When I say Llanelli I do not mean just the town centre, I mean the whole constituency.
The Town Centre is definitely improving as the County Council is spending more money on our area. We do need the support and we are getting it a little more as the County Council is now listening to the local people.
Let me say, first of all, that I am not Welsh but I am very proud to be living in the Llanelli constituency. I am learning Welsh and will continue to learn it until they carry me out in my coffin.
However, I want to attract the arts and creativity here. All around the constituency we have very talented people. We have great artists ,musicians, singers, writers and in the twentieth century we had very famous actors, our most famous being the film actress Rachel Roberts. Look her up and you will find out how much she achieved in her 53 years of life.
The John Street Project
Two years ago, I was visiting friends in Worthing and discovered how much the Council there is spending on the Arts. It added so much more beauty to a very pretty town. On the way home I had a light bulb moment. I already knew about all the talent all over Llanelli but there seemed to be nothing to reflect that in Llanelli town centre itself apart from a few amazingly talented people. So Myrtle House has an Art Gallery in its café, there is a Ceramics shop, and a gorgeous craft shop, all of these in the Town Centre as well as in John Street a music shop, an Art House, and an Art Gallery.
It seemed to me that we needed to get together to make the area a Creative Quarter. On the other side of Llanelli is the Fwrnace area where there is the theatre and the studio attached, a small theatre for the amateur dramatics, of which there are many. Each year the various groups perform musicals and the Boom group does one Shakespeare play. Not far from there is a vinyl record shop. In Burry Port, there is an opera company. Apart from the businesses, all the performing groups are run by amazing volunteers. How can we not be proud of what we, the people, achieve.
It seemed to me that we could create this Quarter in John Street. The performing arts are taken care of but the artists are spread about a bit in the Town centre and elsewhere. We held a meeting with as many artists as we could find and they came up with a fantastic idea.
In John Street there is an old post office which could be turned into a small museum. They suggested that, if we could raise the money, we would be able to make that the centre point for every artist and artistic business in the constituency of Llanelli. We do have Park Howard museum on the outskirts as well but our Llanelli museum would be the people’s museum for the people, by the people.
We have so many ideas but we would need 2 part-time workers and a full-time supervisor and as many volunteers who would be willing to be involved. To make sure that it can eventually support itself we would set up the following:
- Registered charity
- A room to rent to different artists as an artists studio
- Broadband
- Courses for arts and crafts
- Renting out the museum for events
- A gift shop
- A café
- Membership
- Gift aid
- Showing off the amazing history of Llanelli
- Other fund-raising events.
The plan is to have an archway leading into John Street called Creative Quarter. We have so many plans to make it beautiful so that tourists would want to visit it. A treasure in the town centre!
We already have volunteers lining up to help, one of whom is a carpenter who will make moveable walls so that the sizes of the rooms could change at any moment.
We would like the support of local businesses but we will have to raise money.
We hold meetings where we inspire each other and we are very excited to make this happen.
If you want to help us to help Llanelli, please contact me, especially if you have specific skills which could be of use to us. This is a very exciting project because our aim to beautify Llanelli is very important. On top of that we would want young people to visit the museum. We would want links with Llanelli schools and particularly history teachers as well as Welsh speakers so that we can show off Llanelli in Welsh which is the right thing to do.
Instead of being negative about our constituency, let us pull together and ensure that the museum will be Welsh to its core.
We are getting support from Cwmpas and their representative, the wonderful Esther Price, who is guiding us through this maze but first and foremost we need the money. We will be applying for funding but if you feel you can volunteer in any way to support our wonderfully talented people in our constituency ,please contact me. We need all the help we can get. Come and join us and have the fun of working hard for Llanelli because volunteering is fun, too.
Ymlaen, Llanelli, onwards and upwards.
