| Administrative History | Junction Arts is a participatory arts organisation and charity based in Chesterfield. It was established in the 1970s at South Normanton Community Centre. The South Normanton Parish Council minutes in collection D2166 shed some light on how participatory arts began at what was previously known as the Frederick Gent Community Centre. Running costs of the centre were met by both South Normanton Parish Council and Bolsover District Council, and the terms of its management structure were set by Derbyshire County Council. It was realised early on that around 15% of users were from Pinxton, so Pinxton Parish Council also agreed to contribute. The centre opened in autumn 1974 and became, among other things, the venue for the parish council's meetings. Its warden was Huw Champion. Mr Champion was keen to promote the arts, and in 1975 he gained the council's permission to use "part of the Market Street Recreation Ground on 6 days during the last 3 weeks in August [1975] for a series of performances of an open air theatre group, a puppet group and a group using inflatables". These cultural activities proved popular and provided a template for what was to follow: theatre, puppets and giant inflatables were the hallmarks of Junction 28's activities in the early 1980s.
Early on, there was already an interest in using art as a means of benefiting the area socially and economically. A meeting of South Normanton Parish Council on 6 Nov 1975 considered two letters from the warden: one asking "that the Council consider supporting the Job Creation Programme by suggesting likely schemes" and another asking the council to support an Artist in Residence scheme, which "would provide an artist of some kind in the community for 2 years". Minutes of the next meeting record the council's decision not to proceed with the Job Creation Scheme (after finding out more in a letter from the Manpower Services Commission) and the appointment of two councillors to serve on "the [Community Centre] committee" in respect of the Artist in Residence scheme. The minutes record occasional discussion of the need for a Management Agreement for the centre, to be signed by representatives of the parish council as well as Bolsover District Council and Derbyshire County Council. A final resolution to sign the management agreement was not passed until the meeting of 9 December 1976. This provided a formal structure for the operation of the South Normanton Community Centre in which arts activity was already taking place - this may be the reason that the 1980-1981 annual report refers to the project having been running for four years; at any rate, 1976 has long been regarded as the foundation year of Junction Arts. The annual report for 1982-1983 notes that Junction 28 was set up with funds from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and East Midlands Arts.
A key activity in the organisation's first few years was writing and publishing, and this also was promoted by Huw Champion. A meeting of 13 Jan 1977 considered a letter from the warden "regarding the setting up of a Newspaper/Newsletter concentrated entirely on local news, issues and events for Pinxton and South Normanton. This paper would be run by a voluntary editorial group drawn from both communities and would, once established, pay for itself either through sales or advertising". The council agreed to set aside £100 to support this venture. It is not known when publication began, but the only copy of the South Normanton Community Centre newsletter to be found in this collection dates from 1979 - it includes a small section devoted to the activities of the Arts Group. During the early years of the organisation's history, the names South Normanton Community Arts and Junction 28 seem to have been used interchangeably. The first project worker to be employed by Junction 28 was Peter Loveday, who left in 1980. The following year, Junction 28 was constituted as a charitable trust (according to information found in the 1996-1997 annual report).
1984 saw some important changes for Junction 28, as this was the year in which the organisation registered with the Charity Commission, and became a limited company. The Memorandum of Association of Junction 28 Ltd is not found in D7913 but is available online through Companies House. It gives the organisation's two objects as:
A) To promote, maintain, improve and advance public education, particularly by the promotion of education drama and other Arts, especially those activities which seek to make the arts relevant to the community, including the arts of drama, mime, dramatic improvisation, literature, dance, singing and music, visual and plastic arts, and to formulate, prepare and establish schemes therefore.
B) In the interests of social welfare to provide, or assist in the provision of facilities for recreation or other leisure-time occupation withe object of improving the conditions of life of the persons for whom such facilities are primarily intended being persons who have need of such facilities by reason of their youth, age, infirmity or disablement, poverty or social and economic circumstances provided that nevertheless such facilities shall be available to the members of the public at large.
By this time, Junction 28 had acquired and begun to renovate its own premises, a former cinema in South Normanton called the Picture Palace. Junction 28 continued to be heaquartered at the New Street Centre (formerly South Normanton Community Centre), but problems with the building led to a temporary evacuation to the Church Institute in 1988 and subsequently the use of office space at the Picture Palace itself. The venue saw regular use in the 1980s and 1990s, as Junction 28 hosted professional touring theatre productions and staged performances by its own drama group. There was also a regular music group including a choir called the Palace Singers, and literary activity with Junction 28's Writers' Group. This group was active under the direction of Rib Davis up to 1983, and was given new impetus towards the end of the decade with the employment of Eric Starbuck as its co-ordinator. Another key area of activity was the provision of activities for children, especially during school holidays; as the 1990s and 2000s wore on the organisation took on many more formal projects in schools.
In 1994, Junction 28 was re-launched as Junction Arts, with an expanded geographical remit covering the whole of the Bolsover district. Working in close collaboration with Bolsover District Council, Junction Arts began to structure its work in discrete programmes, with a focus on funded projects with specific social, environmental and educational outcomes. Much of the Junction Arts's work was carried out as part of the "People And Places" programme, which began in 1995 as a one year initiative partnership funded by the Groundwork Foundation, Groundwork Creswell and East Midlands Arts, and operated in Bolsover District and the Single Regeneration Budget areas of North East Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Junction Arts also set up:
- A formal education programme, following schools-based research funded by Arts Council England's Education Initiative Scheme (see D7913/6/6/13)
- the "Local People, Local Skills" programme, which aimed to to develop artistic expression and creativity in local communities
- A Youth Arts programme
- an Education and Lifelong Learning programme
- a Festivals and Celebrations programme. This took Junction Arts into events across the Bolsover district and further afield and led to the foundation of Junction Arts's most enduring regular event, the Bolsover lantern parade.
In 1996, Junction 28 ceased using the Picture Palace as its registered address, having completed the relocation of all its administrative functions to the Markland Campus of North Derbyshire Tertiary College, in Creswell. Records available through Companies House show two further changes in registered address: to the Shirebrook Centre in 2004, and to Springwell House in Chesterfield in 2012. The move to Chesterfield was reflective of Junction Arts' expansion beyond the Bolsover district. As at 2016, Junction Arts continues to be based in Chesterfield, and operates across rural areas of the East Midlands. The Combine: Farming Heritage East Midlands project (see D7913/1/3/9), for instance, spread across six counties: Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.
In 2014, Junction Arts approached Derbyshire Record Office with a suggestion that the fortieth anniversary of Junction Arts in 2016 could be marked with a community-based project relating to their archive material. With support from the record office, Junction Arts gained Heritage Lottery Funding for the project, known as JA40, which aimed to "explore, order and digitise" the collection, and bring together a research team which would use the archive to find out more about the organisation's history. This team was to include present and former staff, trustees, academics, artists, and members of the public. The project also aimed to commission original work from an artist in residence. The artist chosen was composer Paul Lovatt Cooper, whose reflections on four decades of local artistic activity resulted in a piece of music called Valiants Arise, arranged for brass band with samba band. Its first performance was at the Bolsover Lantern Parade in November 2016. Junction Arts also commissioned a film-maker, Chris Bevan, to produce a documentary about the history of Junction Arts, which was publicly shown for the first time in Chesterfield in December 2016. |
| Custodial History | These records were donated to Derbyshire Record Office in November 2015 and February 2016. In late 2016, 2 boxes of audio-visual materials were de-accessioned from this collection and transferred to the Media Archive for Central England. Additional material was deposited in November 2022 and February 2024.. |