Islands Survey

To help maximise engagement across demographics within our island communities, the Islands Team has undertaken two scoping exercises to find out the who, what, how and why of arts, culture and heritage in the Argyll Islands. 

This survey was developed for individuals and organisations in English and Gaelic, working in and engaged with arts, creative industries and heritage on islands. We wanted to hear the challenges and barriers and the critical and positive aspects of being creative on an island.

“Each island is unique, and living by the sea inspires me to be creative, mainly in my writing”

The purpose of the survey was to hear from island practitioners and organisations to:

1. Inform CHARTS island's programme 
2. Help CHARTS Island's team to develop relevant services, as well as opportunities and events
3. Monitor engagement and interactions with our services as an organisation

The survey was launched on 28th February 2023, with a deadline for responses running to 6th April 2023.  During that period, 63 responses were received, with representation from all inhabited islands. We then reissued the survey for a second time to capture responses from locations and demographics that had been somewhat underrepresented in the initial deployment. The survey was reissued on the 3rd of August 2023 and closed for responses on the 14th of August 2023, receiving an additional 35 responses.

The CHARTS Islands Survey is now closed. We are grateful for your responses and engagement with the survey and look forward to sharing some key headlines from the data soon. The survey has been very useful for gaining insight into the lives and work of our members and the island communities around Argyll and has highlighted some barriers faced by island practitioners and organisations. The island's team at CHARTS will use this information to support islanders in a more informed way.

“In recent years, many new artists and makers have made Islay their home. However, we do not work well as a group and tend to meet up at various markets/events but have not created our own joint events or base. Sometimes it feels like this would be useful.” 

It was important that islanders could speak with us honestly so full responses would not be published unless explicit consent was given. However, watch this page and social media for more news on how we will report back to our members.

If you have any questions about the survey or have any thoughts you would like to add, please contact Caitlin at caitlin@chartsargyllandisles.org