Arts Update from Lucy Bedford, Arts Officer MK Council:

European Capital of Culture – it is early days and it will be a while yet before we really know the impact of Brexit on the Capital of Culture titles.  The work we’re doing in Milton Keynes is essential to building a strong cultural future and as such we will continue preparing the sector and the borough as a cultural hotspot.  I’ll keep you posted as and when we learn more.

New Council Logo – we have launched a new logo.  If you are a council partner and you use the logo on your website or marketing material, please do update to our new style.  Drop us an email if you don’t have a copy of it already.

Anouar Kassim MBE – congratulations to Anouar who runs the Art in the Park festival and MK Islamic Art, Heritage & Culture Group on his MBE which was awarded for his contribution to interfaith relations.  A well deserved recognition!

Writer in Residence – this month we welcomed Rachel Barnett to Gareth Davey as Writers in Residence until October 2017.  Rachel is mentoring Gareth who is a young local writer and they have already created a Creative Writing Education Resource for schools which is now with the designers.  Rachel will be running workshops to support the development of short stories about our public art collection.  If you’d like to know where and when she’ll be somewhere drop me a line

IF:MK & MK Fringe Festival – the programmes are out for the complementary festivals – if you don’t have one then do pop to your local library, saxon court or the tourist information office run by Destination MK.   IF:MK are doing their final push for volunteers for Dominoes – if you could help please do drop them a line as they’d be pleased to hear from you.

No more Mobiles – we now have access to our work calendars and emails on our personal phones and therefore the council are phasing out corporate mobiles.  If you need to contact a member of the team they can be contacted via the council switchboard (01908 691691) or drop us an email in the usual way and we will call you back as soon as possible.