Archive for April, 2010

Culture Days Unveils First-Ever Canada-Wide Celebration of Arts & Culture

April 22nd, 2010 by Culture Days

Annual event celebrates the creative vitality of our communities by bringing creators and public together

Toronto, ON (April 20, 2010) – Plans for Culture Days, a free annual event that invites people to celebrate and explore arts and culture in every province and territory in Canada, were unveiled today at events in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Prince Edward Island. The Canada-wide celebration represents the largest-ever collective public participation campaign undertaken by the arts and cultural community in this country. Culture Days will take place on September 24 to 26 in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec (under the existing event Journées de la culture), New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island; and on September 17 to 19 in Alberta (under the existing event Alberta Arts Days). Dates for Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon will be announced shortly.

Attended by Ministers of Culture, local performers and artists in each province, the announcements called on the arts and cultural community to offer activities that invite the public to participate in hands-on, interactive experiences during Culture Days. Interested artists and organizations can register online at www.culturedays.ca. Those who register activities will benefit from a national marketing and communications campaign as well as access to materials to help promote activities within their communities.

Through direct interaction with artists, curators, designers, historians, architects and other creative producers, Culture Days invites Canadians to discover the inner workings of the arts and cultural world and to explore their own creativity. Culture Days activities will be free. Professional, amateur, educational, heritage and community-based arts and cultural organizations as well as groups, artists, creative industries and municipalities in major urban centres, regional cities, towns and rural communities alike are welcome to be part of Culture Days.

Inspired by the 13-year success of Québec’s annual Journées de la culture event and its efforts at democratizing culture in that province, Culture Days was also spurred on by the success of Alberta Arts Days initiated 3 years ago, as well as the pilot project spOtlight in southern Ontario.

Culture Days is a volunteer-driven, grassroots movement led by the arts and cultural sector in collaboration with municipalities, public funding agencies, provincial governments and the private sector. Directed by a national Steering Committee, volunteer provincial Task Forces have taken on the responsibility to rally their arts and cultural milieu and to promote the event to the public at the regional level. Existing provincial initiatives, notably Journées de la culture and Alberta Arts Days will be part of the annual celebration and existing local events, festivals and activities that meet Culture Days programmatic criteria are invited to join the movement.

“It’s a culture free for all!” says Antoni Cimolino, Chair of Culture Days’ national Steering Committee and General Director of Stratford Shakespeare Festival. “We are thrilled with the level of enthusiasm that Culture Days has already begun to garner across Canada. Thousands of artists, organizations, associations and public and private funders across the country are excited to support and voluntarily participate in this collective invitation to welcome the public into our cultural homes and become more familiar with what we do.”

“In addition to the experience and success of Quebec’s Journées de la culture in connecting artists and organizations with a vast public, the success of Alberta Arts Days since its inception in 2008 and the impact of the pilot project spOtlight in Ontario are excellent examples of the increasing recognition for the value of arts and culture to Canadians in every community across the  country. We hope that millions of Canadians will take advantage of this generous invitation in September,” says Cimolino.

Tom Bogart, Executive Vice President, Business Development and General Counsel of Sun Life Financial, is chairing Culture Days’ Council of Corporate Champions. In this voluntary role, Bogart is rallying Canadian corporate leaders who believe passionately in Culture Days goals.

“Sun Life Financial is an enthusiastic supporter of Culture Days. Like most corporations, we support specific arts organizations and areas of focus, and we are delighted to do so. Culture Days complements and leverages our regular program by providing a platform from which to support and celebrate the extraordinary quality, depth and diversity of the arts and culture all across Canada,” says Bogart. “Support for Culture Days also sends a clear message about Canada’s commitment to the arts and culture, an important ingredient in attracting talented, high performance individuals to live here.”

To date, national partners supporting the development of Culture Days include Sun Life Financial and Power Corporation of Canada, The Government of Alberta and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Media partners include The Globe and Mail, St. Joseph Communications and CBC.

To follow the development of the celebration, learn more about the Culture Days movement and to participate in activities this  September, visit www.culturedays.ca.

About Culture Days
Culture Days (culturedays.ca) is a collaborative pan-Canadian volunteer movement to raise the awareness, accessibility,  participation and engagement of all Canadians in the arts and cultural life of their communities. Culture Days was initiated by four Founding Partners: The Canadian Arts Summit, Culture pour tous (producer of les Journées de la culture), Canada Council for the Arts and The Banff Centre. To date provincial partners include Government of Alberta, SaskCulture, Manitoba Homecoming, Government of Manitoba, Ontario Arts Council, Government of Prince Edward Island and the Government of Northwest Territories. Culture Days was inspired by Journées de la culture, produced by Culture pour tous in Québec.

-30-

For more information or to coordinate interviews, visit our Media Centre.

View Comments | Posted in uncategorized |

Culture Days in Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut

April 20th, 2010 by Culture Days

Dates for Culture Days in Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon will be announced soon.

Each provincial initiative is supported by a volunteer group known as the Provincial Task Force. Charged with facilitating connections and helping to promote and develop provincial events, the Provincial Task Forces also help liaise between provinces to encourage continuity and to share expertise.

To be a part of Culture Days in the Yukon, Northwest Territories or Nunavut, please contact the national office.

View Comments | Posted in Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon, provincial updates |

Latest News from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland & Labrador

April 20th, 2010 by Culture Days

Culture Days will take place in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland & Labrador on September 24 – 26, 2010. Please read the national call for activity organizers and submit your activity information using this registration form.

Each provincial initiative is supported by a volunteer committee known as the Provincial Task Force. Charged with facilitating connections and helping to promote and develop provincial events, the Provincial Task Forces also help liaise between provinces to encourage continuity and to share expertise.

For a list of Nova Scotia Task Force members, please click here. Contact the Nova Scotia Task Force via email.

For a list of New Brunswick Task Force members, please click here. Contact the New Brunswick Task Force via email.

For a list of Newfoundland & Labrador Task Force members, please click here. Contact the Newfoundland & Labrador Task Force via email.


View Comments | Posted in New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, for activity organizers, provincial updates |

Other Ways To Get Involved

April 19th, 2010 by Culture Days

As an inclusive initiative driven by solidarity and collaboration, Culture Days relies on your participation.

There are many ways to get involved. Virtually anyone can organize an activity. Or consider participating in one of the following ways:

Offer a venue

If you have a venue such as a classroom, theatre, office space, public space, studio, arts centre, gallery, lobby area, commercial building or other easily accessible space, consider offering the use of your venue to artists or other activity organizers as the location for a Culture Days activity. If you don’t know any artists or cultural groups, send a message to the Provincial Task Force in your region – they may be able to put you in touch with an artist or group that is looking for space.

Volunteer or help support an activity

Spread the word about Culture Days to your community leaders, artists, and cultural groups by circulating our newsletters, talking about the movement at local events, and posting our logo or poster up in support of the celebration. Or maybe you could be the go-between person who helps put the artist in touch with the folks with the office space that they would like to see animated with an interactive art experience during Culture Days. If you work in the business sector, suggest to your colleagues to invite artists to work with your business group as a great team-building exercise.

Activate your community
You run a business, you coordinate community groups, you lead school/ social activities, you are an active Facebook/Twitter/etc. user, you have a blog… In short, you know people, and you can get the word out to them. Spread the word about Culture Days and suggest to people in your network to become part of the experience – as an audience participant, an activity organizer, a supporter, or in any other role you can think of! Sign up for e-updates or follow us on Twitter so you can be among the first to know what’s happening. Post a tip on our Facebook page to help others activate their community.

Let us know what you think
If you have an opinion, an idea, a suggestion, a tip, or any other contribution to send our way…Get in touch! Culture Days is an open movement and a self-mobilizing network. We look to everyone, including you, to help shape the development of this grassroots initiative.

Declare your alliance
If you work for a municipality or a regional community, encourage your municipal cultural planning department to make Culture Days part of its annual programs. In Québec, where the inspiration for Culture Days originated, 276 municipalities have signed the official Declaration of Journées de la culture and 234 municipalities directly organize cultural activities during the weekend-long celebration of local arts and culture.  Download the simple, 1-page official Declaration of Journées de la culture and let us know if you think this would be a useful tool to help bring every municipality and regional community on board as a Culture Days collaborator.

View Comments | Posted in ways to get involved | Tags: , , , , , ,

Quick Tips on Writing Interesting and Informative Activity Descriptions

April 15th, 2010 by Culture Days

Written by Aubrey Reeves, Ontario Arts Council’s Culture Days Animator/Coordinator

Cet article est aussi disponible en français ici.

The activity description is your introduction to the general public visiting the Culture Days website. It needs to hook people in a few sentences with a compelling reason as to why they might want to attend your activity out of the possible hundreds of activities happening in your province. Here are some tips on how to write a great activity description.  These can also serve as guidelines for issues and logistics as you get started on planning your activity.

1) Think journalistically: provide who, what, where, when, why and how at the top of your description:

  • Who are the artists, presenters and collaborators?  Make sure you include the names of all the artists leading workshops, tours or talks once they are confirmed. Not only is it good recognition for their contribution, but visitors to the website might know of them and want to attend for that reason.
  • What is going on? If there are multiple activities happening at your location, don’t lump them all together. For instance: if there an open house, a hands-on workshop and a guest lecture all happening over the course of the weekend,  register each as a separate activity. After you save your first activity, you can click “New Activity” from the main “My Activities” page to add another activity.
  • Where your activity takes place is entered into the activity address box. While signage will be important on the weekend, please also indicate in the specific directions box if there are unusual directions to get to your activity. Nothing is more frustrating to a participant than poorly explained directions.
  • When activities occur (date, start time and end time) is selected using the calendar function after you enter the activity description. This means that you don’t need to include date and time in this description. However, an important detail to flag is whether or not people can drop-in to your activity or if it is important that people arrive on time to participate.
  • Why should the public want to attend your activity? Tell us what makes it unique and interesting.
  • How will the public engage? Avoid general words such as interact, participate, collaborate without qualifying in what way the public will get to do these things.  For instance, this is too general: “the public will interact with craft artists.” Tell us how the public will interact, such as: “the public can pick up a needle and a pair of scissors to be part of a community quilting bee.”

2) Try to keep your full description short and sweet. 3-4 compelling sentence is usually enough to convey all the essential information for a single activity. Visitors to the Culture Days website will want to get the vital information without having to read long descriptions, which brings me to my third point…

3) Provide a web address if you have one. Visitors to the Culture Days site can follow the link to your website to get background information about you or your group, your art form and your major career highlights.  You don’t need all that information in your activity description to make it compelling. This also provides you with a cross-marketing opportunity.

4) Avoid too many exclamation points!!!!! Yes, we know you are excited and we are too! But if you put an exclamation point after everything you write, the exclamation loses all meaning! Visitors to the Culture Days website will be reading many activity descriptions, not just yours. It is best to avoid exclamation overkill. Instead, use descriptive words to convey the excitement of your activity.

5)  Indicate if there is a target audience or preferred age group. Be clear that the craft studio is meant for kids, or the dance class is only for seniors if that is how you have conceived of your activity.

Just a bit of reassurance: You don’t need to know all these details right now.  When you register, you will see that your activity is indicated as DRAFT. If you hit the PUBLISH button, you are approving that the information is correct and ready to be viewed by the public. But don’t worry! Even after you publish, you can go back into your activity to make edits, so if details change, you can always adjust them and then re-publish. We encourage you to PUBLISH sooner than later, so that your activity can benefit from our marketing and promotions as early as possible.

View Comments | Posted in for activity organizers | Tags: , , , , , ,