Three years ago this week, thanks to the foresight of Head of Enterprise Michael Tunney, I started working for Creative Coast, Donegal on a contract with the Local Enterprise Office that came to an end earlier this year, but as I looked back this week over what was achieved in my 2.5 years, I have to say it really was an amazing experience.
This contract opened up a whole new set of opportunities for me and honed in on skills I didn’t even realise I had.
I learned so much about entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. The business mentoring training I did with Jim Meehan was simply superb and gave me a far better understanding of the type of questions to ask to try and help a business move forward.
The opportunity to speak in public and to promote Donegal as a centre of creative excellence was amazing.
There were so many more highlights. The establishment of creative clusters for Fashion & Textiles, Film & Digital and Artists and Makers. The amazing Creative events during Local Enterprise Week, organising training, best practice trips to London (where we established links with Jenny Holloway in Fashion-Enter) and Liverpool as well as networking events like Jam Packed with successful entrepreneur Fraser Doherty and ‘A Stitch in Time’ with Erika Fox.
It was through working with the Creative Coast that I got to meet David Parrish and work to bring him to Donegal through our innovative ‘Generate’ Programme that exceeded its goals in terms of job creation.
It was such a pleasure to see the industry and education come alive by linking local designer-makers with students of Fashion & Promotion in Letterkenny IT and to help them plan, co-ordinate and execute a hugely successful DEFINE fashion showcase in the summer.
Before that, Donegal got to see that you can be a creative business and be successful with the launch of Donegal – We Create – and writing the stories in that book gave me great joy.
Who can ever forget Jay Doherty’s bare-footed presentation in the Regional Cultural Centre as the review of the Creative Coast kicked off last year and following on from those reviews, I had the great honour of writing up the new three-year Creative Strategy for Donegal.
The talent, determination and dedication of the people who work day in and day out in small creative businesses – indeed small businesses generally, is simply breath-taking and I’m truly glad to have learned so much from them that I can use to help others going forward.
Tim Hanson once said:
“Creativity is especially expressed in the ability to make new connections, to make associations, to turn things around and express them in a new way.”
I feel honoured to have made so many fantastic new connections as we worked to develop and promote creative businesses in Donegal.
Three years on, I have no doubt that they will continue to go from strength to strength.
liamportermedia 
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