Next meeting (and AGM): Wednesday 8 October 2025, 6-8pm, and will be held online.
We are delighted to welcome memers of the Cross Party Group (CPG) on Culture and Communities to this next online meeting . The Cross Party Group on Culture and Communities encourages the exchange of knowledge and understanding between the Scottish Parliament and arts, culture, heritage, and historic environment communities.
This event marks our AGM, so we will briefly review the year and re-elect key post-holders. After that, we will continue our ongoing exploration of "big ambitions" for culture and communities in Scotland. This meeting will explore some questions that have arisen in earlier meetings of this group around understanding impact.
Key themes are likely to include:
the balance between piloting new ideas and sustained funding for ongoing initiatives,
articulating the impact of preventative activity,
‘what counts’ as evidence (and how that might tie to power and privilege within the sector),
how we capture, share and understand impact in different contexts,
how we create space for risk and experimentation, and
the possibilities for artistic and creative approaches in evaluation
Guest speakers include Aala Ross from Regenerative Futures Fund, Claire Sivier from TIALT and Olivia Turner from the University of Edinburgh's IMAGINED project. To kick off our discussions and inspire our imaginations, we're thrilled that we'll be joined for this event by Ashley Douglas, who will share an extract from their book The Lass and The Quine, the first original LGBT+ inclusive children's book published in the Scots language.
Convener: Foysol Choudhury MSP
Secretariat: Culture Counts
Booking to attend
Please book a (free) ticket to attend this event here. You must be a member of the CPG Culture and Communities to attend. If you are not already a member then please join the group here.
A note on timings
We anticipate this event running 1800 until 1930. We have scheduled the meeting slot until 2000 in case Scottish Parliamentary business on the day delays the start time.
Access
The event will be live captioned.
Contact details
If you have any questions about the event, the Cross Party Group, or any access requirements to enable your attendance, please contact Kathryn Welch: kathryn@culturecounts.scot