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Disappointment from losers in ACE funding round
Manchester based writers' development organisation Commonword is among the organisations which have lost National Portfolio status in the latest round of Arts Council England funding, it has emerged.
Meanwhile The Poetry Book Society's director Chris Holifield said she was "very disappointed" that her organisation's application to return to NPO status had been rejected.
Commonword, which organises writers' workshops and live events, confirmed it had learned this morning (1st July) that it had been dropped from the NPO list. New writing co-ordinator Martin Demello said the organisation was just absorbing the news. "Arts Council England provided the majority of our funding this year," he commented.
The Poetry Book Society, which lost its NPO status in 2011, had applied for regularly funded status once more in the latest round, but found out today it had been unsuccessful. Director Chris Holifield said she was "very disappointed" and that the PBS had been "in the process of reinventing ourselves – getting more involved in organising live events and with big ambitions for what to do online". The Society has had ACE funding for the Grants for the Arts for its Next Generation Poets 2014 project, but the lack of regular funding made paying rent and salaries difficult, she added. "There are only three of us, but we still have overheads like any organisation," she said.
Michael Schmidt, m.d. of Carcanet Press, which was successful in retaining NPO status for 2012-15, deplored ACE's decision on The Poetry Book Society, saying: "It's very sad. The Poetry Book Society is crucial to the poetry ecology, and their selections and recommendations are one of the few things to distinguish books for booksellers and readers."
Schmidt added that he was "relatively pleased" with Carcanet's own NPO funding, which will continue for the next three years, although with a 1.5% cut in real terms. "It's very nice to have it. My feeling is that a lot [of organisations] got what they expected [from ACE]."
