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HomeMy WebLinkAboutArts & Culture - 2017-06-20 MinutesARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 20, 2017 CITY OF KITCHENER PRESENT: Lydia Workman Judy Allred Aaron Francis Dave Schnider Pam Patel Julie Soulis Lori Thompson Michelle Gnutzman Linda Zensner REGRETS: Sam Varteniuk Danielle Deveau STAFF: Emily Robson, Coordinator, Arts Et Creative Industries Jenn Grein, recording secretary CALL TO ORDER: Judy Allred 1.0 Acceptance of agenda: agenda accepted as circulated. 2.0 Declaration of conflict of interest: none. 3.0 Council Report: Councillor Schnider • A significant number of complaints were received from the recent event, Ever After, held at Bingemans. Bylaw staff believe the noise travel was significantly influenced by the weather on Sunday, with heavy cloud coverage. • Councillor Schnider advised this event is beneficial for Kitchener, and a relationship has been built over years with the organizers. Residents were advised in advanced. Sound engineers will continue to be used in future years to assist with preventing these issues. 4.0 Downtown Action and Advisory Committee: Aaron Francis • Aaron advised the Downtown Action and Advisory committee previewed the strategic priorities within the DTK 2020 Strategy, and agreed as a committee to support. He shared information on a number of areas in the strategy, highlighting the Discovery Team as a partnership with the city, the Downtown Kitchener BIA and the Working Centre. This team will assist throughout the downtown with questions, concerns, and to connect with businesses regarding various folks throughout the downtown. They are wearing the DTK t -shirts. 5.0 Public Art Working Group: Lydia Workman • This meeting was fairly short. They learned about various art projects going on in the city, programming at KWAG and a tour of the Homer Watson exhibition in the ARTSPACE. 6.0 City Updates: • Emily advised a report will be coming forth to Council on the upcoming Arts Hub. Due to confidentiality, she could not share the report yet, but indicated it will be live on the website by Friday, and she will send out to the group at that time. • EA Sports has signed their lease for an additional three years. 7.0 Member's updates: • Pam shared a brochure for the Impact Festival coming up in the fall. • Aaron shared that Tasha the Amazon won best music video at the MVA's. He was also in a play over the weekend, and shared a little about his experience. • Michelle indicated Conestoga College is business as usual. Admissions are up 21%, primary increase has been international students. June 2017 - ACAC Minutes ARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 20, 2017 CITY OF KITCHENER • Judy just finished a wonderful project regarding Homer Watson. • Lydia is participating in the Cambridge Arts Festival, as well as an art exhibit in a Guelph Library next April. • Judy attended the recent Compass Kitchener All Committee Gathering. She advised that each committee had an opportunity to provide an update, and everyone ended up having a common thread - they all want to connect with others to ensure we build the best Kitchener! • Dave advised the Neighbours Day building of ceramic homes in his neighbourhood was "super cool!" DELEGATION 8.0 Art$Pay: Cathy Farwell • With the use of a PowerPoint presentation, Cathy introduced herself and the Art$Pay program. She provided background on the Box events that have taken place, sharing the findings from the feedback and outlining some of the difficulties artists have experienced. • Art$Pay is a portal for the promotion of the visual arts sector in the region, focusing on employment, marketing, education and professional development. • She shared a video for the Art$Pay program and provided an online demonstration of the features available on the Art$Pay website. Annual artist fee is $30 to join, with 65 artists signed up in the first three months of operation. • Highlighted features of the site: o Marketplace, Artist Et Services: regional artists listed by medium, style, career level, skills and services offered; includes jobs and call opportunities; also information for clients/ businesses interested in working with artists, including suggested fee guides. o Toolbox: resources and information for visual art practitioners o Calendar of events o Exhibitors: linked directory of galleries • Artists also have group discount cards to recoup their costs to participate on this site. Costs are used only for posting to the site and site maintenance. • Future plans: Work with Waterloo Region Tourism and Marketing Board, further develop benefits to member artists, continue offering networking events, develop financial sustainability, launch a decal campaign for businesses to demonstrate support. PRESENTATION 9.0 Compass Kitchener: Laurie Majcher • Silvia requested that Laurie present the Strategic Plan for the City of Kitchener to the Arts Et Culture Advisory Committee. Laurie provided a brochure to the committee outlining the process from a high level. With use of a PowerPoint presentation, she shared the mission and vision of the organization as well as information on how strategic planning takes place at the city. Laurie advised that strategy drives the business of the city, and much work takes place to develop strategy and includes community input in this guiding document. She shared Compass Kitchener's participation in development of the community priorities, including the Environics Survey, `Your Kitchener, Your Say!' campaign and the resulting Priorities for Action. This information is then further processed, with input from the organization, Mayor and Council to confirm the Strategic Priorities: Open Government, Strong Et Resilient Economy, Safe Et Thriving Neighbourhoods, Sustainable Environment Et Infrastructure and Effective Et Efficient City Services. Within each of these areas there are more than 200 Strategic Actions, which form the business plan. Since being finalized in 2015, 69 projects have been completed, 97 actions are in progress, and 136 are expected to be completed by the end of this term of Council. Progress on the business plan is monitored every 4 months. June 2017 - ACAC Minutes 2 ARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 20, 2017 CITY OF KITCHENER Further, Laurie shared information on the Compass Kitchener Report Card, and how it fits into the Strategic Planning process. In the past, Advisory Committees have been asked to participate in providing feedback for the report card, and Laurie anticipates this will likely happen again in the future. If any member has any additional questions, please feel free to connect with Laurie directly. DISCUSSION ITEMS 10.0 Joint meeting with Regional Arts and Culture Committees: Judy Allred Judy welcomed ACAC member comments and feedback from the recent joint meeting with the Regional Arts Et Culture Committees: • Linda indicated she was pleased that the meeting was very interactive, with good brainstorming. It was beneficial to meet other people and connect on a shared passion. She felt it would also have been nice to understand what other committees are working on, how things are working for them and where there might be [earnings from each other. She suggested this piece be added for future agenda's. Both Lori and Pam echoed Linda's sentiments regarding the meeting. • Aaron agreed with all stated thus far, adding that he felt it was beneficial and advancing for arts and culture. He suggested the meeting may have been slightly Kitchener dominated; a balance of membership from across the region would be helpful in the future. • Both Michelle and Dave arrived to the meeting an hour early, which resulted in them leaving part way through the meeting. Michelle thought it was nice that the message was the same across the committees - with a focus on advancement of arts and culture. It was also great that all Mayors were there in support. She suggests that the groups reconnect in a few months to provide updates, consider best practices as well as possible action items. • Lydia enjoyed sharing the process of brainstorming, and felt adding a visual component may be beneficial as well as celebrating what's already happening in the community. She would like to see some additional diversity within the committees and also felt it would be nice to learn about what other committees are working on. • Judy suggested it would be helpful to send information out in advance for discussion as well as consider having a facilitated conversation. Meeting quarterly would be beneficial. • Emily advised there is currently a staff team from across the region meeting to consider funding for key cultural institutions. She agreed it would be beneficial for the groups to meet more frequently and suggested the next meeting be scheduled for September, with the agenda considered at the next ACAC meeting. It would also be nice to host the meeting in a relevant location, perhaps 44 Gaukel. • A few agenda items were suggested for the next full group meeting of Arts and Culture Committees: bring either a best practice and/or area of focus important to each city to share and discuss; share any areas of specialty within each of the cities. • It was recommended that meetings take place every four months rather than quarterly, so that each of the cities can host. Action: Emily to connect with others in the staff group to consider if September would be a possibility for the next meeting, inquire who might like to host and ask for/provide potential agenda items. 11.0 Other Business: Emily Robson • Members indicated availability for the July meeting, however the August meeting will be cancelled. June 2017 - ACAC Minutes ARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 20, 2017 CITY OF KITCHENER ADJOURNMENT: The chair adjourned the meeting at 5:30 p.m. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, July 18, 4:00 p.m., Conestoga Room June 2017 - ACAC Minutes