June 21, 2012
Last week, forty-two members, speakers and CCI staff plus 20 dance presenters gathered in Ottawa at the Ottawa Little Theatre for CCI’s 2012 Annual Members Retreat.
So what happened? Lots of networking, conversations, and learning with colleagues who help us realize that we’re not alone.
Here is a glimpse of what members and guests were doing during these busy but exciting two days:
- attended Canada Dance Festival’s performances including Raven Spirit at La Nouvelle Scène,
- viewed virtual tours of CCI’s new website (www.ccio.on.ca), and ArtsBuild Ontario’s new Facilities Portal (www.artsbuildontario.ca/portal)
- enjoyed performance readings by Natasha Bakht and Kevin Ormsby from recently published Pluralism in the Arts in Canada: A Change is Gonna Come, compiled and edited by Charles C. Smith (available through the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ website.
- participated in a Critical Response Feedback workshop with Eric Olmscheid and Steve Busa (download protocol)
- convened member-initiated roundtables on casinos, accessibility standards, CRA withholding tax, technology, collaborative marketing, and volunteer management,
- and viewed/heard a panel on effective municipal support for culture.
What’s Next?
- Notes from the member-led roundtables are being compiled and sent out.
- A group of Municipal Cultural Directors responsible for programming municipally owned/managed venues will meet early July.
- A Collaborative Marketing Group is forming to learn about audience mapping/segmentation and assessing intrinsic impact.
- Brenda Heatherington from the Burlington Performing Arts Centre and Diana McCoy from the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts are working with Canada Revenue Agency officials to nail down consistent guidelines on payment of non-resident artist withholding tax.
What’s Coming up?
- Healthy Arts Enterprise group meets in August (date/location tbd)
- Marketing Collaborative group meets in early September (date/location tbd)
- CCI Annual Blue Sky Day (date/location tbd)
- CCI Block Booking 2013/14 begins in October
- Ontario Contact 2012 Oct 24-27 hosted by City of Kitchener
- Marketing & Audience Development Workshop end of October (date/location tbd)
- CCI Mid-winter Learning Intensive (February 2013, date /location tbd)
- 2013 CCI Annual Members Spring Retreat (date/location tbd)
And finally, need to see it to believe it? See Mila’s photographs of our members hard at work posted on CCI Facebook Page.
Our collective thanks go to everyone whom participated, and especially to our two fabulous co-hosts, Lynn McGuigan and Karen Scott-Gagné. The weather was perfect, the food was great, our Nation’s Capital was bursting with activity, and to be in the company of CCI colleagues was the perfect ending to a very busy spring!
We are now back in the office to carry on with these great initiatives under way and new ones to launch.
We look forward to seeing everyone in the fall!
CCI team