Minutes of ordinary meeting of the Burgh of St Monans Community Council on Monday 16th November 2009 at 7.30pm in Mayview Hotel Function Suite
SMCAF CHAIR’S AGM REPORT 18 NOVEMBER 2009
It has been an honour and a privilege for me to chair the St Monans Community Arts Festival in 2009. My original idea for a community arts festival took wings throughout the months of this year, due to the support, assistance and drive of a committed group of people from within and outwith our committee.
The challenges before us were great. We had to start from scratch, building up a festival from the grass roots up. We had to enthuse people about the idea, opening up their eyes to the possibilities of participation in this venture. We had to see St Monans as an arts centre, identifying the venues, the creative environments, that could house projects.
An open meeting was held in November 2008 to recruit a committee; an open meeting was held in January 2009 to reach out for festival participants. Openness was what we endeavoured to promote throughout our procedural and artistic initiatives and decisions.
A dedicated committee took on the responsibility of translating the arts proposals sent to us into a working programme. This programme had to be varied, to properly represent a range and balance of arts, and flexible, to meet the rigours of event organisation. The skill and experience of the committee members was invaluable in the realisation of this work, to which I, as Chair, offer my sincere thanks.
Fife Council, St Monans Community Council and the Common Good Fund supported us financially, offering their advice where necessary. We called upon the services of people within the St Monans community, who offered their thoughts and volunteered their energy to the formation of the festival. To all parties who helped us in this way, we, as a committee, offer our sincere thanks.
The St Monans Community Arts Festival was a success. It involved local people and drew in people from Fife and beyond. It covered many creative bases, with music, arts and crafts, painting, photography, camera collections, film, drama, dance, poetry, tai chi, local history and a festival church service on display over the September weekend. It opened at St Monans Primary and closed at the Mayview Hotel, making appearances in-between at a host of village venues.
We asked people involved to give us feedback. The information received is helping us to evaluate what worked and what can be improved upon. This brings me to my closing comments. In my view, the achievements of the first St Monans Community Arts Festival can only increase through the wider support of the St Monans community. Like all first-time ventures, it was experimental; a learning process for all involved. Its future depends on the will and vision of the community to support its own artistic potential. Over the festival weekend, this promise manifested in a child’s poem, a collector’s wisdom, a violin’s song, an artist’s sketch, a dancer’s smile. This is too precious to lose, too special to neglect.
John Brewster,
Chair of the SMCAF Committee,
18 November 2009
My name is Peggy Schwarz, and I live in Mount Gambier, South Australia. I wanted to write to someone in St. Monans after visiting there recently, and found your name on the St. Monans web site in relation to a choir. No, I do not want to join the choir - Australia is a little too far away unfortunately.
Recently whilst on a 6 weeks visit to a niece in Devon, we flew to Edingurgh, hired a car, and drove around Scotland for 10 days. I was most anxious to visit St. Monans, as I have a print of a water colour by Jill Walker, hanging on my kitchen wall, and have for years looked at it, and wondered about “The Harbour, St. Monance, Fife” as she has titled it. I dreamed of one day visiting this place, about which I knew nothing. I was not disappointed. I found St. Monans to be everything the picture lead me to believe it would be. I was impressed by its colourful, tidy and clean appearance, and it gave the feeling of it’s people being proud of where they live.
The church was very interesting, well kept and looked loved by its congregation. The grass was being cut the day we were there, the sun was shining, the sea calm - what a lovely place.
I came home remembering my brief visit to St. Monans with great pleasure, and wanted to tell someone there, how much I enjoyed my glimpse of your life in that place. Your web site, shows me you have an active and vibrant community, doing lots of interesting things. The web site also explained why my picture is titled ” St. Monance”, instead of St. Monans.
I will continue to check your web site from time to time, to see what is happening in St. Monans, now I know that it really exists, and is not just some artist’s imaginings!
Regards to the Choir - it would have been nice to have spent more time in your village, and maybe have heard you sing.
Kind regards, Peggy Schwarz.
Minutes of ordinary meeting of the Burgh of St Monans Community Council on Monday 26th October 2009 at 7.30pm in Mayview Hotel Function Suite.
Visitors to St Monans may well remember this iconic view and have most likely taken advantage of obtaining their own photographic memory here. This view is in danger of being lost due to a proposed house development. If you, like many locals, recognise this stunning outlook and think that it would be a true loss to the history and character of St Monans, please voice your concerns to the planning department of Fife Council.
For now this view is safe. The Planning Application was refused.
