what happened. So yeah, Zan you can start…

Lizanne Phee
Hello, I am Zan. And as stated, I run the Tenement Tiles archive, my sort of interest in tenement tiles and sort of the items of decor that we archive which is stained glass work and tiles within the sort of tenement atmosphere. I move back to the Southside and in the Southside every sort of corner you turn is an obsession, like there’s just tiles, I go to the shop and I sort of stopped, get distracted and wander into closes to take pictures. And luckily that obsession has an audience. And Tenement Tiles was born in the online archive started on Twitter, and was going for about four years, I think, before I decided to go and try and get funding to do something a wee bit different. And this is where Glasgow City Heritage Trust comes in. So I’m sorry to get distracted by the text. And if we pop on to the next slide, yep. So here, I’m just read the back and then I’ll elaborate, Tenement Tiles on social media base archive, documenting original design pictures and Scotland’s tournaments, the grant was given to create a real world exhibition. And a series of workshops will be focusing on the Glasgow’s domestic built environment, aiming to raise awareness and educate public in the ways to care for these features. That has always been at the heart of the project, and we wanted to take that into the exhibition. The whole point of the exhibition was sort of reach out, I’ve just realized, you can see my work my window sill there, I really wish I had given that  a wipe. To reach out to people who aren’t based on social media, there’s so many people and we have noticed, our kind of main market audience tends to be a kind of older generation. And we were hoping to introduce or at least, ignite an interest and a sort of domestic built environment within Glasgow, beyond our social media base. And obviously, COVID came along, and it sort of put an end to that, and, skip to the next thing. So because of all within the ever changing guidelines, it was decided that we would shift from our original plan of an exhibition with the Glasgow City Heritage Trust, and Tenement House, and move to online exhibition, which was very well received, and got lots of lovely feedback through our social media. And we moved to having our real world launch to online lunch, which became a sort of event in itself, a little bit different from the normal sort of launches. I did a very long talk, exhibition and sort of our walk through the exhibition and our accompanying digital booklet. And the decision to go with a digital booklet just made sense, with having the online exhibition, however, we did get a fair bit of sort of interest in a real world one so, through sort of back and forth with Glasgow City Heritage, it was decided that some of the original funding that was to go towards a structure, which obviously couldn’t do, and was shifted to creating some real world books or like hardback books, and posting them all for free, which people loved. And we also had to move our workshops and talks to online. And that was, the exhibition was originally run two months and each location but was moved to online for two months, I think in total. And so that said,  a physical exhibition was canceled. And went  online, we had our we did our live launch, our digital booklet, became, went from being a real world thing to digital, and then back to real world. And as I was saying because of the situation, and poor Silvia  had so many some talks with me, and it sort of goes through everything. They they are, they are there to help. They’re very receptive. And if you’ve got any questions, like when I first came forward with an exhibition idea, I wasn’t sure if it filled their heritage or heritage or community and they talk through it and we’re sort of hammered out and they’re so good. So if you’re if you’re worried about sort of not being an expert or or just having like a slight interest, but you want to promote it somehow and just getting in touch because that’s what they do, and they’re very good at it as well. And as I said, All our talks were moved to online and our social media, because we had a sort of pre existing platform that was great for, getting feedback, which is very, very important. They mentioned keeping a hold of your receipts, but keep a hold of feedback, it  is very important for you and paperwork and our social media rose by… I think it was 201 on our Twitter over the three months, sorry a two months period that we were active online for the exhibition, and around just around 250 on Instagram, which is quite a chunk of followers, and it proves that there are there is an interest for this kind of thing. I’ve done that thing where I got sidetracked and I’m sorry. But yes.

Silvia Scopa
Okay and then this is the last slide, that is this the amazing logo for  Tenement Tiles. So..

Lizanne Phee
That was my friend who made that, it  was like a present for my birthday, like last year, and it timed perfectly for you and the booklets done, so I was like, yes!

Silvia Scopa
Yeah, it’s very nice, so then yeah at this point, you can ask any question you, you like, and the next slide, as I mentioned before, has  a lovely picture of our office, we are all working from home at the moment. And of course, when we when we first thought about these surgeries events it was pre pandemic, so we planned it quite differently. And we wanted to have it around Glasgow with catering and tea and biscuits and people moving around, but fortunately, it  is 2021. So we are able to have all these things on Zoom and to still be able to engage and interact. So here there are our phone numbers and all our email addresses. But this is something that you can find on our website, as well. So I will stop sharing my screen. And we, Okay, so I do have a question already. So, yeah, so it’s a question about ghost sign. So “Would be lovely to hear a bit more about how the Ghost Signs project developed. So the initial idea behind it, and if that changed in collaboration with  Glasgow City Heritage Trust”. So I think probably this is a question that we can reply to. Together. Yeah.

Jan Graham
I guess if you start because it was your original idea. Yeah. Yeah.

Silvia Scopa
So yeah, basically. Basically, I came up with the idea. But as you I’m sure, as you know, that like the idea of cataloguing ghost signs existed already, there was already a very big platform, in London and in Dublin and in Bath. But I kept going around Glasgow and noticing a lot of ghost signs. And at that time, I was working. I was doing like inventories of museum objects. So I guess I had like, my frame of mind was like, I must, I must record everything. So I kept looking around. And I kept looking at these ghost signs, and I thought they look amazing. Why isn’t anyone like taking notes of what they are? and Why isn’t anyone researching them? And then yeah, I did some research about different sorts of funding. And of course, I had an idea in mind. But I wasn’t sure about a lot of practicalities, particularly budget wise. And yeah, I had an idea in mind, but then talking to the.. mine was a heritage grant. So talking with the heritage managers, they helped me to develop the concept. And gave me like a lot of guidelines, particularly because it started as a volunteer based project. So I was just the coordinator. And all the volunteers were doing basically all the work. And it was I mean, it was quite a big project. And it was very successful. But of course, it was successful for the, because of the volunteers. So now it didn’t change, It didn’t change with the Glasgow City Heritage Trust they helped me to develop it better. And yeah, Jan  you can give us yours..

Jan Graham
And then. So the second phase was basically as a team working out what we wanted to do next. It was the exhibition, the catalog, that kind of thing. So yeah, so I think it changed in collaboration, but kind of, you know, what the volunteer team that was what we wanted to do next. That was the kind of discussions that we had and direction that we wanted to take?

Silvia Scopa
But would you say that the idea of having  an exhibition was dictated by the volunteers as well? Were they the one thing…

Jan Graham
I am trying to remember back? I’m pretty sure at the meetings, you were like, what should we do next? Right? Yeah. And that’s kind of that was the consensus that be good to have an exhibition, the catalog, that kind of thing..

Silvia Scopa
And how do you think is going? What do you think like the next phase is going to bring?

Jan Graham
From, from this round?

Silvia Scopa
Like, yeah, after, like, after you, like your exhibition and everything what is going to happen?

Jan Graham
So I guess we’re talking about how we can be more sort of interactive online, we have an interactive map of all of the signs. And maybe we were also talking about maybe recording some of them, so maybe you could do a bike tour and listen to your headphones, something like that. So yeah, yeah.

Silvia Scopa
Great that, anyone? Okay, yeah. So yeah, that’s nice to get an idea of the progression of the project, and good to hear about the volunteer team, I guess that Zan for you, as well is kind of the same thing you don’t have, like a volunteer team. But still, like a lot of the images and information comes from some sort of like crowd sourcing as well.

Lizanne Phee
Yes, community content is a massive thing. And when we started the project, about six years ago, that was instantly became apparent that people were keen to share their findings, like there was suddenly somewhere where we could show someone something and go, look, you like this too, and they got very excited. And that sort of community built from that. And with COVID happening, I’ve obviously had to resign yourself to politics, or cut down on your sort of tile hunting myself to have, luckily, amazing, those tiles are everywhere. But because of that, we’ve had an exhibition booklet, which was made in the back of it, there was like a littles sort of bingo scavenger hunt card, which will encourage people to go out and get the family involved on tile hunts. And so because of that, I’ve received so many more contributions from from the community. And as I was saying earlier, we’ve just started a Facebook page as well, which we had, I think it’s like 1100 followers in about a week and a half. So just just those numbers alone show that there isn’t a major interest in this kind of things. But yeah, I always refer to the project as our project. And I always refer to as we because as a community thing like that, that the project wouldn’t exist without the audience and people contributing ,the exhibition could not exist without the audience and people contributing. So what it says is a might be the figurehead, but like, it wouldn’t exist without everybody else. Yeah.

Silvia Scopa
And I’m just curious to know, do you think that with Covid restrictions and everything,  like the submission of pictures from the public slowed down a little bit, or you think that, like, people are pushed outside and to go for endless like walks every day, so do you think you can see a difference?

Lizanne Phee
I feel like there’s been, again, since since opening Facebook, that’s like a whole new avenue of content of people who have been taking pictures or responses, something they really enjoyed local like two years ago, and like, watch  this photograph when I was visiting my gran like a year and a half ago, and, and, you know, random stuff like that, and the finally got an outlet to sort of push it forward to an audience like an appreciative audience. I do feel that because people are sort of staying at home are sort of staying very local. They’re appreciating sort of what’s on their doorstep. I’ll be a bit more Yeah, I’m not going to take credit for that. And I’m not going to get COVID credit for that old gremilin. But there is a sort of, I feel like with everything that’s happened, the sense of community and all aspects of community has got a lot stronger. So ties to people in the same building as you like, thye lived in their flats for years and some things didn’t even know thier  neighbors, name. I know everybody I know their dogs like this is how it  started. And even they’ve said since I mentioned like them  this project, they’ll send me messages and be like, look at this tile I saw as I was walking the dog, so it given someone, it  is giving people a nice focus that isn’t anything to do with the madness that’s going on in the rest of the world. Well, it’s slowly on fire. They’re like they’re able to look in and appreciate and enjoy something that is separate from all that. So I feel like if you see the rising numbers of followers, there definitely has been a lot more content.

Silvia Scopa
I think as well like what we experienced, of course, we like, when everything started for a period of time, we got fewer and fewer applications, because I feel that a lot of people who had a project in mind that involved like communities and everything, they thought, I’m going to wait for this to be done before I apply for a grant. But we are now at a point that we don’t know when this is going to pass. So in a way, like a good side of this situation is that it pushed everyone to think in a creative way about other ways of engaging people and getting people interested in historic built environment. So that is one of the good sides of this pandemic, I guess. And what do you see like in the future of Tenment Tiles, of course, you have like all the exhibition ready to go whenever it’s going to be safe to do so.

Lizanne Phee
It is stacked next to my bed and the room hiding from the sun for as long as it needs to well in Scotland it is not going to be that long, is it ?  I like to make sure they’re nice and safe. And at the moment, I’m currently looking into creating some prints. And there’s been some excitement about that. I’ve only been asked constantly for the past six years. And that’s me just getting ready. And and we’re looking to do like a kind of tile hunters membership thing. I’m currently making little tenement tiles badges. And it means that people who contribute regularly can get like a little sort of club badge, and so are just sort of expanding on the community and sort of thanking people who’ve been around for so long and sort of supporting us as being like a sort of being on for a little has definitely given me the chance to sort of focus on this and weave it.

Silvia Scopa
Okay, great. So that,  anyone has  any other question? You would like to ask about our grants? How does it work? Or, Erin, do you have anything else you would like to add?

Erin Walter
Yeah, I think the speakers had a wonderful job, it’s really nice to hear about projects that have continued on so long and are if anything becoming stronger through the increased digital age, Zan, I’m very interested in a badge. Let’s see, we have both of these projects feel they perhaps tap into a widespread enthusiasm that exists out there, but didn’t necessarily have a focus, which I guess may be a useful starting point for ideas for new projects. Absolutely. I think that, you know, we a lot of times the projects that are either that can be, you know, established like Tenement Tiles, or that are quite new, that are just kind of baby concepts that need to be fostered. So I think GCHT there’s, there’s room for projects of all shapes and sizes. And both of yours. Yeah, I mean, you could have done so much with either of these projects. So it’s nice to have gone the way you’re going and to be able to expand it more.

Silvia Scopa
And I think that like personally, is one of the I think is the favourite,  favourite aspect of my job, is the favourite aspect of my job, the fact that we get to listen to people, ideas, and just to foster their enthusiasm and say, yeah, we can do it. So yeah, absolutely. Like if you have like an idea or a project in mind, even if it’s not like super well developed, we can help you to develop the concept as long as it’s like linked to the historic built environment. And as we said, in the PowerPoint, as well, in the presentation, really sky is the limit, because we do have a lot to, like very often my projects and the heritage projects and like in this case as well. Even Ghost Signs and Tenement Tiles if they’re all sort of like they are based on of course like existing, real built environment, but there is a lot of intangible. There’s a lot of intangible, Yeah, there is a lot of an intangible part to it because there are memories and people enthusiasm and a little bit of social history. So yeah, there is a lot of scope to come up with an interesting project and one of,  the one of the very good thing of Glasgow, and Gleswiagians is that everyone is very passionate about their surrounding and they are very interested to do more and there is a real sense of attachment. And everyone can feel the value and the importance of these things. So it’s a very good thing.

Erin Walter
I think we’re very lucky at the office to when it’s open that we do have a small exhibition space, we do have a small area for lectures. So we really enjoy these nights of having like a glass of wine and hearing about people’s memories in relation to the images people put on walls.

Silvia Scopa
Yeah, hopefully, of course, like Zan’s exhibition, the Tenement Tiles exhibition was the first time that we did an online exhibition, because we thought atthat  time that it would have been in our office.

Lizanne Phee
And with people and everything, but next time!

Silvia Scopa
Hopefully, hopefully soon !

Erin Walter
We have another question says, “Would you consider a project to several funding streams? Or would it be better to have yourself as a sole founder of a project?” And I would say, the more funding streams, the better, we’d love to see that you have, you know, resources and people to rely on and money coming in. It’s okay, if we’re the sole funder, as long as there’s another kind of resource coming in. So that could be in kind contributions, it could be your own resources. You know, you may have a patron who knows. Yeah, we have, we have no issue being one of many funders, especially for larger projects, it can be an important, it could be important for you.

Lizanne Phee
I’m not sure if it was just for the community grant project. But there was a definite sort of push within the paperwork to reach out to pre existing bodies, or people who have knowledge that would sort of help with the exhibition. So obviously, I had Darren, and we’re working with Jangling Space in the Southside, and those were pre exisisting bodies, who tied in really nicely with what we were hoping to do. So if you don’t know those people like me, you want that aspect Glasgow City Heritage knows hundreds of people like, they look like they are there to help and help sort of solidify your idea.

Erin Walter
Yeah, I think partnerships like that, Zan, are super important because they can extend your own network and your skills and, you know, potential for workshops or talks, like so much.

Silvia Scopa
Yeah. And they show you as well, that you like did some research and have like, a concept, a vision in mind. And like in this case, like when the first phase  of ghosts signs, I think I only did that collaboration of a workshop. And then it was all volunteer based. And I think we went to the Mitchell, but I know that Jan is now collaborating with the Women’s Type Foundry.

Jan Graham
Women’s Type Foundry.

Silvia Scopa
Yep, for the workshop as well. And they organized this amazing conference. And it is  very good to connect with a lot of other ghost signs people. And there any other questions, anything else?Any of you Jan or Zan would like to add, like, if you have any word of advice for someone who is thinking about applying to one of our grants.

Jan Graham
I jotted down a couple of things just as you go through the application to sort of identify the objectives of the trust. Even if it’s just something like accessibility, you know, just use some venues that are accessible, something like that.

Silvia Scopa
And Zan,  did you want to say something?

Lizanne Phee
You know, I’ll happily talk about this. Yeah, no, I think I said in my little quote that sort of out for this. Do your research, contact venues, keep notes on absolutely everything! Because, I mean, hopefully this will not the situation again for another million years, but like, sometimes your plans will have to change and if you have that information already there that you can go, Okay, this isn’t gonna work. We have this avenues of something we can do. This is a conversation you’ve had with me like 40 times. So yeah, do your research, keep every piece of paperwork, keep your receipts, keep all your quotes, keep up to them within like at one point I had for the exhibition. I had to set up to get the prints made. And, and we were still going forward because it looks like we might be coming out as I don’t even know because dates mean nothing, time means nothing. But at some point before the exhibition went to online, and I had to organize spreads, and we were going to get it and it was going to exist as a real thing. But when I contacted the people who we quoted, and we chosen to go forward for the premise, they were like, We can’t do prints because COVID and so I had to find somewhere else. But luckily, I had all the people were accepting their work of trying to track someone down. And so things like that, just having sort of not necessarily a legitimate backup plan, but like having the information there that says, you have to work pivot has been overused for  Friends, but like, pivot to another avenue of thinking. And there was a fair bit of off putting. But that like I said before, this is what Glasgow City Heritage Trust do and they know what they’re doing? And we managed to some who helped me create a, I built a website, I didn’t know how to do that, like I didn’t know. But that’s something I do know how to do. And I now have a website that I can expand for the hopefully real world exhibition at some point, or just for the pre existing community to sort of get more information out there and sort of spread out even more of our core beliefs and aims. So yeah, like, just do your research and keep every scrap of paper.

Erin Walter
Yeah, the feedback, especially it’s such an important one. We’ve got another question about the format of exhibitions, rather the photographs or objects or range of both. Generally, we’re happy to exhibit anything, it can be a film, it can be a photograph a series of objects. I challenge you to do a performance. Yeah, whatever you like wecan we absolutely have the capacity to do.

Silvia Scopa
And there was something amazing in store for theTenement Tiles  exhibition, I won’t say more, because probably it’s going to happen at some point. I don’t want to spoil it. But there was something amazing in storage.

Lizanne Phee
I have referred to it to as a sculpture, that’s just leave it.

Silvia Scopa
It’s going to become a reality, I hope at some point in our lifetime is going to be a reality, because I was very excited.

Lizanne Phee
See now you have  invited me to go and apply for more funding. That was your fault.

Erin Walter
And the sky’s the limit. So, you know, we don’t our I guess our limits of what, you know, community or heritage grant is continually brought in and shaped  based on what projects come in. So if your project can extend that even further, excellent. We, we love to see it.

Silvia Scopa
And Jan, I think that the ghost signs exhibition that you’re planning to do is basically like prints of photographs.

Jan Graham
Yeah, it’s just photographic prints on foamboard to go on the wall, I think it was originally planned to show one of your signs that you’d acquired.

Silvia Scopa
Oh yeah.

Jan Graham
Yeah. So that would have been part of the original exhibition, but not not going forward I  guess.

Silvia Scopa
Yeah, yeah. So someone gave us they didn’t donate it to us. They just gave it to us like to borrow for a period of time. A great sign, I think it was enough to know more brass sign like super heavy. And that would have been a very nice touch to the exhibition. But I mean, it’s one hundred  years old, so it’s going to last. So yeah, probably in the future. So yeah, hopefully we are going to be able to have exhibitions in our space soon. Again, because it was also a very good opportunity to have people coming into the office and chatting to us, for sure is something that is missing at the moment. So any other questions at all. I think we covered everything. So our next surgery, our next and last surgery is on the 31th of March. And it’s Wednesday is at the same time is free, you just have to book and tickets are going to go on sale on the first of March. So next one is going to be focusing on our building repair grant and on our development grant and we’ll have some speakers and it’s going to be the same format but just about other grant.  So please, if you know of anyone who is thinking of applying for this kind of grant, let them know, spread the word. And you can always contact us, you can either submit an enquiry, or you can contact us on social media, you can write us an email, whatever you want. Just let’s get in touch. And we are going to be happy to help and please follow these two amazing projects as well. That I’m sure are going to bring amazing things to the world.

Lizanne Phee
I just said that you’re like, if I could just have you in my cheerleader, like all the time. That will be great, I mean you will get very tired  very quickly, but

Silvia Scopa
Write me an email, I am going to cheerlead!

Lizanne Phee
I’ll save you money.

Silvia Scopa
Okay. And thank you, everyone. So hopefully see you the next surgery as well.

Lizanne Phee
Thank you for coming.

Silvia Scopa
Okay. Bye.