Rochester Arts and Culture Collaborative December 2014

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.