Happy Days’ Enniskillen Co-Creators’ Forum / Happy Days

Join our Co-Creators’ Forum: a fast paced and creative way to encourage curiosity, new insights and ideas to explore our cultural and literary heritage.
Bringing together the shared experiences of our rich pool of volunteers, the local businesses, the vitality of our artists and craft traditions, and our talented young people our Co-Creators’ Forum will draw from this storehouse of ideas to develop new models of engaging with our cultural and literary heritage in Enniskillen and beyond.

Purpose of Co-Creators’ Forum

The purpose of the Co-Creators’ Forum is to harness the creative ideas and insights of Happy Days’ volunteers around future visions for literary and cultural heritage in Enniskillen.

Our hope is that we create a sense of excitement, creative participation and belonging brought to life around the theme of literary, cultural and creative heritage. From this we are hoping to identify emerging themes, develop prototypes and feed into a much wider literary heritage and learning programme

How might we leverage the legacy of the ten years of the Beckett and Wilde Festivals to enhance the capacity of the Enniskillen community through creativity, civic engagement, education, and cultural placemaking?
How might we create ventures and adventures through Wilde and Beckett animating and energising the cultural and creative spaces of Enniskillen and Fermanagh?
How might we create a create a vibrant cultural hub, foster a love of learning around literature, writers and creativity, attract visitors, and boost our local creative heritage and volunteering economy?”
How might we create a community of engagement and collaboration through our volunteers, teachers, businesses and Fermanagh-based creative practitioners to promote literary heritage?
How might we create a prototype as the basis and evidence for the application of the “Growth” Phase of The National Lottery Heritage’s Heritage Innovation programme?

How can we engage the wider community more effectively with the literary and cultural heritage of Beckett and Wilde?

Use the festival to create the arts and cultural
infrastructure Fermanagh needs
(address the gaps)

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Make the links to reading groups , libraries, schools, youth, heritage groups: create opportunities for people to contribute – and make their own connections

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Making connections with the town and its community

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Make it fun. Accessible.Engage with schools/ youth groups.
Why is this heritage important in 2024.
Ask the wider community what they know about the heritage and build on this. Influencers

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Embracing cultural continuum … understand what it is people wish to contribute, what they would like to see emerge on literary and cultural heritage front? How might B&W festival act as spring board

5
Available funding for local makers!!

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Make the community friends and proud supporters of the festival through education and easy access to information. Maybe even free performances in prestigious venues and via local media presenters

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Have an annual international Beckett and Wilde festival and attract writers, poets and artists

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Make the festivals for a year round presence with events and links with local businesses

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Community involvement

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Embrace the cultural continuum idea

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Raise more awareness among younger age groups.

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Apart from asking the wider community… I) form a co-creative steering group; including people from across the community spectrum ie creatives, business people, cultural & facilitate leaders

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Making it connect with the entire community. Securing additional funding. Engaging young people in an innovative and creative way

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Through school events

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Interdisciplinary work to bring together people of different interests

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Create a sense of ownership

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We need to incentivise people to Participate!

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Bite sized inputs. Memes. TikTok. Draw out the humour. Engage with school curricula. Encourage a level of pupil participation. Local installations (like the swallows).

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