2007/8 has seen very positive developments for us. We have grown in strength in a variety of ways whilst maintaining our core focus: the provision of a contemporary, innovative and quality service to provide community based projects for Irish music, arts, heritage and cultural development. Furthermore, this has been a time of strategic and ongoing development for us at The Irish Arts Foundation

The increasing recognition in the type of service we are providing is one of the many reasons why other local, regional and national Irish organisations, statutory agencies, voluntary sector and community groups and are seeking partnerships with us.

Alongside the recognition to meet further Foundation development we saw an opportunity to strengthen organisational capacity through developing the roles of Chief Executive and Director. With the help of continued funding from the Irish Government through the Emigrant Services Fund these positions have become a reality.

Recent community events organised by and involving IAF have been extremely well received and supported by the local communities. Previous and more recent events, featuring nationally and internationally established and emerging artists such as Lunasa, Ceide, At The Racket, Danu, North Cregg, Teada, Michael McGoldrick, Ceoltoiri Coleman, Grada, Zoë Conway, Beoga, Frankie Gavin, Mike Galvin, Dick Gaughan and The London Lasses, have significantly enhanced the profile, development and awareness of The Irish Arts Foundation.

This year has seen the Community Participation and Learning Programme continue to develop. The weekly classes have increased and, in addition, we have reached out to more young people in the community by extending "After School Clubs" to more schools citywide, the development of the Garforth Community College Ceili Band and following consultation with Education Leeds Music Support Services, the inclusion of Traditional Irish Music within its World Music projects. The IAF Programme now regularly involves over 100 young people in Irish music and cultural activities. The service provided by IAF has provided a number of our present schools (with large intake of second and third generation and dual heritage Irish young people) with both after school and multi cultural activities to satisfy OFSTED inspectors. Furthermore a number of these schools have been commended in their OFSTED reports in providing such facilities and multi cultural activities.

Our ongoing plans include further developing the Adult Learning Programme, which focuses on adults with a core musical knowledge e.g. classically trained, jazz-influenced or English folk music.

We intend to continue to promote work of the Foundation through specific target areas, such as local schools and community venues, The Irish Post, The Irish World, The Federation of Irish Societies, Ireland Network-Great Britain and specialist music, voluntary sector, arts and community publications. These remain an important medium, among both the Irish and the wider community, in promoting our work.

An e-mailing list has been established for events, concerts and performances. The longer - term plan is to establish an Irish arts, cultural and heritage exchange information e-network in partnership with other Irish groups who have similarly established these systems.

At IAF we are lucky to have a strong Board, who have been committed to see the vision develop. This provides a strong backbone to the organisation.

I would like to thank them for their individual and collective guidance, expertise and support throughout this past year.
My thanks go to our project volunteers for their continued support, effort and involvement. In particular to Grahame Priestly for preparation of audio teaching resources, to Jim Mulhern for photographic materials, Kieran O’Malley for IT support, Jo Heyworth for Human Resources expertise, Louisa Heraty for Employment Law guidance and John Woods, Kevin Hurley, Deirdre Havlin, Clare Staunton, Jim and Maria Doody amongst the many other artists and musical colleagues, both locally and nationally, for their musicianship - often at short notice! All are much needed and their valuable strengths help to keep us going!

Untold Stories

The latest IAF project begins...

Funders

Details of our financial supporters

The Team

Come and meet the Irish Arts Foundation team members

Finally I would like to thank our Outreach Teams: Gill Pearson, Emily Ingham, Kate Badcock, John Gray, Roddy Johnston and Gerry Brownridge for the effort and commitment they bring to their work and the Foundation.

The future brings the continued challenges of uncertainty of funding, changes in economic climate, social policy and an increasing awareness in this organisation of the needs to provide improving, evolving and additional services and resources for our stakeholders and service users.

We at The Irish Arts Foundation will endeavour to deal with these challenges with integrity, innovation, resolve and commitment.

Des Hurley – Chief Executive

Chair’s Report

I am delighted to welcome you to the Irish Arts Foundation annual report. It is a report that reflects our ongoing development in providing community access to, and participation in, traditional Irish music, arts, heritage and cultural activities.

Concerts and established community-based events, such as ’The Leeds Gathering’, enable us to continually bring performing traditional Irish musicians and artistes of a high calibre to the city. These community events have not only provided entertainment and a great deal of enjoyment but have also presented enthusiasts and local musicians with an opportunity to improve their performance skills and supplement their learning having seen these skilled musicians. Furthermore, we intend to continue with, and build on, these events and widen their appeal in the future.

The move in 2005 to our resource centre in The West Park Centre working alongside an eclectic mix of music and arts organisations, the implementation of our Five-year Strategic Development Plan, the ongoing development of Irish History Month, events co-hosted with our colleagues at Liverpool Irish Festival and Return to Camden Town Festival coupled with the number of partnership and community events, cultural workshops over a wide range of Irish arts and traditional music sessions involving the staff and outreach teams, have all positively raised our profile and improved our accessibility and approachability within the wider community. As part of our ongoing development, we will continue to evaluate our core focus, objectives and achievements.

The achievements have been the result of some fine teamwork involving the Trustees of the Foundation, the Outreach Teams, the office based team, volunteers, and musicians, our Chief Executive - Des Hurley and Director - Chris O’Malley, and our former chair, Kev Mullowney. I would also like to thank Marie Forde and Siobhan Rodgers from Allied Irish Bank Leeds, whose strategic and financial guidance has been most helpful. Everyone has worked really hard in advancing the aims of the Foundation.

Finally, I would like to say a word of sincere thanks to all our funders throughout the year. Without their financial support the Foundation’s work would be impossible.

Sabrina Piggot - Chair