Activating the Athenaeum

An exciting opportunity has arisen in Plymouth City Centre…

The Plymouth Athenaeum Society (http://www.plymouthathenaeum.co.uk/) are seeking new solutions to running their building sustainably.

WonderZoo CIC (https://www.wonderzoo.org/) are seeking a home from which to grow and develop their community arts offer.

The Plymouth Athenaeum and WonderZoo are members of Plymouth Social Enterprise Network (PSEN). In Autumn 2023, PSEN Coordinator & Activator Amerie Rose saw a match between The Athenaeum and WonderZoo’s vision and values, so brought them together for a meeting. This collective has formed out of initial conversations between the three organisations. 

Now and together, we want to collaborate with partners to develop a high quality, inclusive, accessible and diverse cultural offer for the city centre.

This project is the next phase of an exciting exploration into how Plymouth Athenaeum, WonderZoo and PSEN can combine forces to develop a cultural offer which will bring significant social benefit to the heart of Plymouth City Centre. 

We intend to secure the future of the historically important Athenaeum building and develop a programme which will reach and engage a broad and diverse range of people and communities. We want to unlock the potential of the building as a genuine and exciting community asset which creates space for people to come together and do the things they love, as well as experiment and test out new ideas.

Our initial meetings have demonstrated that each organisation brings a unique set of personalities, skills and experience to the table as well as reaching into very different networks across the city and beyond. The Collective will draw strength from these foundations and intends to grow into a strong and innovative partnership which can make a clear invitation to other individuals, groups and organisations to join us.

All three partners in this collective are encouraging public engagement to enable the Plymouth Athenaeum building to become a sustainable, vibrant, inclusive and community-focused arts, culture and learning centre. We believe that with public support, the building can fulfill its original purpose - to provide community access to a diverse programme of performing arts, culture and learning facilities in Plymouth city centre.

POP Collectives are contributing £5000 towards funding the first project stage which will run February to May 2024. The partners are undertaking a feasibility study into whether a founding partnership between Plymouth Athenaeum, PSEN and WonderZoo can:

1. Attract the interest and secure the support of a broad and diverse range of stakeholders from across the city and beyond.

2. Bring investment into the Athenaeum building so that it is a usable, accessible and attractive space for Plymouth’s communities.

2. Build a community arts programme which is engaging, inclusive, diverse and innovative.

3. Raise the profile of Plymouth and diversify the city’s cultural offer through attracting national and international producers who currently do not come here.

4. Support Plymouth Athenaeum, PSEN and WonderZoo to become more resilient and sustainable businesses, and share our learning with the wider social enterprise sector.

The Plymouth Athenaeum Charitable Society was founded in 1812 to promote learning in science, technology, literature and art. The original building was built to be the society's home and act as a cultural resource for the city. It was destroyed in World War 2 and the building we know now was constructed post-war, staying true to the same ambition and offer. 

Today, the society is keen to move away from its traditional reputation as working at arm’s length from community groups towards a more inclusive approach. Their renewed focus and approach will benefit the building by ensuring it is utilised by more people who understand what the surrounding communities need.

In February 2022, The Plymouth Athenaeum Society held a series of member and public consultation events about a proposed community project to re-open the theatre at the Plymouth Athenaeum and the wider regeneration of the building. The goal of the public consultation events was to gauge interest levels in supporting the project and to start a conversation about what a community-led partnership might look like.

The Society had a fantastic pre-pandemic track record for providing a range of activities and events which saw…

16 groups, 56 organisations and 20 composers & artists delivering:

190 hours of arts activities

136 hours of festival activities

108 hours of writers’ activities

40 hours of readers’ activities

32 hours of music activities

13 presentations

20 lectures & talks

20 astronomy & photography seminars

And 18 discussions.

The Athenaeum also welcomed external performance groups who reached 12,500 theatre goers.

…And all this in just one year.

Looking forward, The Society has the ambition to reach a more diverse audience, not just as customers but also those who wish to be meaningfully engaged with their activities through volunteering and employment. They also want to host a broader range of activities which bring more of the building into regular use. They are welcoming the opportunity to achieve both these things through a partnership with WonderZoo who have a track record of exactly that.

The best example of this is to highlight how WonderZoo saw an opportunity to develop the Plymouth History Festival, which was delivered at The Athenaeum in 2019, online in 2020, and at The Box since 2021. WonderZoo’s mission with this festival was to ensure it represented all people in Plymouth, and in particular gave voice to the hidden history and significant contribution of people from BAME communities, something which the festival had not achieved to date. They produced the Plymouth COMMUNITY History Festival which saw 1770 visitors to The Box on its opening day, an increase of 1004 compared to the same day in 2022. The week of the History festival saw 5186 people visit The Box, representing a 52% increase in visitors from 2022 to 2023.

Aside from the numbers though, the social impact of the festival was that it was the first time that Plymouth has had a history festival that included walks and talks led by people of diverse backgrounds. This has been groundbreaking and opens the doors for future history festivals to explore Plymouth's hidden and under-represented history. People from Afro Caribbean backgrounds told WonderZoo that it was the first time they had felt valued and included in Plymouth. They saw their cultures being represented in a positive and celebratory way and this was very meaningful for them. The talks opened up a lot of interesting conversations, including mixed-race history, the links between India and Plymouth, and ideas around black identity. 

Going forward, WonderZoo intend to focus on more of these specialised events, while nurturing and encouraging up-and-coming art forms and platforms. A home at the Athenaeum will give them the facilities from which to nurture artist development, especially around performance and event management and especially for those who face barriers to accessing those career routes through more traditional settings.

Plymouth Social Enterprise Network (PSEN) was formed in 2013. They have a solid and trustworthy reputation in Plymouth for supporting the social enterprise sector to grow and flourish. PSEN provide mentoring, signposting and training in all aspects of setting up and running a social enterprise. The network members complete this picture by offering specialist professional services to support business sustainability and resilience. 

PSEN represents all kinds of social enterprises including co-operatives, community interest companies, charities, community businesses and more. The team work hard to make sure that the voice of social business, social impact and social value is loud in the city. They work with local stakeholders to create positive impact in policy and work with national bodies to showcase Plymouth as an icon of good, purposeful business. They also bring new social investment partners to the city - for example The Rank Foundation, Resonance and Social Investment Business Group have all come to Plymouth as a direct result of PSEN’s work.

PSEN bring this expertise, experience and enthusiasm to the collective to ensure that the partnership works with the broadest possible range of people and has the best possible chance of success.

We hope that you will support us on this journey.