A PANacea for local groups

PAN is delighted to welcome Lindsay Duncan and Sandy Maxwell as the two new Area Development workers.

PAN – the Promoters Arts Network, which has over 100 members across the whole Highlands and Islands area - has established one part-time post to work with member venues across Easter Ross and the Black Isle, and a second post in Argyll.

“PAN has been awarded funding from the Scottish Arts Council to support the highly professional work done by our volunteer local promoters,” explains PAN's chairwoman, Jennie Macfie, “We want to help our members to work even better. Everyone will benefit - audiences, artistes and promoters alike. It's an exciting project and we're very grateful to the SAC for the funding that has made this possible”.

Black Isle and Easter Ross

The new development worker for the Black Isle area is Lindsay Dunbar. “I'm very much looking forward to getting started and finding out what the promoters need. Local promoters work extremely hard to provide top quality theatre, music and dance in their communities all year round. We hope this project will make life easier for these promoters and encourage more people to go out to events.”

Lindsay, originally from Achiltibuie, has previously worked in theatre in Glasgow before returning to the Highlands five years ago to work with the growing cultural scene. Since then she has been working on a regular basis with musicians, promoters and community groups, particularly with Firefly Music.

Argyll and Bute

Sandy Maxwell is the appointed worker for Argyll and Bute. For five years he ran North East Arts Touring Trust where he supported a network of around fifty arts promoters around Aberdeenshire Moray and Aberdeen.  These were a mixture of village halls, arts centres and other organisations that NEAT supported to promote drama, children’s theatre and dance performances throughout the year.

Sandy has also run the Garrison Theatre in Lerwick, managed several lantern processions in Lochgilphead, and worked for touring theatre companies such as Benchtours and Wee Stories, before setting up the Cottier Theatre in Glasgow and administering Scottish Theatres Technical Training Trust. He is an advisor to the Scottish Arts Council on drama. 

Sandy also works part-time for the conservation charity the John Muir Trust running volunteer work parties on their estates all over Scotland.

More schemes to come?

The two pilot areas are very different. The Black Isle already has a strong group of promoters working quite close together. Whereas Argyll is a very challenging area geographically.

With the wide-ranging expertise of the two support workers, supported by the PAN administration and the Board, the two pilot schemes are designed to give PAN the ability to roll the programme out across the entire Highlands and Islands.