Creative Spark in Dundalk celebrates 10th anniversary

Creative Spark celebrated its 10th anniversary in Muirhevnamor on Wednesday 9 November.

The Creative Spark team was delighted to welcome supporters and friends to Creative Spark marking the occasion with a look back at the past ten years and its exciting future plans.

Officially launched in November 2012, Creative Spark opened its doors with the goal of providing dedicated creative training and workspace facilities for new and established enterprises in County Louth. To date Creative Spark has supported the creation 198 jobs, 6808 people have participated in training and it has made a local economic contribution of €3.88M annually.

In May of 2014 the Creative Spark Print Studio was launched. The Print Studio was established to provide printmaking facilities, workshops and opportunities for visual artists. Since opening it has had 79 induvial visual artist-members who create and innovate within the studio, and welcomed 48 artists as part of the Artist-in-Residence Programme.

Creative Spark has achieved much in the past ten years from creating and supporting employment, to providing working space to 54 businesses currently, employing 88 people within Creative Spark. All of this would not be possible with the backing and support from our funders and the community. Community is a central focus for Creative Spark and that continues to go from strength-to-strength, with the launch of the Creative Spark Downtown Hub in May of 2022 in the centre of Dundalk town. We will also see the launch of the Community Café and Enterprise FabLab in 2023.

Attendees at the celebration event were welcomed by Chair of the Board, Frankie Watters, who said, “I think part of the atmosphere here today reflects that people are happy to be out again, to talk to each other in a physical space, and dare I say what a physical space to be in! I’m delighted to welcome you here today to Creative Spark the centre of creativity and innovation.

^{Above: Board Members Bernhard Gaul & Frankie Watters with Executive Director Sarah Daly}

In November 2012 we set out our stall; we said: Creative Spark, Louth Creative Community Hub (as it was then called) would be:

A Place To Work - providing permanent and sector specific workspace, business development support and mentoring on-site, joint meeting and training rooms and providing the opportunity to network and collaborate.

And, A Place To Learn - the project would provide industry specific training and advisory support services, interdisciplinary courses in innovation, decision-making, and new technology training to stimulate new business opportunities facilitating transferable skills development, with design and innovation in all products and service offerings and programmes tailored to the specific needs of the local community.

I think we can agree that those aims have been achieved and more.

Voluntary boards play a crucial role in organisations like Creative Spark. Over the years, 32 people have served on the board and continue to serve on the board and Creative Spark wouldn’t be where it is today without them.”

Frankie finished up by saying “I do want to mention one person in particular, a person that has been integral to this project from day one and that is our Executive Director, Sarah Daly. I have to say that Sarah has been the real driving force behind Creative Spark for the last ten years and I would like to pay particular thanks to her.”

Also speaking on the day was Joe Molloy from Sync IT. Joe and his business partner Alison Cooney began their journey with Sync IT as a start-up in Creative Spark.

^{Joe Molloy of Sync IT & Jenny Slater of Inklings Art}

“As a tech company we needed to have fast internet, a large board room and meeting rooms, as part of what we do, is bring our clients in to educate them and train them on how to use technology. That was a great plus for us.

“In October 2013 we moved into a two-person unit, and as I say running a small company your business is a lonely place. Having like minded people around you no matter what business you’re in whether you’re in tech or art, it doesn’t matter, it’s vital having people around you.

“Then as we grow we took on two members of staff. After three and a half years we grew and became six people. At that point unfortunately we needed more space and we needed to move out of Creative Spark, but we continue to use Creative Spark to this day for training and one to one mentoring.”

^{Above: Oscar Diaz, Education and Operations Manager talk on the Enterprise FabLab}

Jenny Slater is a current occupant of Creative Spark. Jenny is an artist, art therapist and community arts facilitator, and had a few words to say about her journey in Creative Spark. “I wanted to share my artist statement with you today, and the reason I put this in is that it has taken me a really long time to own that part of my professional identity. And I think that Creative Spark is the main reason I can claim that and why I am growing my practice here as both a visual artist and an art therapist.”

Above: Print Studio Coordinator Gráinne Murphy & former Coordinator Heather Cassidy

Sarah Daly thanked all of the current staff of Creative Spark – Julie Whitmarsh, Barry McDonald, Gráinne Murphy, Velimir Dukic, Ciara Breen, Oscar Diaz, Stephen Hurley, Gerry Faulkner, Niall McEvoy, Lois Barbosa and the newest recruits who just started on Monday – Carl McAteer and Francis Smith.

She said, “Everyone plays their part every day to make Creative Spark the special place it is and to keep making a difference to our community. Thank you again for being here to help us celebrate this important milestone.”