Submission to the Seanad Public Consultation on Culture and Arts Infrastructure

Background

The NCF cultural co-operative was founded in 2023 in Ballina, Co. Mayo by a group of local, returning and immigrant artists with experience in DIY organizing, commercial cultural enterprise and participation in European art collectives.

The name is an appropriation of a defunct agricultural co-operative in North Connacht, our nominal catchment area. Adopting the NCF aesthetic is on the one hand a conscious attempt at bricolage but also an acknowledgment of the foundational role of the agricultural movement in the Irish cultural revival and our aspiration to continue that legacy in some way.

We currently have 250 members of which about 40 are active volunteers. We provide a legal and technical platform, a physical space, an audience and community support to our individual members as they pursue their various projects.

You can find out more about our coop via the following links. In particular the original proposal document speaks about "meanwhile use" in the context of the report of the Nighttime Economy Taskforce:

Structure and Goals of the NCF: https://thencf.art/about

The original proposal: https://thencf.art/proposal

Past events: https://thencf.art/events

FAQ https://thencf.art/faq

Space: https://thencf.art/projects/community-night-space

Co-op management platform: https://github.com/seocahill/meitheal/

Observations

Getting started

The initial group consisted of local veterans of the DIY music scene and people with firsthand experience of participation in art collectives abroad. They intrinsically understood the primary need - that is the lack of suitable facilities to put on events in a social context, especially at night - and the benefits the project could bring.

We drafted the proposal document with the express aim of framing our project within a context of published government policy - the Nighttime Economy taskforce report in particular - and also attempting to preemptively answer questions querying the necessity for more arts facilities. We then pitched the idea to a local independent councillor who was supportive and he introduced us to the head of the Ballina Municipal Council who also received the proposal positively.

We began to run events straight away with the express goal of increasing the size of the group (via mailing list / newsletter) and increasing the credibility of the project in the eyes of local government. It was a bit of a stop start process of building relationships and gently hounding one or two unfortunate individuals but eventually the council offered us a former commercial premises in the main street in Ballina.

Legal form

We started off as an unincorporated association, as many clubs do, essentially a name, a bank account, a website and an email address. At our first meeting proper we adopted the International Cooperative Alliance principles as the backbone of our initial constitution, incorporating some specific aims alongside the published standard. We knew eventually we'd have to incorporate to tap funding and also because various critical partners would require that we had a formal legal foundation, limited liability, etc. That happened just prior to taking up residence in the space.

Despite being a co-operative we adopted the CLG legal form, to avail of the lower compliance burden via audit exemption. This actually created tension amongst some volunteers. Coming from a cooperative atmosphere, suddenly the group was presented with a formal board of directors, a secretary, and corporate roles. Thankfully over time trust was restored and we didn't lose anyone but the CLG legal formulation is not really suited to a truly co-operative enterprise.

Space and running costs

We operate under a meanwhile use license from the council at a nominal fee of €100 per year. Total running costs, including insurance, maintenance and electricity, are approximately €2,000 per year. The public capacity for events is 50 people which is about right for our target audience.

In terms of funding, apart from an initial cash injection to cover startup costs, we are completely self funded. Members can optionally pay an annual fee to support the co-op and we ask for a donation of 10-50 euro for use of the space. This along with assorted local government and arts office grants keeps us running.

One obvious income stream we're missing is alcohol sales. We initially thought the (now shelved) alcohol bill would be a game changer but in practice, we simply went BYOB and haven't looked back. My advice to other groups would be to not bother with a bar license, the regulatory burden isn't worth it.

Membership and activity

We now have approximately 250 members, with 40 active artists who self-organize in groups related to their disciplines . We run three to four events per month — music, exhibitions, gatherings, AV, Spoken word — and members also use the space for personal practice and studio work.

Our members regularly donate their time and skills in areas such as construction, electrical work, plumbing, fire safety, security, audiovisual engineering, technology, finance, accounting, and architecture. We have received donations of top quality AV gear and various fixtures and fittings. The fit-out and renovation of the building has been entirely volunteer-led — no capital grant was used or needed.

Some members use our legal form to access funding for their own cultural projects. Some promoters use our space to make money (albeit by programming excellent events that would not otherwise reach this part of the world). Some are idealistic volunteers committed entirely to the non-profit ethos. Managing these different expectations can be difficult at times.

We also face a bottleneck around the few people who volunteer to administer the co-op. We are gradually solving this through our own technological solutions with the goal of facilitating direct communication and collaboration across members and groups.

One of our core purposes is to provide an alternative social space for young people. We have succeeded to a degree, but those who gravitate to us tend to be confident and self-starters. It's an open question for us how we can facilitate more programming for and by people in the teens and twenties. Most of our management team is in their 30s and 40s; we need to support succession and leadership from younger people. Ballina is probably the only larger town in Connacht without a campus in the Atlantic Technical University. The lack of third level students is a big miss for us.

Working with the council

We've had a good experience working with Mayo county council. There is a modest but steady stream of funding available to us, they've been understanding and supportive of what we've been trying to do and I would say they are quite progressive in general.

Having said that, there is still more space in Ballina that could be used for meanwhile activities. There is a mindset I think that re-occupying buildings takes significant funding and planning. No doubt this perspective comes from the wish to have modern and well appointed facilities for any prospective occupent but it can be a blocker. The argument we've been trying to make is that one can take a more flexible approach with some hands-on artists, who may have the skillset and know-how to adapt and reuse a commercially unrentable premises where a typical tenant might not.

Artist's workshops, street facing studios, ateliers can be viably housed in quite basically appointed buildings and are a great way to connect the public with the artistic community while enlivening moribund streets.

Horizontal scaling and sustainability

We are often asked if we want grow, to scale vertically - the answer is a definitive no. We want to spread out horizontally, if anything. We'd love to be part of a network of cooperatives across north Connacht and beyond. We are a member of the European network of Culture centres which is fantastic but in our backyard we still feel a bit isolated and disconnected. Small collectives like ours, residing as we do in relatively low population centres, will never of themselves be able to satisfy the social and artistic needs of individual and groups, especially the need for diversity, variability. The counterbalance to the metropole needs to come through the network effect and discourse and co-operative action between collectives.

Impact

I think the first and most pleasing impact is the social one. On many occasions we've been approached by visitors who've expressed their gratitude for providing a different type of social space in the town. Some of these people have struggled, in one way or another, and they appreciate having access to a space where there is no judgement or pressure to succeed or to conform.

Collaboration has increased also between previously isolated groups and individuals. The simple fact of having a physical space for sociability through art has brought people together who otherwise, despite relative physical proximity, run in different social circles, perhaps even online through past connections to cities they have left. These new connections are bearing fruit in festivals, exhibitions, projects, groups - new art. It's extremely heartening to see.

Quality nightlife is available to those who desire it. One can now access a space in town at night that feels on a par in terms of atmosphere, programming and patronage to a small avant-garde venue in a much bigger cultural centre. We can sustain niche clubnights as we have no commercial motivation.

Access to arts funding has increased. By necessity, we've navigated the bureaucratic hoops required to apply for most funding sources and have built up a track record in the process. As a result, we're able to offer members access to grant aid through the co-op that might otherwise have been out of reach for them.

The mix of freedom from commercial pressure and the impact of comradeship, volunteerism and shared effort is a tonic. Art can be a very individual, solitary pursuit at times. Artists often come to North Mayo and West Sligo for that exact reason — solitude — many in our group have. But all art needs discourse: a social outlet, an audience, peers and interlocutors to regenerate itself and make it sustainable. As a public, we benefit from seeing and hearing these artists, just as they themselves benefit by embracing the quotidian from time to time.

Fin

Reflecting on the death of the pubs in Ireland in particular, as someone who was a teenager in the nineties when weekends were uncomplicated and busy, it's understandable to be preoccupied by how quiet the main street is now. I know very well the link between pub culture and Ireland's great modernist and post-modernist writers, and how this has created an almost mythological respect for the pub in Irish popular art.

But it's important to recall also that pubs weren't always here and to challenge our recency bias. As an Irish speaker I often seek out and listen to interviews of native speakers, particularly of my own local dialects. Seán Ó hÉalaí once interviewed a man who lived in An Corrán, paróiste Acla, called Maidhcí Mhaidhcil Sheáin Ó Gallchobhair who was a young man around the time of the War of Independence. The conversation turned to the subject of socializing,

Cén chaitheamh aimsire a bhíodh agaibh anois san oíche, abair, nuair a bhí tú óg?


Ah, muise ag cuartaíocht. Scata mór againn ann ag aon teach amháin.
Ach tá sé sin imithe anois.
Ní thiocfaidh duine ar bith isteach ó tháinig na pubs anseo atá ann.


Tá an saol sin imithe.


Tá an saol sin imithe cinnte


...agus an tellí
?

an tellí s'chuile shórt...

So substitute the dreaded smartphone for the "tellí" and you could tell a similar story of woe today — the venues that quietened the visiting house are themselves falling quiet. It's always sad to lose a physical cultural institution - McGowans in Easkey, Emmets and PJ Duffys in Ballina, The Humbert in Castlebar - especially for the community attached to it. But the crucial elements of a buoyant social and cultural mix - libation, music, stories, enough familiar faces to be cohesive, enough strangers to avoid stagnation - don't need a prescribed backdrop. People will always find new places, new means, to carry out social discourse when challenged, and our collective is one small example of that.

Recommendations

Enact the Co-operative Societies Bill to provide a better legal entity for small, non-profit, co-operatives.

Create easier pathways for meanwhile use through a standard licensing system for municipal councils. It should address whatever concerns property managers currently have in terms of risk / benefit, as they see it.

Positively encourage the reduction of vacancy of council property by meanwhile use opportunities to cultural producers. In other words proactively advertise the availability of government owned buildings for temporary cultural reuse.

Fund an umbrella group (an Irish version of the ENCC) to support the creation of cultural co-operatives around the country. As you can see from our experience, the hurdles to getting set up are not overly burdensome, nevertheless a formal platform for sharing knowledge in a replicable, teachable form would be beneficial I feel.