It's been a busy fall for the various communities within RACC and much exciting work is going on. This is news for you and you are invited to participate and share as much or as little as you choose. If you are interested in joining a team and working with other like-minded volunteers, email raccnews@gmail.com and you will get connected!
Supporting Systems Team - co-leads Anne Black-Sinak and Dave Beal
- Nate Langworthy is working on the Creative Directory on ReVerb.MN website with the goal of including all area “creatives” - artists and arts organizations (so be sure to check it out!)
- Dave noted that the city budget just voted on does include funding for the arts but with still a shortfall, he is not sure what that funding will entail completely
- Next meeting is Thursday, 12/18
Spaces Team - co-leads Stephen Troutman and Debi Neville
- The team has had two meetings and set an initial goal of
completing a complete needs survey (as far as spaces go) of arts and arts orgs. There is some good representation there, but they are hoping to get better representation of
cultural groups as well.
- Debi Neville is heading
up the sub-team working on developing a proposal for the Armory/Senior Center. She
has toured the Armory herself and with a group of 6 other team members and has
been researching the finances and current uses of the building. Debi has widely distributed a needs survey as a Word
document, and has received almost 2 dozen reponses. The survey will also be created in Survey Monkey form for even wider dissemination.
- There are other entities who may be interested in the space so it is important that a unified arts and culture voice is presented to the public. Stephen Troutman is working on putting together a Spaces vision document that can
be used when team members speak to City Council and other policy makers and
influencers. The hope is that these conversations
can begin soon
- The Spaces
team will meet again after the first of the year.
Programming and Public Art Team - co-leads Mary Ellen Landwehr, Jon Allen, Tom Erickson
- The committee has been meeting regularly and has come up
with rough draft of a public art experience. This would be a
3-4 month sculpture tour/exhibit spread out along all of Rochester’s bike
trails so that trail users of all types can encounter art any- and every-where
along the trail. To highlight the tour and give exposure to the various
locations, the team hopes to program different performance experiences around
the sculptures, including some one-day multi-media “spectacles”. Jon has begun
talking with the Parks and Rec department and the initial response was
positive.
- The team is focusing now on the
timeline for having the event in place by summer of 2016, contacting potential
collaborators, and lining up funding sources, whether corporate sponsorship or
grants through SEMAC and the Legacy funding. They are looking at developing a
mobile app that could accompany the tour, and Anthony Rostvold is designing a
graphic element that would be the brand or identifier of the event.
- They plan to keep meeting about
every other week and welcome any interested parties to be a part of the team.
Finance Team - co-leads Marv Mitchell and Bobby Marines
- This team's emphasis from a financial perspective is that
teams need to always be ready to tell potential partners and funders what value
their project will add – economically, especially, but also in terms of
attracting more people, more interest, more activity.
RACC Steering Committee updates - co-leads Audrey Betcher and Annie Henderson; Elaine Case, facilitator
- Elaine Case, Audrey Betcher and Annie Henderson will be developing a plan of communication/cooperation with the Greater Rochester
Arts and Cultural Trust board. Ellen Huston, a member of the Spaces team as
well as a Trust board member, has agreed to be liaison between the two
organizations.
- Audrey
Betcher has been meeting with city/county planners about the city Master Plan, which will soon be shared with
the community in ways they can offer feedback to the city planners. She was
asked to tweak the Arts category of feedback, so she’ll be bringing a recommendation that
the two Arts bullet points for their process be a) build arts/cultural spaces and b) invest in public art.
- As the DMC master plan is now public, team members and all interested arts and culture advocates are requested to look at it carefully and report any red flags to Audrey so she can make that a
part of her feedback.
