Emily Robson's blog

From the RFP:

"The Town of Collingwood is seeking the professional services of a Consultant (or consulting team) having experience in the field of cultural mapping. The Consultant will develop a Cultural Map for the geographic region encompassing the Town of Collingwood, Town of BlueMountains, Clearview Township and Wasaga Beach. The Cultural Map will serve as a component of a Regional Economic Development Strategy and provide the foundation for future independent and collaborative municipal cultural planning.

The Cultural Mapping Project is one element of a Regional Economic Development Strategy, the purpose of which is to build upon the assets of the four communities, guide economic development decision making, and facilitate investment attraction and economic growth in the Region. The Project is funded by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade."

The RFP is attached here.

Municipal Cultural Planning Incorporated is seeking a consultant with a proven track record in the research and development of planning and/or mapping guidelines. The consultant’s overall goal will be to produce an easy-to-follow resource providing guidance and direction on the planning and implementation of municipal cultural mapping initiatives. This document will be tailored  to municipal cultural planning stakeholders, elected municipal officials and senior municipal staff. This document will develop introductory guidelines for:
a.    The consolidation and maintenance of cultural resource data based on a defined cultural resource framework
b.    Strategies for connecting municipal policies and plans to cultural mapping in Ontario 
This document should be no more than 20 pages in length. MCPI will be responsible for managing the design, printing and distribution of the document. The document will be professionally designed for print and digital circulation.

Submissions are due to Emily Robson (emily.robson@ontariomcp.ca) by 5:00 on January 4, 2010.

Attached is the full RFP.

MCPP welcomes Councillor Bill Glover to the Partnership. We are looking forward to having Bill's insight and experience at the MCPP table.

Bill Glover moved to Kingston in 2000 when he retired from the Canadian navy. He was elected to Kingston city council in 2006 for Sydenham District. It is a downtown residential area that includes the main campus of Queen’s University. He obtained his undergraduate degree in History from Queen’s. His MA and PhD are from the University of London (England). He was the editor of The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, a referred journal published by the Canadian Nautical Research Society, for five years. He has published in the areas of Canadian naval history, and the history of navigation and hydrography. He edited Charting Northern Waters for the centenary of the Canadian Hydrographic Service.

If you are interested in becoming a Partner, please email emily.robson@ontariomcp.ca

Business for the Arts is launching artsVest in another five Ontario municipalities!  read more »

The City of Thunder Bay has posted an RFP for a Municipal Cultural Plan on their website here. Proposals must be received by 4:00 PM on September 30th. The appendix to the RFP describes the project thus:

"The City of Thunder Bay is requesting the assistance of a Consultant team to develop a Municipal
Cultural Plan. The Plan will consider specific public needs and provide the City with a focus for
future cultural development. Its format and recommendations will be unique to Thunder Bay.
The City of Thunder Bay recognizes the important role of arts and heritage in the community and
is ready to proceed with a process to formally identify and address cultural needs and assets."

Congratulations to Thunder Bay on moving forward with MCP. In April 2007, Thunder Bay was one of three location in north west Ontario for a MCP workshop. It is clear there is a lot of enthusiam and committment to this process in Thunder Bay!

The House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Finance has begun pre-Budget consultations for the next Federal budget, details are in the committee’s announcement here.  The questions Canadians are being asked to consider are:

1. What federal tax and program spending measures are needed to ensure prosperity and a sustainable future for Canadians from an economic, social and/or environmental perspective?

2. What federal stimulus measures have been effective and how might relatively ineffective measures be changed to ensure that they have the intended effects?

While those interested in appearing before the committee had to submit a written brief by July 31st, the first four sessions are online in video form here.  Hearings are happening across the country from Sept 14th to October 21.

A number of culture stakeholders have already presented their views on federal arts/cultural spending – see list below. The full list of witnesses from which this has been extracted is attached at the end.  Those appearing to date have published parts or all of their written submissions.  read more »

Today, the Ministry of Culture, Aileen Carroll, announced $9 million will be available to municipalities and non-profit organizations that increase capacity  for Municipal Cultural Planning and community economic development. The Creative Communities Prosperity Fund will:

    * Provide municipalities with incentives and support to help them in undertaking MCP-related activities and integrate cultural planning with land-use planning, economic development, environmental responsibility and social equity.
    * Encourage innovative organizations and initiatives that strengthen Ontario’s cultural sector’s capacity to transform Ontario’s communities and economies through culture.
    * Encourage innovative new cross-cultural (e.g. heritage, arts, libraries and/or cultural industries) and cross-sectoral (e.g. culture, business, environment, social, etc.) partnerships and models to support the cultural vitality, creativity and economic sustainability of Ontario’s communities.

The need for funding is a common message MCPP hears from MCP practitioners and municipalities interested in MCP. With a new source of potential funding, the process of MCP will be accessible to more municipalities.

Want to read a MCP? Read London's, Chatham-Kent's and Prince Edward County's.


For additional information, visit: http://www.culture.gov.on.ca/english/Grants/creativecommunitiesfund/index.html

The Creative Communities Blog on the Knowledge Impact Society website, focuses on issues related to economic development in Eastern Ontario and specifically, how these issues intersect with the concept of the creative economy and creative community. The blog is led by Dr. Betsy Donald of Queen's University's Department of Geography.

As part of the working paper series, Ontario in the Creative Age, Dr. Donald published "From Kraft to Craft: Innovation and creativity in Ontario's Food Economy". At MCPP we have often looked to Prince Edward County as an example of a local economy with culture as a driving force. "Local Food Debates & Eastern Ontario Success Stories" addresses the potential of the Creative Food Economy as a potential economic development and tourism strategy. In Prince Edward County, artisanal cheese-making has been positioned within the "Creative Rural Economy". This positioning has to do with the long history of cheese-making in Prince Edward County and the use of milk from local cows, goats and sheep. The practice of artisanal cheese-making in Prince Edward County is very much tied to place.  read more »

Yfactor, a Toronto-based consultancy specializing in online competitiveness for economic development and non-profit organizations, has produced an article on the cultural mapping trend in local economic development. In this article, Yfactor argues that municipalities must attract creative workers in order to develop their knowledge-based economy. This argument has been made elsewhere by Dr. Greg Baeker and suggests that by identifying, leveraging and augmenting cultural resources, the authenticity of a place is heightened. This improved "sense of place" is attractive to knowledge-workers and thus develops the economy. Yfactor suggests that "cultural mapping using GIS makes it easy to get a feel for the characteristics of a community around a site under consideration."

To explore the potential of MCP as a key strategy to support rural economic and community revitalization, The Ontario Rural Council (TORC) partnered with the Municipal Cultural Planning Partnership (MCPP) and a number of sponsoring organizations to host a series of three MCP Forum events. These gatherings took place in Brockville (November 17, 2008), Chatham (November 26, 2008) and Minett / Muskoka (March 26, 2009) and attracted a total of 284 participants.

I wrote about each of these events and posted the presentations afterward. You can find them here, here and here.

The TORC Report summarizes “what we heard” during the forum series. It includes participant insights, observations and recommendations that are intended to help inform stakeholders  on the issue of MCP. TORC will be distributing it to a number of provincial ministries and organizations.

Emerging themes include:
1. A policy framework for MCP is needed
2. The necessity of collaboration
3. A consistent definition of cultural assets and community is needed

Key recommendations for action include:
1. Building and sharing the case for culture
2. Supporting the process of MCP
- Policy and funding
- Capacity building and tools
- Engagement

Find the full report here