Government funding (1 Viewer)

[dleacht]

Has anyone on here actually managed to get any government funding? For what purposes?

I have but not arts funding. As part of my job I help community groups apply for grants all the time. Ironically the one group I work with who want to open an arts centre for young people in that area have had no success. They are fighting for over five years and have done everything asked. It's ridiculous how sports seems to be the only option of activity to do in the evenings for most young people.

 

[rettucs]

I don't think that's a fair statement, I'd safely say every club in the country has received grants or funding for new facilities, pitches etc. The money may not be going directly to players but they certainly benefit from it.

yep thats true. But I guess again I wouldn't consider it a like-with-like comparison. This would be analagous to some venue getting funds to do itself up and kit itself out, then bands can come play there. The bands still need to pay for their own kit, and anything else that has a cost associated with it.

The club funding is different from the players grants though. Club funding I have no problem with. It comes from lottery money, and typically the GAA club is something quite central and important to the area its in. The players grants was set to be a direct payment from the government to the players. That was the bit I have a problem with.

On reading further posts since I was last on, there have been some good arguments made, particularly that by MDR. I think the bottom line should be to make life a little easier for the artist (as well as giving equal recognition to the kind of artist we're talking about that those who do currently qualify for funding get). And, it has to be done in such a way that does not result in the 2-tier system that MDR refers to (that was my fear in the GAA case).

 

[Moods For Mallards]

The new arts council funded Land Lovers clubhouse is opening next Friday, you're all invited. Just testing the floodlights on the all-weather rock area this evening. Fingers crossed.

I agree with MDR, particularly in a country like this with its endemic backscratching and nepotism, any official system of funding would result in a gap between the funded and the not-funded, and that gap wouldn't necessarily represent talent or hard-work or any kind of worthiness. There'd be really long threads about it, stuffed with bedgrudgery.

 

[Cryptid]

What do FMC actually do? Like they have their CEO agreeing that a music board should be set up, when in actual fact they ARE the music board, who employ full time to staff, who organise a festival every year to promote Irish bands by bringing over Scottish and Canadian bands. Brilliant.

I totally agree with you there. I used to be on their mailing list, until I send them a reply to one of their self congratulating spams that was critical of them and suddenly I don't get updates any more. They were doing a survey of what musicians need and they said "But please don't just say money." Somehow I doubt anything ever came out of that survey.

I think the funding sports get is obcene. Sports, by it's nature, is elitist. Very little of this funding has a social element, i.e. paying for football kits for kids in RAPID areas or whatever. Most of it is for the new stands or the re-draining the golf courses.

I would much prefer grants as opposed to tax relief as a method of supporting musicians. Grants are targeted as one has to meet specific criteria. I believe that what we have at the moment is a two tier system, due largely to the tax relief system, which only benefits the really large earners. Canada and Sweden are two countries which don't have a two tier system, I think. They're all pretty much on the same level and there seems to be respect between them. And some good music too. I agree with MDR on the social aspect of arts grants middle class funding though.

Someone said to me recently that it irks him that Bono is so loaded considering he's only a musician. While I hate Bono, it's that attitude that hurts music in Ireland too. There's no real respect for it. (Rock) musicians are often seen as chancers, when they often really want to be full time musicians. Maybe it's Bonos fault.

Also, Damien's point on page 1 is excellent as well, I think.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

I think the funding sports get is obcene. Sports, by it's nature, is elitist.

Nonsense! To take the football club I played for growing up as a prime example, it caters for up to 4 teams at every age group from under 7s to adults, both boys and girls. The facilities at the club are available to every member, whether they are an under 15 international or some kid who can hardly kick a ball. Government grants were absolutely crucial to the building of the clubhouse and all-weather pitch.
I'm sure scutter can similarly testify for his Gah club.

 

[rettucs]

Nonsense! To take the football club I played for growing up as a prime example, it caters for up to 4 teams at every age group from under 7s to adults, both boys and girls. The facilities at the club are available to every member, whether they are an under 15 international or some kid who can hardly kick a ball. Government grants were absolutely crucial to the building of the clubhouse and all-weather pitch.
I'm sure scutter can similarly testify for his Gah club.

yes. And there was a combined effort between the soccer and the gah that the govt rowed in behind with to build an all-weather facility (the one moods refers to). Since thats opened there are literally hundreds of kids playing sports that never would have bothered otherwise. In this day and age when all kids want to do is eat chocolate and play playstation, I think its money well spent. I'd also contest its money thats saved tenfold in the future when these kids are healthier than they otherwise might have been.

The type of grants we're talking about here are made available to pretty much any sport to apply for.

I don't see how money spent on development on sport, or on encouraging kids to partake in sport could ever be construed as obscene, or in any way negative for that matter.

 

[Cryptid]

Nonsense! To take the football club I played for growing up as a prime example, it caters for up to 4 teams at every age group from under 7s to adults, both boys and girls. The facilities at the club are available to every member, whether they are an under 15 international or some kid who can hardly kick a ball. Government grants were absolutely crucial to the building of the clubhouse and all-weather pitch.
I'm sure scutter can similarly testify for his Gah club.

a) You're arguing that sport isn't elist? Interesting.

b) I take it there's a broad social cross section in your club.

To take my GAA football club in the town I grew up in as an example of what I'm saying, there are no working class people involved, the people who run the thing are arseholes who take as much money out of it for themselves as they can and if you're not a great athlete you're nobody, they don't want to know you (I speak in the latter here from personal experience).

 

[Cryptid]

I don't see how money spent on development on sport, or on encouraging kids to partake in sport could ever be construed as obscene, or in any way negative for that matter.

If you think sport is absolutely brilliant, then it's not obscene. I just think other things are important too, at least as important in the public interest as sport, and there's a real imbalance in how these are funded.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

a) You're arguing that sport isn't elist? Interesting.

b) I take it there's a broad social cross section in your club.

To take my GAA football club in the town I grew up in as an example of what I'm saying, there are no working class people involved, the people who run the thing are arseholes who take as much money out of it for themselves as they can and if you're not a great athlete you're nobody, they don't want to know you (I speak in the latter here from personal experience).

a) Yes. How is sport any more or less elitist than music? I don't understand. Who wants to know you in music if you're not in some way talented or cool or interesting, or perceived as such?

b) Yes. And rare is the football club in Dublin that doesn't have mostly or many 'working class' people involved. That's the base of the sport.

 

[rettucs]

a) You're arguing that sport isn't elist? Interesting.

b) I take it there's a broad social cross section in your club.

To take my GAA football club in the town I grew up in as an example of what I'm saying, there are no working class people involved, the people who run the thing are arseholes who take as much money out of it for themselves as they can and if you're not a great athlete you're nobody, they don't want to know you (I speak in the latter here from personal experience).

that wouldn't be typical in my experience.

sure it can be clickey as hell and that can set a lot of people's noses out of joint, and sure there are a lot of arseholes on power trips that make things run a lot less smoothly than they otherwise might. But I think the good outweighs the bad here. Specifically health, both physical and mental. That would be my experience.

Not saying other things aren't important or shouldn't be given the same kind of footing as sports clubs. Moreso that its hard to argue against the benefits these clubs bring to communities and those in them.

And sport can be elitest. Rugby for example. But in most soccer and gaa clubs, a wide-range of abilities at pretty much every age, will be catered for. I wouldn't call that elitest.

 

[Froog]

how about grants for a musical chairs club? that would keep everyone happy. or jazzercise. compromise people.

 

[Cryptid]

a) Yes. How is sport any more or less elitist than music? I don't understand. Who wants to know you in music if you're not in some way talented or cool or interesting, or perceived as such?

Ok, sport is competitive. Winning is the key point in most aspects of sport. There's also physical fitness etc, but if there wasn't winning, you wouldn't get too many doing step aerobics. Music is about entertainment, unless you're interested in the charts. One band doesn't neccessarily compete with another. Teams or sports individuals do. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, it just is. Whether people in music want to know somebody or not is down to their own preferences or tastes. Sport is more predefined.

b) Yes. And rare is the football club in Dublin that doesn't have mostly or many 'working class' people involved. That's the base of the sport.

Sorry, but I doubt that. By working class I don't mean joe soaps. I mean long term on the dole, drug addicts, travellers and their children etc. I think there's a lot of middle class people involved.

 

[Cryptid]

that wouldn't be typical in my experience.

sure it can be clickey as hell and that can set a lot of people's noses out of joint, and sure there are a lot of arseholes on power trips that make things run a lot less smoothly than they otherwise might. But I think the good outweighs the bad here. Specifically health, both physical and mental. That would be my experience.

Not saying other things aren't important or shouldn't be given the same kind of footing as sports clubs. Moreso that its hard to argue against the benefits these clubs bring to communities and those in them.

And sport can be elitest. Rugby for example. But in most soccer and gaa clubs, a wide-range of abilities at pretty much every age, will be catered for. I wouldn't call that elitest.

I'm not against some sports funding. I just think there should be a more level playing field. And there shouldn't neccessarily be a grant to level the field either.

 

[rettucs]

Sorry, but I doubt that. By working class I don't mean joe soaps. I mean long term on the dole, drug addicts, travellers and their children etc. I think there's a lot of middle class people involved.

I don't know about drug addicts but I'm sure there are plenty of people on the dole involved in sports clubs (could be myself soon). There are many high-profile cases of travellers involved in GAA clubs around the country, and more especially in Dublin (where a group of travellers actually set up their own GAA club which has been in existence for as long as I can recall). There are traveller children involved in my GAA club, and thats a club in a reasonably well-to-do leafy suburb. So I think that assertion was incorrect.

Again, in my experience.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

Ok, sport is competitive. Winning is the key point in most aspects of sport. There's also physical fitness etc, but if there wasn't winning, you wouldn't get too many doing step aerobics. Music is about entertainment, unless you're interested in the charts. One band doesn't neccessarily compete with another. Teams or sports individuals do. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, it just is. Whether people in music want to know somebody or not is down to their own preferences or tastes. Sport is more predefined.

I'm not sure how competitiveness equates to elitism. One of the great things about sport is that it can be deadly serious and it can be just a bit of fun. Most proper sports clubs cater for both ends of the spectrum.

Sorry, but I doubt that. By working class I don't mean joe soaps. I mean long term on the dole, drug addicts, travellers and their children etc. I think there's a lot of middle class people involved.

And how many people in bands fit the description: "long term on the dole, drug addicts, travellers and their children etc"? Maybe there's a good few on the dole by choice, but that's about it. I mean, get real - name me any kind of creative activity that drug addicts are all over.
The most deprived areas of every town and city in Ireland are hotbeds of football, boxing, GAA, etc. Seriously. Poor kids play ball, they really do.
Some of them play music too, but it's harder to define an acceptable and fair funding system for such individualistic pursuits.

 

[yesboyicecream]

Sorry, but I doubt that. By working class I don't mean joe soaps. I mean long term on the dole, drug addicts, travellers and their children etc. I think there's a lot of middle class people involved.

That's just not true. But the fact that it's not true actually supports your general argument about funding for music (unless I'm misunderstanding it). Government funding for sport has, in a lot of areas, provided access to sport & physical activity to people from disadvantaged areas. That's a good thing.

Go and look at the league tables for the North Dublin Schoolboys League or the Dublin District Schoolboys League (football), (look at the tables for any adult league either) and see if you can't spot the number of teams from disadvantaged areas. Or GAA. (Not the same for Rugby, obviously).

While people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to participate in sport regularly than people from higher socio-economic backgrounds generally, the disparity when it comes to arts attendance or active participation is much, much worse.

So, ideally, the solution would be to keep up funding for sport because it does work but also to provide a level of or structure for funding for the arts which promotes greater participation rather than simply exacerbates existing inequalities.

It shouldn't be an either/or situation and the ultimate goal of funding, which it is for sport, should be to increase participation.

Actually, the real problem is government funding for music education at primary and post-primary level.

I might have missed about three posts that said all this while I was typing it and I could probably keep typing for another hour but if you go to the Arts Council's website and the Irish Sports Council's website, you can compare and contrast the various statistics and research on participation.

MUSIC AND SPORT FOR EVERYONE!

 

[Cryptid]

The situation vis a vis social equality and sport isn't nearly as rosy as Mood for Moderns and Scutter make out. Funding for sport could be spent a lot more effectively if spent on various other things (not excluding sport either). You paint a nice picture of the local gaa club with lads on the dole going for a kick around, but realistically most funding goes into the top level of the sport.

The desire to win or competitiveness and elitism aren't neccessily the same thing, but where you have one you usually have the other, I would have thought.

Music isn't neccessarily an individualistic pursuit, although in Ireland it often is with the number of singer songwriters we have.

By the way, there's no need for "Nonsense!" and "Get real". I respect where you're coming from, although I don't agree with you.

 

[rettucs]

The situation vis a vis social equality and sport isn't nearly as rosy as Mood for Moderns and Scutter make out. Funding for sport could be spent a lot more effectively if spent on various other things (not excluding sport either). You paint a nice picture of the local gaa club with lads on the dole going for a kick around, but realistically most funding goes into the top level of the sport.

probably, but thats only natural. For example, in my club any funding received will go towards developing facilities, and naturally enough the 'top' teams in the club may get more use out of those facilities than lower down teams. But no one has a problem with that.

I'm wondering if the argument you're making is more along the lines of, say, the Croke Park development getting more funding than any individual club might. That case would certainly be true, but its a separate argument.

But I take your point. There is more to life than sport for sure. But sport is a great, great thing. And though I don't have as much time for some sports as others, I'd always see the merits in a kid out running around in the open air doing something they enjoy, and being afford that opportunity because some club in some locality were given money to develop a facility where they could do so.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

The situation vis a vis social equality and sport isn't nearly as rosy as Mood for Moderns and Scutter make out. Funding for sport could be spent a lot more effectively if spent on various other things (not excluding sport either). You paint a nice picture of the local gaa club with lads on the dole going for a kick around, but realistically most funding goes into the top level of the sport.

I'm not sure this is true at all. I'm not painting a rosy picture either, but you seem to have this idea that sport is only played by the middle class and top pros, and that music is, contrary to this, an inclusive hobby for everyone. I know this isn't true.

The desire to win or competitiveness and elitism aren't neccessily the same thing, but where you have one you usually have the other, I would have thought.

Music isn't neccessarily an individualistic pursuit, although in Ireland it often is with the number of singer songwriters we have.

I didn't mean singer-songwriters. Music is not a 'community activity'. It is generally pursued in small groups. Self-ordained elites, if you will.

By the way, there's no need for "Nonsense!" and "Get real". I respect where you're coming from, although I don't agree with you.

Sorry.


Very good post by yesboyicecream. Makes a good case for some system of musical funding. Maybe this kind of thing can only be done fairly through schools, it's a good point.

 

[yesboyicecream]

The desire to win or competitiveness and elitism aren't neccessily the same thing, but where you have one you usually have the other, I would have thought.

Where there is a limited amount of funding, the application process is by definition competitive, so this would apply to arts funding.

You can compare and contrast how accessible the funding from either the Arts Council or the Irish Sports Council is by looking at their annual reports and how it is spent....

My experience is this, most of my participation in sport has been subsidised by the government. None of my participation in the arts has been. I'm grateful for the former but I think the latter promotes inequality in participation, so I just want more arts funding, and participation, not less sports funding.

I'm going to stop now...I just wish government funding would promote the potential synergies between sport and music that we've seen in other countries....

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies