Annual Meeting of the Minds

This coming weekend is the annual meeting of the British Columbia Association of Community Music Schools. This year's get together is hosted by the Chilliwack Academy of Music. The meeting is an opportunity for us all to get together and discuss the trials and tribulations of operating a community based music school among our peers.  The meeting takes place June 15 and 16 at the Chilliwack Arts Centre.

BC Culture Days

Culture Days is a collaborative, Canada-wide volunteer movement to raise the awareness, accessibility, participation and engagement of all Canadians in the arts and cultural life of their communities. The first annual Culture Days event swept across more than 700 Canadian cities and towns during the last weekend of September 2010, generating an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm in the process. This year’s Culture Days weekend will take place on September 28, 29 & 30. Once again, the event will feature free, hands-on, interactive activities that invite the public to participate “behind the scenes”—and to discover the world of artists, creators, historians, architects, curators, and designers at work in their community.

As a grassroots, collaborative movement, Culture Days relies on your participation. Whether as an arts or cultural organization, an artist, a municipality, a school, a citizen, a business person…everyone can play a role in shaping this event. So get involved! Browse the 2012 Activities to learn more about what to expect in British Columbia as Canadians from coast to coast to coast prepare for the second annual Culture Days weekend this fall!

How Can Inter-Organizational Collaboratives Build Trust?

Here is an article from Charity Village Research about how organizations can work to build inte-rorganizational  collaboaratives.  By Joan Roberts, Septebmer 19, 2011

You hear it all the time. For a collaborative to become successful there needs to be a high level of trust amongst its members. I agree. Trust is needed for collaborative members to share important and relevant information and work out issues that cross their organizational boundaries. But what exactly is trust? It can be an elusive concept. Trust is an emotion or a feeling held by an individual based on observations, facts and gut instinct that tells you that you can rely on a person, product or process to do what it is supposed to do. In a collaborative we are relying on each other to do what we are supposed to do. And if we can't deliver on our commitments then we need to talk about why and then figure out how to the task done.
Yet you must often compete with other collaborative members for funding or profile — so how you can trust a competitor? This often is the crux of the problem.

Despite being competitors, private and nonprofit sector organizations often find ways to work together. It is the only way industry standards ever develop. Private sector competitors join together in industry associations to work together on common causes like industry standards and regulatory frameworks. Nonprofits cooperate in a similar manner in sector organizations that advocate on behalf of their members.
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BCACMS annual conference

Just a reminder to our member schools that the BC Association of Community Music Schools annual conference is coming up this June 18 and 19, 2010.   This year the event is hosted by the Victoria Conservatory of Music.  Special thanks to Stephen Brown and his staff for organizing and hosting this event for us this year. Please check our members site for more info.

Arts Summit 2010

The Alliance for Arts and Culture, 2010 Legacies NOW and the City of Surrey are pleased to present Arts Summit 2010, Thursday, June 24 and Friday, June 25 at Surrey's Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre. This beautiful new facility is 30 minutes from downtown Vancouver by Skytrain, one block from the Gateway Skytrain station.

Program Highlights Include …
THURSDAY
Vanessa Richards of SFU will reprise her role at last year's Summit and host the two-day event.
Keynote Speaker Writer, social activist, and consultant Arlene Goldbard, author of  New Creative Community, The Art of Cultural Development, talks about cultural action as an instrument of the public good and the desire for coherent cultural policy. Learn more at Arlene's website.
Civic Leaders Panel: Join Max Wyman and a group of mayors and civic leaders in a discussion about what makes a community arts savvy and how they view and promote culture.
Public Art and Art in Public Places: Why is this such a hot topic? What are the issues? Should public art be ephemeral or lasting? How do you achieve a public art policy that serves artists and communities? The inter-municipal Necklace Project has been exploring this terrain. We look for the potholes and the high points.
New Tools: Take part in the launch of the Creative Cities Public Art Toolkit.
Planning & Action / Creating a Successful Provincial Policy: Join BC Arts Council's Gillian Wood and advocacy consultant Mark Marrissen in a conversation about creating a coherent and sustainable provincial arts policy.
Canada Culture Days  Take part in the planning as Trudy Van Dop and Axel Conradi introduce plans for the Canada-wide Culture Days.
Meet & Mingle  Enjoy a networking reception in the glass cube atrium and rooftop terrace.!
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BCACMS conference

It's that time of the year again... Time for us all to get together for our annual conference and AGM of the BC Association of Community Music Schools this weekend. The event is hosted this year by the Kelowna Conservatory of Music. I am looking forward to seeing everyone and reporting back about the conference. Member schools can check the members area of our website for information about this weekend and what is being discussed.

BCACMS annual conference

Hi Folks, The BC Association of Community Music Schools Annual Conference is set for Friday June 19 and Saturday June 20. The conference this year is being hosted by the Kelowna Community Music School in Kelowna BC. More information about the conference will be appearing on our website as the dates move closer.