On March 13 and 15, the City of Airdrie hosted Art Night, a two-part series of discussions which brought leaders from the Arts & Culture Community together to discuss their collective goals and help determine some key priorities to support in the future.
The night was organized by The City of Airdrie’s Community Development department and each session was facilitated by Janet Naclia from ACE Communities which is affiliated with Alberta Recreation and Parks Association.
On the first night, groups where given three questions to consider and openly discuss. The questions were as follows:
What assets do the Airdrie Arts and Cultural Community have already?
Where do we want the Airdrie Arts and Cultural Community to be in 10 years?
What priorities do we need to set to accomplish this vision and why?
With regards to what assets Airdrie currently has, participants identified everything from the Bert Church Theatre to media coverage, Airdrie Public Library and ARTember. Answers from the second question ranged from having more arts and culture opportunities to more specific goals such as becoming a festival city known for Blues, Jazz and/or a Fringe Fest. Finally, after labeling all the groups collective priorities, participants given a few days to think about their answers, to roll up their sleeves and prioritize the work they would need to do in order to help them fulfill their collective vision for Arts in Airdrie. At the end of the second session the top three priorities were:
1) Developing a Sustainable Financial Infrastructure
2) Creating a Gathering Space for Arts and Culture
3) Build, Create and Support Synergies within the Local and Regional Art Communities
Overall, both sessions were very well attended with representation from local Council, local artists and board members from community arts and cultural groups. “We were pleased to see that the arts groups embraced the idea that they need to work together and support more collaborative initiatives. Working together can be a great benefit for a number of reasons,” adds Michael McAllister, Community Developer, City of Airdrie.
With regards to what will happen with the collected information: “First and foremost this is very relevant information for our community groups, so we hope that they will determine the best way to use the information collected. On our end, The City of Airdrie is currently developing an Arts Strategy which will be presented to Council in late spring of 2012, and this will outline what the City of Airdrie is committed to and will also capture some of the key priorities outlined at the Arts Night discussion,” stated McAllister.
For more information on ART Night, please contact Michael McAllister Michael.mcallister@airdrie.ca