Third sector organisations are being encouraged to get involved in next year's Fire Starter festival
Charities and social enterprises with innovative ideas about transforming public services are being encouraged to get involved in next year’s Fire Starter Festival.
The annual festival celebrated creativity and innovation in public services and runs for two weeks from 29 January to 9 February.
Free to access, the open festival is curated by the Scottish Government and is for anyone working in public services, with organisers keen to encourage the third sector to get involved.
As well as celebrating and sharing innovation, the festival gives participants opportunities to hear about and get involved in areas of work which they may not have been exposed to before. Events will be hosted in creative, different and engaging ways and make use of different spaces, venues and locations across Scotland, both indoor and outdoor.
Kirsty Merriman, of Workforce Scotland, and a Fire Starter Festival organiser, said: “The Fire Starter Festival is not just about sharing stories of innovation - the small fires of change. It’s also about releasing your imagination and starting a conversation about something that matters to you.
“Our invitation to you: release your imagination, and put a call out to this vast creative community. Find a space to hold your conversation; preferably one that allows for new perspectives, de-familiarises the ordinary and what we habitually take for granted. Maybe a corner of a museum, a walk through the city, or the hills, a café.”
2017’s Fire Starter festival saw 35 event hosted by a range of organisations from large public service bodies to smaller groups such as social enterprises and community organisation.
Around 1,500 people took part in the festival.
The year the event will culminate in a reception at the Scottish Parliament on 21 February.
Details of the festival, including information about hosting an event, are on the Fire Starter Festival website.
Watch the video below to find out what last year's participants thought of the event.
Fire Starter Festival from Workforce Scotland on Vimeo.
