聽過假音人的西九歌後, 每次看到西九龍都想起歌詞中Delayed no more 西九龍, 這句說話曾蔭權前陣子也常常掛在嘴邊.
許士仁見過西九聯席後給聯席發了一個香港文化及創意發展基金的proposal. 不過 proposal 中沒有提西九聯席一直在爭取的 "文化智庫", 亦沒有回認 "重構西九", 大概肥佬許在見聯席之前就寫好 proposal, 見見面, 好似有諮詢過聯席咁, 再推出計畫...所以聯席收到報告後, 好快咁回應, "點解無我地啲嘢係度?"
講明 delayed no more 又點會比聯席拖後腿? 其實肥老許見聯席好似搞到內部有一些爭論, 原來西九聯席連社團註冊都未做, 有十三個核心, 800人評審, 所以要進入建制搞文化智庫, 聯席內部的代表性和問責機制要搞好. 唔好搞到核心中的核心見完老許, 核心外圍才知道, 評審人則睇完報紙先知.
話時話老許連何志平個份老做埋, 肥老何仲有面留低, 面皮真係好夠厚...
政府個計畫書如下:
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Proposal to Establish the HK Culture and Creativity Trust (HKCCT)
香港文化及創意發展基金
Background
Hong Kong is renowned as a commercial city. However, in terms of cultural development when compared with other world cities, there is still room for improvement. To quote from the Consultation Paper by the Cultural and Heritage Commission (CHC) in 2001:
“Hong Kong has achieved remarkable success in economic growth, but lags behind other world-class cities in cultural development… For Hong Kong to maintain its competitive edge, it must further encourage creative thinking and put greater emphasis on culture.”
More recently, the 2005 Chief Executive’s Policy Address also states that:
“…There are apparent limiting factors in some key areas, such as cultivating creative talent, fostering creativity, commercializing creative ideas and financing the establishment of creative industries, which have held back the full development of cultural and creative industries in Hong Kong.”
And, to go hand in hand with creative thinking, critical thinking is considered just as important for Hong Kong to develop its knowledge-based economy.
At present, other than some privately run foundations, there are a few publicly run charitable trusts and foundations in Hong Kong that support culture and the arts, e.g. the HK Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund, the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust etc. While these funds contribute to certain aspects of development of culture and arts in Hong Kong, none purports to a comprehensive scope of cultural development for the long-term sustainability of creativity that might benefit Hong Kong in the ways that the above two documents describe, i.e. to encourage creative thinking, emphasize culture and develop cultural and creative industries.
To answer this urgent call for the holistic development of Hong Kong’s culture so as to foster creativity and critical thinking, there is need to establish a trust/foundation that would fill in the gap of the existing funds. We propose to name it the Hong Kong Culture and Creativity Trust (HKCCT).
Local and Foreign Examples
We have chosen the following local and foreign examples of trust/foundation for comparison including the European Cultural Foundation (Europe), the Nippon Foundation (Japan), Clore Duffield Foundation (UK), Istanbul Foundation for Cultural and Arts (Turkey), Ford Foundation (US), Carnegie Corporation of New York (US), Getty Foundation (US), Film Arts Foundation (US) and the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust (Hong Kong):
Identity
All these foundations/Trust are NGOs and managed by an independent board of trustees. Foundations like Nippon and Ford bear the mission of liaising nonprofit, government and business sectors, thus “become a bridge that connects various sectors” .
Areas of Concern
Although all of the foundations are concerned with the development of arts and culture, each has a special area of concern, e.g. the Getty Foundation is for the preservation of visual arts, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) is for performing arts and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) has an action-line on “Cultural Policy Development”.
Types of Support
Most of these foundations are grant-giving organization. Their main contribution is to support projects that fulfill their mission by means of grants. Multi-national foundations, like the ECF and Ford Foundation, support projects not restricted to their place of origin; while the IKSV promotes arts and culture in the form of sponsoring and organizing performance arts festivals. The Clore Duffield Foundation , however, establishes the Clore Leadership Programmes for the development of future cultural leaders in the UK.
Multiple Initiatives
The initiatives are set by the foundation itself with (own) thorough research which makes each foundation special. The Carnegie Corporation and Getty Foundation also share this feature. Others are even flexible enough to adapt the scope of their support for multiple initiatives. For example, the Clore Duffield Foundation
“balances its philanthropic work across reactive grant-giving and a more active, operational approach. When it sees a gap in provision, it will occasionally step in to put together a programme to address perceived needs.”
A Trust to Foster Creativity and Critical Thinking through Cultural Think Tank Development in Hong Kong
Mission
The Trust will be a grant-giving organization with private donations, which concentrates its support for the development of Culture to foster creativity and criticality in Hong Kong in the following areas: policy formulation, human resource development, long term network and infrastructure building, research and development, industry application and development and external exchange and collaboration. In particular, the Trust will aim to address needs in the following five areas:
1. developing a cultural environment with global perspective;
2. cultivating creative human resource with critical and strategic thinking;
3. promoting the application of cultural and creative assets to trade and industries;
4. facilitating international exchange and collaboration on culture and creativity, and
5. conducting applied researches for proactive policy review, formulation, and strategic programme planning and implementation .
The Trust will fulfill its mission through giving of grants and loans and will establish and review its priorities regularly.
Objectives
To provide a communication platform among all sectors including NPO, NGO, Government, Business, Academia and others;
To fund projects that will stimulate and promote the development of Hong Kong’s culture, thus creativity and criticality;
To offer institutional support in developing and implementing cultural think tank(s) with global and regional perspective and knowledge
To support applied research projects for the policy development and strategic programme planning and implementation in culture;
To provide assistance to cultural and research institutions which aims to facilitate long term infrastructure building on strategic programme planning and implementation for culture;
To support application of cultural and creative ideas as assets to trade and industries;
To support exchange programmes in the form of, but not restricted to, infrastructure building, performances, conventions, exhibitions, study tours, conferences etc.;
To educate and develop various stakeholders in the cultural and creative sector;
To support publication in culture and creativity;
Other activities that promote the objectives of the Trust.
Eligibility
Entities (either individuals or organizations) in the field of cultural and creative sector,
Other organizations which provide strategic planning, education, human resource development and exchange for cultural development.
Any other organizations which meet the objectives of the Trust.
Organization
The Trust will be managed by a Board of Trustees and a Council.
The main function of the Board of Trustees is to manage the investment of the Trust capital and to take responsibility for related financial matters so as to ensure that a steady income will be generated to finance the Trust's activities. The Board also decides on broad policy matters and gives direction on how the objectives of the Trust should be met.
The Council on the other hand is concerned with the execution of the Board's policies and decisions, management of the funds and the monitoring and review of funded activities that are carried out by the successful fund applicants. It should not be a programme running body and programmes should be suggested and run by the community.
Expected Deliverables
There will be different kinds of deliverables resulting from this trust but one ultimate deliverable will be the establishment of a cultural think-tank. The tasks of this think tank again will be varied but one important task would be to consider how Hong Kong should respond to the political-economic-led globalization from a cultural perspective and the strategies required to promote creative industries, cultural education, media industries, etc. in the context of overall economic development. In this connection, cultural R & D should be the main focus of this think tank as well as the trust.
References
The Carnegie Corporation of New York: http://www.carnegie.org/index.html
The Clore Duffield Foundation: http://www.cloreduffield.org.uk/
The European Cultural Foundation: www.eurocult.org
The Film Arts Foundation: http://www.filmarts.org/services.php
The Ford Foundation: http://www.fordfound.org/about/mission.cfm
The Getty Foundation: http://www.getty.edu/foundation/
The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts: http://www.iksv.org/eng
The Nippon Foundation: http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/eng/who/f_profile.html
The Lord Wilson Heritage Trust: http://www.lordwilson-heritagetrust.org.hk/front.html