 or one of our meetings was when we were planning the cultural districts. I think that's because many of you have attended, attended the cultural planning meeting. How many people attended a meeting of the cultural planning focus groups, cultural districts? Not many, there's more businesses, I would say. But anyway, so you're gonna do introductions in a minute, but I know just Stephanie Marlin, your co-chair here. And you're gonna be hearing a lot about ACAC tonight. How many people are already familiar with our LinkedIn commission for arts and culture? Okay, how many people have never heard of it? A couple people are new. Okay, okay, this is good. Good that there's most and there's a few people who are learning something new tonight. And I think all of you will learn a little bit more new about what we do and also about each other. So really after we've had any of these meetings, great things have happened. Back in 2012, there was a meeting which was really the exception of all of this infrastructure building where the commission came out of that and there was a, and then eventually the cultural district and then eventually the cultural plan and now sort of these kinds of gatherings where we're trying to build a real arts sector. So I'm hoping for great things to emerge after tonight because magical things happen when we come together. So let's do some introductions and find out a little bit of everyone who is here. I want to start with, well, now let's go in order. Some people will be commission members and some people will be other members. Everyone, please say your name, your organization. And one thing you really love about our LinkedIn. So, Charlotte, do you want to start? I'm Charlotte Pierce and I represent three organizations tonight. Can you speak up a little bit more? Yeah, everyone has to speak up because of the heater. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a heater, so. I'm Charlotte Pierce and I represent three organizations, primarily the St. John's Coffeehouse Concert Series and also ACMI and the Independent Publishers of New England. Ted Paluzzo is here as an interested and involved citizen and a supporter of the arts. Interested in what's going on. I'm Sima Cannon and I'm here from Daikon, New England. We recently moved here from Uber, so we're new to Arlington. Everybody here is at Daikon, New England and drumming. Oh, it's a Japanese drumming group. And you'll be at the coffeehouse in April. Yeah, I just wrote it down. I am also, my name is Kate. I am also from a Daikon, New England and we are so happy to be in Arlington. We came from a community that was kind of indifferent to the arts and it's just, that's why there's two of us here. We are so excited about that. Arlington, we've only been here a short time and Arlington has really changed our organization. It's noticeable. We're thrilled. We're thrilled. You're welcome. My name is James Mulan and I am a communications manager at ACMI, the local cable television station. I'm here mostly to ensure that you guys leave here understanding what we can do for you. I'm Stuart Iketta. I'm a commissioner with ACAC, I'm the school committee appointee of the ACAC and the thing I love about Arlington is the volunteer spirit and the ability of everyone to really get involved and get engaged in improving it out. Yes. Okay, my name is Terry Holtz and I am the new marketing coordinator for ACAC. I am the person from Arts Arlington who is sending you emails and thank you so much for responding to me. Nice to finally put some faces in the maze. Hi, my name is Ann Elinger. I'm with True Stories Theater and I love so many things. I guess one is just that I can walk along the bike path and especially now see all this art along the bike path. I'm with her Christopher Elinger a running True Story Theater. So we've been in Arlington for 18 years have 20 on members of our ensemble have partnered with many of you on different events in the ACAC. I'm Lydia Pinnick-Sher and I am one of the commissioners and my role is also representing Arlington which is the network organization for artists. So if you want and we represent all of the artists in Arlington. Hi, my name is Bob Sandman. I'm one of the co-hosts of the Shram and Jabba for the bike takes place the first Friday that we run the Shram and Jabba. Which bike? Chicks. Oh, it's for the Q-Sand stand. Okay. I'm Julie McBride, a friend to Scyon Park and I like listening to community at Arlington. Hi, I'm Betsy Shram. I'm the, what am I? I'm a composer and I run the Monotomy Concert Series and we give three concerts about five times a year in Arlington Town Hall. We mainly host great classical formers. What I love about Arlington is the great music in the Arlington Public Schools. Music programs are fantastic. My name is Sarah. I'm an Arlington parent. I have two artist kids. And I'm a consultant. So I work with a whole bunch of arts nonprofits in different ways in Massachusetts. My name is Cecily and I work for the town and for ACAC as a public art curator. I've been developing the projects that you see on the bikeway and also worked on art in the bus shelters if any of you saw that. And the wheat pastes on the box library and the mural on the saw restaurant. And I hope to keep going and do more at Weber's project and the library. We hadn't even been aware that I sat down next to you. I'm Sarah Burks from the Scyon's Down Art Museum. I'm the chair of the Board of Trustees there. And we have a couple of big events each year. One is on Town Day when we have the artists selling their wares in front of the museum, Art on the Green. And then we instituted an annual fundraiser, the Soiree. And we also offered group tours so if any of your organizations want to come visit the museum let me know and we can make arrangements for that. Hello, my name is Adam Shuler. And I'm the newly appointed artistic director of the Arlington Children's Theater. We've been in the organization for about 28 years. And we do about seven main stage productions each year. We have day programming throughout the year. We also workshop series on that as well. Really going to give it to Noah. So supportive and something forward really. So people don't realize they like to say bad things about the government. But in this case, they're awesome. Can I just pause right here and invite Tom and Kristen? Do you want to take a seat? And one of my favorite things about Arlington is how present to be. My name is Tom Formicola. Am I a commissioner? Yeah. I just went to my first ACAC meeting last week. So I'm only one week old at the ACAC. And I'm the new executive director of the Arlington Center for the Arts which I'm thrilled about. My favorite thing about Arlington is there's no such thing as six degrees of separation here. It's one degree of separation. I found that out so quickly. Hi, I'm Cynthia. I'm a program officer with the Mass Cultural Council for the Community Initiative. So I work directly with Arlington Cultural Council. So I helped manage cultural councils and a few regions throughout the country. I mean throughout the state. And I also help support the cultural districts program and the best of this program. Hi, I'm Abby Seidel. I am the development director of the Army Depressions of Groma. It was my first year. So it's really great meeting. But one thing I really enjoy about Arlington is my family has grown up in Arlington for three generations at this point. I didn't, unfortunately, I was born in Arlington but didn't grew up in that group right in the store. But I still enjoy the sense of the community that it represents me. I still feel like I belong because I went to Arlington High because I've liked Arlington High so much about it. So I ended up going to that group. But yeah, I love the sense of community here. I'm Judy Weinberg. I'm the president of Army Depressions of Groma. I'm also the president of Friends of the Army. I work at some good art installations there as well. I have some other stuff. So I agree about the lunch day separation. I'm Andrea from Dog Walking. I mean, it's a slightly different one as everyone else, right? I'm Andrea Nicolai, director of Vibraries in Town. And I also am a commissioner. And I also am on the managing partnership for the Cultural District. And it's been a real unexpected and awesome pleasure to be working with so many people involved in arts and culture in town. And what I love about Arlington is that it's a town of readers and media consumers keeping the library going strong. And yeah, I'm happy to be here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. All right, great. I didn't say my favorite thing about Arlington. I would say it's that it's a mixture of you can walk in one direction. It's urban. You can walk in so many directions and you're out in nature. And also just that it's kind of like a wonderful blank. I mean, it's not blank, but it's a canvas if you paint over and over and over. You know, you keep feeling in the corners and little bits. And I think that we can all do that together. And yeah, change colors and add layers and texture as we go. Like the great painters. So, okay. So great. I want to just say that I know that one of our collective goals together before I've even read your surveys is that we want to create, we want to paint that canvas. We want to make a really vibrant, sustainable, cultural arts community, arts scene, you know, an environment where the arts can thrive. And so, tonight we're going to go with I'm doing that in three ways. We're going to build relationships between arts organizations and ACAC. So, you are an ACAC. And figure out what role ACAC is uniquely suited to play. So, hopefully we can work toward that tonight. We're going to build a relationship and networks among all of you. And with the results that you have allies, you have people you can consult for advice. You have people you can collaborate with. You have some connective tissue. And you have a lot of new opportunities that we hope some of that will come out tonight. At least the beginnings. And then we're going to build the creative sector of Arlington as an organized collective. So, we'd like to start thinking of ourselves, you know, sort of as a community, as a collective, and start sharing more ideas, start taking action together. And so, we're going to work on that a little bit tonight too. So, okay, great. The agenda for tonight. We've done our welcome to introductions. We are now going to tell you a little bit about ACAC and what we offer. Then we're going to have, we have a special guest, Sarah Stathaus, who you met before. We'll introduce yourself a little bit later. He's going to talk to us about sector building and why working as a collective is a very effective way to go about things. We're going to go over your survey results a little bit if we have time. I'll just highlight them. Then we're going to have breakout discussions and then we're going to have report backs and then we'll wrap up. And we're going to try to do all that as close to nine o'clock as possible. We are just a little bit behind, but we'll try to catch up with the time. So, what is ACAC? Actually, so what we are is we're an umbrella organization for many of the other arts or organizations in town, such as the Arlington Cultural Council, such as Arlington Public Art, and all of these have now been brought under one umbrella and the Cultural District Managing Partnership. So, when we got to this point, and we also always had the Arlington Center for the Arts, which is not under our umbrella, but they are represented in part of the commission, so part of the conversation. And the idea was that we were now, I mean, we got to the point where all these organizations just kind of grew up out of need and interest of the community and we really needed to get organized and sort of come together so that we could not work at cross purposes and we could think together about the best way to move forward, to move all of us forward so we can grow as a community. So, I'm going to read off, we just did our strategic planning process and we have a brand new mission, so I'm just going to read that out here. The Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture cultivates a sustainable and supportive environment for the arts and enlivens public space with accessible creative experiences to strengthen our community, create opportunities for artists, and invigorate the local economy. So, the main idea there is we're trying to cultivate a healthy environment for the arts when part of that means that we're trying to create synergistic partnerships among all of us and we're trying to work on policy, have a cultural plan, work with the town and the planning projects in town and we have our cultural district which is one model of organizing partnerships and Andrea will encourage you all to join the above cultural district and so we're trying to just build that infrastructure, mostly of partnerships, as best we can and our partnerships with the town. And also we're trying to just kind of make a lot of noise and create a lot of visibility for the arts and make it tangible and palpable for people in their everyday lives in town for them to notice, for them to realize the value that does our big goal is helping people both in the town government and just everyday citizens to realize the value of the arts in their lives. It's not necessarily something that they only do on a Saturday night but it's something that can enhance your experience every single day when you walk down the street. So, and it really, it really does add value. Plus, I kind of like to hear that it also boosts the local economy. So, and it is, and it is. And we are working on measuring that impact as well and working hard on telling our story. So, I'll talk about that a little bit more in a little bit. But, for now, yeah, we want to, I want to, I'm going to turn it over to Stuart. Where's Stuart? Right here. Are you ready? I will make it. Okay. So, this part is the beginning of number three, what do we offer? And we'd like to show you, first of all, our website, which I hope you'll all find that it is a huge, useful asset for you as a, well, let me take that sit down to promote your events. So, this walk includes a couple of our resource, our media resources that we use to, that we offer to all of you. Free resources for offering information for artists visiting, local and visiting artists, art consumers, cultural tourists, and arts programming providers, broadly defined. So, we, for a minute, have four main areas of our website, our Charliegood.org, which was formed really to collect all of the information about all the cultural activities in town, in one centralized spot for, you know, everyone who wanted to find out about all the enriching things we're doing in town. There are four main functions, I would say, of the site that are available to all of you, as nonprofits, different kind of directories, resource directories, cultural district maps, cultural news, and events calendars. Just going to show some of these to you very briefly. You can explore on your own. The most important thing is that all of this is free to artists and to organizations aligned. You can submit releases, news, events, through here. And we have various mechanisms to signal boost for you and to help, you really want to help promote both of you. Chronicton as a cultural destination and all of the cultural providers here. So, first of all, I'll show you just some of the kind of directories that you can look here for. So, we have you do a directory of free listings for art supply, store, businesses, venues, instruction, marketing services, support resources, including grants, calls for art institutions, networking for artists and development opportunities for artists. I'll show you just some of the kinds of directories so, if you have a performance space, if you have a rehearsal space, you can come here and post these for free. Every section has a form where you can submit all the information about your organization and give it permission. We do ask that it be opted. We don't go out and just research you and you know, put up potentially inaccurate information about you with your phone number changes, if you're calling your submission, if your calendar changes, we're not going to do that, but what we'll happily, you know, help you keep it up to date if you just get touched with us, we do ask you to opt into these things, just like for newsletter and others. The second section is the dynamic interactive, extremely cool map of our new cultural district. Built on the Google interactive map provides wayfinding among all of the very cool things that we have going on in town shows the boundaries of the defined cultural district. If you are operating within the cultural district and you haven't submitted your profile to it yet, we strongly encourage you to do this. We're looking to build this functionality out more as we move forward with the website development. You can sort by different type of cultural resource, performance space, energy space, museum, etc, etc. So it's really a wonderful way of really just visualizing completely everything that town has to offer and to help visitors from town fight in particular. The third part commands the we have a pretty robust homepage local news section. You can ask where can we invite you to submit your press releases. You can have a future article about something you know that's a signature event for you during the year. You'd like our house to be there. We do have a news section where we're happy to get a signal voice and we use these then to also promote on social media. We generally use these to build out our newsletter which we send out on a monthly basis. Again, all of this is free to you. We just ask you to send the updated information. And finally the most exciting thing about the site is probably our events panel. And this uses the Artsopolis API that's provided by ArtsBoston. So it really is the first time any resources pulled together collectively. All of the great things that are happening in our open in one easy to navigate spot is a disorder. Now the thing about this is in order to participate in it all you have to do is open a free panel on ArtsBoston. I know some of you have it but not everyone does. It's when you click on submit it there it will take you right to an account creation form. That's quite easy. This is what happens when you log in to get to create basically an organization business profile. Then you can add a venue if you have a physical space or more than one. And finally you add your vets to a simple form. And automatically every event you post that is that is staged in Arlington will appear on our site. But it will also be available on a wide variety of other syndicated sites that ArtsBoston serves. So you're really getting exposure broadly, regionally and also in town. For all our users here and visitors in town. You can also like with Facebook add co-sponsors, co-presenters. If you're doing something with us it really helps a few people. You can tag us in ArtsBoston and it just extends your message that much farther. We have taken out we've taken out an institutional account with ArtsBoston and hope to provide further very co-op advertising opportunities for institutions in town and so forth. Finally as I mentioned we do also signal boost through the newsletter social media through Facebook and Instagram. Local media we have recurring calendar section on your Arlington. We often boost and patch with the local based on program with ACMI and we hope to keep building out these channels to help promote all of the kinds of programs not just the work we're doing natively on the commission but that all of the institutions in town will partner with us. I'll let it go there just reminding you it's hopped in we're happy to help you it's completely free let's reach out to us if you have to get on. One question Yes. If you can put your boosting on the ArtsBoston is that covered for all the other arts and arts events as well? So it will if you place it on ArtsBoston yes so if someone on ArtsBoston itself searches for events in Arlington it will still serve up on their site as well. They also serve JazzBoston so if you're looking for jazz events in Arlington you'll come up on the JazzBoston site so you're getting much wider reach than just our arts and arts audience so you're being packaged in many different ways about all of it if it's kid-friendly if it's free if they're using boss picks all of these are amplified but this is the main vehicle for community-based calendar events to move it out yes yes this is our main way of sorting and disseminating information and picking which ones to feature on that page and so on that's how we find out about it before they go to the Arlington as we're giving out before they go to the Arlington as we're giving out the release date we do we do sometimes boost specific events through Wicked Local and Hade House Media and The Advocate we do also sometimes send releases to The Advocate another print increasingly there are a lot of visual factors okay thank you so much Stuart I hope you guys will have the chance to if you have not already produced a website on your home check the free book for events if you might want to content share them share from our Facebook page where we also post the share all over to your own network social media we would really appreciate if you were able to link our website to your website so that you know people could see more about what's going on in Arlington people could understand that Arlington is a happy happening place that there are lots of things going on and that this is a you know a one-stop shop for them to find that out so we would really appreciate that we would also really appreciate your you're putting these on your cars if they fit because these will help you know spread the word that arts exist in Arlington wherever you're driving wherever you're parking and it's a great way to find your car at a parking lot okay sure yes to the art of Boston that then go on this website also to go on this this thing about automatically onto your Facebook not automatically but we do we do well Terry where's Terry how do you yeah we try to boost some events especially if you let us know but we look at the calendar coming up and we try to figure out which ones to boost we try to get a wide assortment try to get bigger and send music and arts all so that we have a wide assortment I don't know how I asked because before the salt started Jeff we just started a events in Arlington's Facebook page and then I've ended up moderating oh really so we should talk again well I'm not sure if it's redundant I'm not sure I don't think redundancy is a thing I mean I mean I mean there's there's everyone gets your information from many different places right I think that is to leave out it's the same thing it's that if you're an artist there's also a website a web page specifically for artists to come and to find places to network and we also do have a Facebook page we just call Artleads and we can also find what's going on specifically for artists for visual art for being north north for all the arts all the arts that aren't artwork because we've got a hidden resources section here and you can find a lot more information about artleads as well like you just put on resources so they can remain made to grant the resources section you'll get to the landing page and there'll be a big it'll be clear artists found here I have a question I was wondering the ACMI boost event on your channel thank you for saying that because we're asking that so I apologize several of us at ACMI had direct conflicts tonight I had the least direct conflict but mine starts at eight o'clock so I'm gonna have to leave so if you don't mind I just wanted to say I'm going to leave my cards with Charlotte and please grab one if you are at all interested in using ACMI in the same way as Stuart was just describing a lot of what ACAC can do for you ACMI also brings the power of video I think you all probably are aware the video is a very powerful tool for promotion in this world that we're living in right now we are particularly interested in supporting nonprofits and arts organizations and to the extent that you guys are the confluence of both you are are people that we really really want to work with as well as well as we can within so we don't produce things for you but we will make it as easy as possible for you to produce a PSA something that describes that is a visit to your gallery or to your organization or space we also are looking if any of you were interested we would love to start a television show that highlights maybe 10 minute segments on each of three organizations making up a half hour show we need a host to do that we would work again very closely with you lots of support and and all you need to do is reach out and start the process and we will take things from there but this is this is this is a very full room which I'm very impressed by and and we would really love to we do work with the number of you guys already I get to see Betsy all the time and and you know just know that we are another resource you can count on and we will be very responsive and we will be effective for the process thank you for that you might know a couple of people are already making a lot of lines based on your survey responses so I think it'll be given how we call and yes it is a great way to help expand audiences which I know is another thing that we're also also concerned about so thank you for being here tonight and thank you for that offer okay so how are you moving on let me see that's so much I wanted to just go on a little bit with with things that we offer just super quickly a quick rundown I wanted to tell you that I wanted to tell you that based on your surveys where you talked a little bit about your events some of it we know about we're starting to build kind of a cultural calendar so that we kind of have some highlights for almost each month they're you know October's a little thin here March is a little thin here so if you have things going on in these months you know we'd love to hear about them if you do you know on your way out today if you see something that you do that is missing here you know if you're putting I put monthly events in January that maybe in January we can highlight all the things you can do monthly throughout the whole year like the coffee house and the open mic and things like that that happen every month but here is sort of you know what we do it's pretty full pretty full calendar AFD your shows are not on here because I don't know what the regular thing is but please you know do let us know and we can sort of know that in the fall and spring we're gonna you know say hey it's AFD season so something that we're working on we're working on yes people can write directly on here I sort of thought people might do it as they come in but that didn't happen so on your way out you know feel free to write in here write to us but we're trying to sort of get a big picture of what goes on here by the year so we can sort of you know start to see put themes in and figure out how we can kind of push you know sort of market by month right yeah okay so that's one thing um promotion as you see through our website also happens grants how many everybody knows about the local cultural accounts of France yes yes nodding so there's a grant committee which is the local cultural counts counts local cultural council which is a chapter of the Massachusetts cultural council so we offer grants through that process October 15th is a deadline every year and I believe that there's also a seminar coming like in June to help you think of projects and how to how to write them up so if you have more questions about grants as a section on the website as well so that is a good way to get some funding town hall space we are entitled as a town organization to use a town hall at rate of $55 an hour so if you want to use town hall for any reason for something you might want to ask us to be a sponsor of your event this is what the Arlington Film Festival did just the last month and asked us to just sponsor we didn't have to do anything but just like say yes we'll sponsor and write them an email and they got a good rate on the town hall which is very nice Artists in Residency yes so this year we're really excited it's our first year that we're doing an Artists in Residency program that Cecily is organizing and we don't have too much time we don't have any time to go into it but I'm just going to shut down the visual it's going to be really interesting we have this wonderful artist Michel Lugy who crochets out of plastic bags recycled plastic bags and makes these amazing sculptures and you can all be involved or you know so yeah you can attend these workshops we already have several nonprofits who have offered to host them in terms of lending space and we consider an Artists in Residency program if we can manage to keep it going going forward you know great way to sort of enhance things that you are already doing like you know it could be an Artists in Residency that works with your collection and helps to interpret it in a new way or adds you know interpretive art on top of something that's already there or you know there are many ways that artists are you know extremely creative with figuring out ways to you know interact and dialogue and with with existing environments and art in new and interesting ways and and also involves people involves through things and so highlight highlight things for that like sort of create experiences so and then I wanted to introduce Andrea Nicolay who is the head of the cultural district managing partnership I'm one of the managing partners I'll stand up to you yes please whoa play it in the eyes um so I can't talk as fast as Stephanie I'm sorry if I'm rushing trying to slow it down we're just showing time no I get it we respect time in cultural district land and ACAC land I just wanted to say on behalf of the cultural district it's really easy to become a managing partner um there are very minimal meetings that one attends as a managing partner there's a core managing partnership that's sort of the executive committee but what we do is just promote the district MCC designated us in 2017 and all managing partners basically agree to help promote the district you can be a managing partner if you if you are located within the district or if you have events that happen in the district so Stephanie's example of you know co-sponsoring event with ACAC and being in town hall that would qualify you to be a managing park or a member of the cultural district so it's another easy way but um it's very simple and every year we apply to MCC for a grant and each year we focus on a different aspect of promotion for the district so we're still young as a three-year-old district we're basically a toddler now so we have a logo for the district we built on our branding this past year by creating a brochure which I really should have a copy of here it's over there but they're on the table they're out there yes don't miss it it's adorable you want you to put it on your fridge there yeah okay Sarah has a copy right there how you're collect or in another meeting know that this is a project for us apply for grants with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council on the technical their help in in helping us develop tools for data connections so how many of you are already measuring data this is great we would love to sort of see those numbers especially if you have them across a few years and especially if it is now I think we will try to get a baseline from all of you so we can also see whether or not we are making an impact in helping all of us you know listening to all of us talk about this at the same time so we'll be in touch about you know what what your data methods are what it is you do measure and then once and they can see yes going on this on this project and we will also important well my name is Sarah Stackhouse and um I um live in on Franklin Street in Arlington Center and I have two kids who have done programs and connected with a lot of the things that you in this room do so I just want to say as a parent it's an incredible place to have artistic children or children who just use the arts to grow up and I'm just so glad to be in the room with everybody um I uh I work right now as a consultant to a whole bunch of arts nonprofits particularly mostly um mostly performing arts but I've worked with some other art forms as well I do a lot of work with Kristen and we work together at Silk Road and and do other entities and I was one of the founders of the actor Shakespeare Project which is a theater company in town I I'm a little bit of Thomas here I haven't seen you in a really long time but Tom is part of the story I'm going to tell so that's exciting when I was a young executive director and trying to like prove myself and get my organization off the ground I spent all of my energy thinking about like how are we going to stay afloat how are we going to market ourselves how are we going to make a niche how are our programs going to be good basically like head down working on that which is where I think most of us spend most of our time um and there's this crazy amazing lady uh Swanee Hunt who lived if some of you may know I think you guys know her over on Brattle Street who doesn't live in Massachusetts anymore but at the time decided she wanted to fund a cohort of 30 youth arts organizations and she funded us but there was a caveat if she funded you you had to come in a room with everybody and you had to figure out how you were going to share your donors with each other and do collective fund raising which you can imagine the response was like hell no like they're mine and the second thing was that you were going to start to learn about advocacy because collectively she believed you could actually create political change that would benefit the arts if you worked as a collective and we didn't really believe it like we sort of said yeah maybe like we can vote for the MCC budget or we can send something but we'll go because Swanee told us we had to go and part of what happened over like many years of being in a room with other people which I think is one of the powers this has is the convening power just like sitting in a room with other people is that I started to like lift my head up a little bit from like wait a minute I don't have to just do my job I can actually like learn what other people are doing and then figure out how to navigate the environment that we're in better because I can understand like learn things from other people love what's happening with funding and what's happening with the press and what's happening with zoning and so it was an amazing thing to start to say like oh I'm part of a sector and I'm they're all going to help each other navigate this environment which is a tough environment for the arts and then there was this really pivotal moment where I suddenly was like or we could change the environment that we're trying to navigate and is that possible because what we started to hear was that everyone had the same issues it's really hard to get air time it's really hard to get foundations to pay attention to small organizations everyone's jumping from project to project to follow the foundation money how can we figure out the zoning piece that we need how can we get officials that really promote policy and funding things that help the art sector and each of us felt too small to do it but when we sat in a room for a while we suddenly were like wait a minute we could change this environment or we could try and I suddenly was like we have power you know and it feels silly like a bunch of small arts organizations but actually we do have power and so Tom and I were in this this program together that the MCC funded and the Bar Foundation and the Boston Foundation where we went to the Kennedy School with 40 arts organizations from across the state and we were doing this work with Marshall Ganz who's like a storyteller for change he's like a political organizer who uses story so he was one of Obama's main organizers and what he did is he got all these young people not to just use data and not to just use talking points but to tell story to create the movement that got him elected and if you remember the Obama Democratic Convention speech the one where he said yes we can together we can that whole thing it's like perfect Marshall Ganz storytelling which is a story of me story of us story of now let's go and so Tom and I took this class with a bunch of people and we thought we would be great storytellers because we're arts people and we were terrible we were terrible storytellers except one guy Abe Rybeck from theater offensive was a good storyteller the rest of us got up when we were like hi and so my mission is this and that's not a story right or we get up and sort of tell a story that doesn't end but she knows that but I won't do but one of the things that happened in this class is we started to talk about how Marshall's job was to change politics right to get different people elected to get different policies to happen to get attention from the press and he did it with arts leaders around story and there was this day where we were in this class and we suddenly were like what if we and all our patrons and all our board members and all the kids in our programs and all our partners got together around a collective issue that's a lot of people right that's a lot of power actually it's not just the three board members and your five big donors suddenly you've got this big collective and we began to think about how we could organize as a sector and so for me a big part of my life for the past eight years seven years has been working with mass creative which is the state advocacy organization fitting parts and I talk all the time about how people can organize for change and what I hear happening in this room which is amazing is a ton of networking like oh you should move what coffee house is that and oh we should work together in the fox thing and that's amazing and there's also potential I think to say we have some shared issues in town or we have some shared desires or we have some shared stuff in walks and how what could happen between organizing ourselves and got our people organized and want to tell all of it or went to the press with it or applied for a grant with it could we actually create some change as a collective action as opposed to just a very rich robust network and I think it's exciting because I think that's possible in Arlington especially with all the incredible work that's already been created as a foundation and I think that this group can connect Arlington to all of the other players who are doing that in the state because there are things that affect Arlington that also affect Medford and Somerville and if you work with something like if you work with the mass cultural council and mass creative those things can get bundled up to the state house and maybe change something that's hard or engage some question that people aren't thinking for a minute in my minutes on the stuff about it's about why collective organizing could be part of our shared work and not just networking and to just introduce that idea into the room and my understanding is you build out surveys and there are some shared some shared concerns and there's a bunch of ways to tackle that one is to get advice from each other and another is to see if there can be a collective action so I think when you break into your groups part of it is just to know each other and network and part of it is to think about what could happen if you work with us how much power there could be and I just wanted to introduce that idea and then also say I'm in love with my town and happy to help especially as it connects to mass creative and some of the larger things I know you're working with arts Boston already but this thing about telling our story and getting data there's already data that's been collected by the Mass Cultural Council and put into amazing fractoid means that could be being used by all of you as you apply for grants now and that's available right and that's another way that this organization can connect up to larger things happening one of the things that shocked me was more people attend an arts event in Boston in a year than attend all four major sports team events in terms of numbers right there's a whole bunch of facts like that about how many dollars are being spent on jobs in the arts and how many local economies have seen impact and I feel like even if your data collection isn't done that is statewide data that could be being used collectively by the group so if there's any way I can help make those connections or help shape some of the collective action conversations I would love to do it and just wanted to come introduce myself in that's it thank you for having me thank you thank you thank you yes thank you so much Sarah thank you for the information and your expertise so we're really really grateful it looks exactly the kind of work we want to start doing I do want to move on a little bit to our survey just to make sure you're dying to hear some results and not all of you will stir them in and you are always willing to do that at any time we're not making some down so this is just a sampling but you know I think it's a good representation all right can you hear me when I turn my back I just wanted to highlight a couple of the commonalities that I saw any we are reaching maybe Sarah is there anything you need more yeah any more you want to need one no I have more no one has to share I want you to take this home and study the population and by doing that we know that we are reaching a diverse the very diverse population in Arlington it's public schools are some level playing field and we can find everyone anyone and everyone who has kids there so that is great that a lot is being done at the public schools and that our arts departments in the visual arts and the performing arts are so very strong there and a lot of the organizations here are also working with with public schools and others meet diverse community members in other ways so by what they offer the types of works that and I'm very curious to hear well for us to learn from each other about outreach and how and how you're reaching sort of diverse a diverse population and perhaps people who are underserved in Arlington by the arts so I think I think there is a concern about that yeah you could just flip it up and other way about the kind of diversity in the town and I'm sort of one of the questions that I would ask here is who are we not reaching I mean when we look at some of the people that we are reaching here who are we who are we perhaps not reaching I think that we are reaching sort of youth and some seniors and adults but perhaps there are still members of you know certain members of of those and the and the seniors and that and the not reaching people who are live further from that working you know 10 hours a day and you know I'm just like are there are we reaching are we reaching everyone that we need to be creating equity so in some of the initiatives I see that that that is a concern creating equity and initiatives diversity attention to diversity and I also see some new strategies the ACMI as a resource as I mentioned before and through scholarship funds trying to create access again in terms of the needs obviously the fund the funding is a need volunteers are a need and infrastructures a need yeah this one this part one I won't say who wrote this but a strong sustainable infrastructure that supports strategic growth through broad participation and by wide support from a large cross-section of the community broad participation by wide not the end by a wide support and wide support help and wide take out the buy all right did everyone get that strong sustainable infrastructure that supports strategic growth through broad participation and wide support from a large cross-section that could have been our that could have been written by us right there or that could have written by the collective us you know I mean I think that that's really something that we need yeah everybody needs funding and a lot of people are asking for more promotion which is great that's what they're asking from us promotion that's something that that we can do facilitated connections with partnerships that's something that we're trying to do here institutional awareness more build audience and more advertising and promotion so these are some things that I you know see in common you can get more specific as well I mean obviously we get too specific then we're not we're not sticking to those things in common but I think I think it's sort of interesting to see how specific we can get and still and still have a common have a common goal as far as you know building audiences as well you know are you all reaching similar audiences are you reaching different audiences are you not reaching the same people would you like that you all like to be reaching or you know or are some reaching some audiences and others are reaching other audiences and maybe you can cross promote and so that everybody can you know reach everyone let's let's hear a little bit about group one's conversation who's group one you talked about summarize you know your yes so yeah we we we went right quickly through every through all these questions and that was pretty easy I think for us to come up with some commonalities so under the first one of goals building community educating and engaging new audiences seemed to this kind of float right up to the top and how many people share those goals as well we have like a this kind of thing and you share came up with that very similar all right great great and then in terms of needs volunteers resources in terms of financial money space rehearsal as in you know you know rehearsal space and professional development and then finally in terms of one of three ways that we could take action including schools and towns that would be internally used and to give people like a whole year I had a vision of what's happening so that we all could plan our events and not or want to overlap so that would be very helpful and arts volunteer fair which I really like that idea a time when as many arts organizations possible to get together in one space and have people who are interested in volunteering to learn about all these different organizations and make a choice and then a spreadsheet with contact information with everybody who's here and others who are part of this non-profit organization world so to facilitate connection along with all of us and then finally more meeting sessions to facilitate these kinds of collaborations so that we all get to really know each other much more much better than we do now yep it's very good too and I think that the only thing that it was different that I have potentially to bring a big coalition with non-art groups and one of the resources that Sarah gave us was a arts factor is a data sharing organization that they already have ready made this is what the music does for the town this is what the thinking what the galleries that everything and so thinking of the image of that was an important thing the other one is the same as coalition building and supporting each other across all media so that I'm sorry can you speak yes you sit a whole sorry I'm sorry that the other one was that regular meetings that we can really get to know each other get to know what we do so to really come together that was I think it was that yours yeah I think we had that was everybody we have seen that this was three of them but the other one is so that once we know in the calendar was we also isolated but once we know is to make it a concerted effort to support each other across all media so that once we have that calendar so that was three things that that was done I have one thing about Dave yes this idea of free coalitions with non-arts people you may already be doing some of it but it's the question of like could all the restaurant owners join the Arlington like the ACAC right because they recognize why could all of them so that there could be a way that the value of what's happening here is promoted by people who are non-arts people right it's one of our issues great yeah that's a very important one thank you thank you very much group two group three we came out of a a little different angle but I'd say shared most of these concerns so we really looked at needs of each of the individual members and then how there was a comment among us for the need for promotion and out-match getting the word out there about what we're doing for space to work in see if you're basically skilled with volunteers of board members people in development staff skill base to help support the organizations what you're doing magic so the goals then was good to you know opportunities for development for uh the recruitment of skilled people some of the ideas we came up with to achieve that might be creating the skills exchange directory on arts Arlington that you know where the high rent artists to facilitate something but also other funding ways or marketing assistants a volunteer coordinator and to help to promote people with these skills to create more across collaboration and promotion opportunities to create a big list will be shared again that scary idea of sharing the donors and the best arts stakeholders that we've all collected in some kind of exchange so we can message them in a safe space Arts Boston has an exchange like this somewhat similar that might be something that we could do with the commission to help us all you know to reach each other's dedicated arts audiences whether it's benefit and also invite by ways to make more money into the cultural council grant pool through our own fundraising efforts but also through collaborating with organizations like this there's a great suggestion of when we post our events or send out releases can we add a little tag for artsarlington.org at the bottom of them yes please and if we have some fundraising efforts to help build that pool to figure the grants we can give out to organizations like this so I think we get that idea of maybe a blue gene and all that's going to operate across multiple organizations so those are some of the solutions we call thank you so much I think you accomplished a lot in a short amount of time I sort of feel like y'all need to give ourselves a magical applause yeah thank you it's like I heard that people want us to pile all these notes and send them out along with the list who would like us to do some follow-up meetings for how many times a year can't emphasize enough are telling our story and so I think that that's a great idea you know including non-arts organizations and to really building those partnerships as well we are planning to have a business meeting you know for-profit cultural businesses or perhaps a little expanded to you know because there's a wide range of what can potentially be a culturally related business or maybe hosting art in their in their space or music or who are or who could potentially get involved and so we will be doing some of that but I would also encourage all of you to reach out to businesses that you may frequent either just for your for your personal life or as partners in some of the things that you're doing I would you know invite invite not just as sponsors or as you know just just for a source of money but for actively take um you know take uh take part in what you're doing so that you are creating a true partnership where both benefit we're both business and and you benefit that way they will see that value so I think that's something that we can we can do individually and as a collective and so let's let's um I think we're sort of very full for tonight and so um I'd like maybe just to go around and ask how everyone's feeling before we leave cold um yeah cold it's just a side cold feeling about tonight about the work we're doing are you you know left wanting more are you not getting enough or just like you know just the mood that you're in right now it's a great introductory meeting I mean that definitely we have things that came up that we all want to see things it's a great thing to hear those meetings great thank you so we're going to just limit it to sort of like one word or short phrase you don't have to elaborate too much but thank you very much for that that positive feedback you know just you know for just time just to get a little short temperature looking forward to digging deeper wonderful interview guys great momentum yes cases with names encouraged yeah new connections great start here he is having to say part well so okay say ambitious excited more optimistic like to the supportive of the arts ready to focus ready to focus and focus we will we will take all of these notes we will distill them we will pass them out and keep the lines of communication open please send us your ideas or conferences that you go to that inspire you ideas you think that we should try as a group with charlotte yes i'm sorry encourage as well but is there a like a group forum that we can all use and participate in we can create one that would be great yeah we'd be happy to do that i'm a forum person okay great can you scribble that down so we don't forget and