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I have posted all the presentations from our November 17th "Economies in Transition: Leveraging Cultural Assets for Prosperity" Brockville forum on SlideShare.  Here is a quick list of the speakers, their organizations and presentation title. I have also linked the individual presentations to SlideShare.

Keynote Address:

"Economies in Transition: Leveraging Cultural Assets for Prosperity"
Peter Kenyon, Director, Bank of I.D.E.A.S

Panel #1: Community Success Stories--Leveraging Cultural Assets

1. "Niagara's Journey Toward a Culture Plan"
Terri Donia, Planner, Region of Niagara

2. "Integrated Community and Sustainability Planning"
Don Ross, Executive Director, Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve

3. "Culinary Tourism--Tapping Into the New Economy"
Rebecca LeHeup-Bucknell, Executive Director, Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance

Panel #2: Making it Happen--Tools for Success

1. "Cultural Asset Mapping in Niagara"
Rebecca Cann, Cultural Planning Supervisor, City of St. Catharines

2.  read more »

We held a great event in Brockville on Monday. Economies in Transition: Leveraging Cultural Assets for Prosperity was put on by both the Municipal Cultural Planning Partnership and The Ontario Rural Council.

While the challenges facing rural Ontario are easy to identify (attraction and retention of residents, youth retention and economic diversification) the keynote presenter, Peter Kenyon  and the 7 panelists urged attendees to approach these challenges as opportunities to build on what they have. Focus on what is there instead of what is not. The presenters illustrated that by appreciating what is in a municipality, engaging the community and being creative, there are countless opportunities for economic and community development.

I am in the process of posting all the presentations on SlideShare. I will post the link ASAP as well as a list of all the presenters.

Check out a couple of articles from the Brockville Recorder and Times:
Rural communities should emphasize strengths: Expert

Tourism crucial for rural areas, expert from Australia tells forum

TORC Municipal Cultural Planning Forum Series
Economies in Transition: Leveraging Cultural Assets for Prosperity

In Ontario, a growing number of rural communities are turning to municipal cultural planning (MCP) as an approach to economic
revitalization. Traditional dependencies on agriculture and industry
have left many communities vulnerable and open to pursuing new avenues
to help address escalating costs in the face of a dwindling tax base.
To explore the potential of municipal cultural planning as a key
strategy to support rural revitalization, MCPP has joined with The Ontario Rural Council
(TORC) to host a three-location Forum series across the province. The
agenda for these one-day events will include tools, resources, best
practices and approaches to assist communities/municipalities in their
cultural planning initiatives. We will share potential barriers and
opportunities, as well as success stories from those who have begun to  read more »

Please take the Municipal Cultural Planning Survey

The Ontario Ministry of Culture is undertaking a survey to assess the current state of practice in planning for culture in Ontario municipalities. The survey is a repeat of one completed in 2004 that benchmarked the state of practice at that time. A particular focus of the current survey is on municipal cultural planning, an integrated approach to leveraging a community’s cultural assets to support economic and community development.

Municipal cultural planning is a priority for the Ministry of Culture. Since 2004, the Ministry has supported a number of initiatives to encourage municipalities across the province in undertaking municipal cultural planning. One important initiative has been the launch of the Municipal Cultural Planning Partnership (MCPP) – a network of seven ministries, municipalities and organizations representing the cultural, business, planning and academic sectors.

We hope the information and conclusions will also be of use to you in understanding the state of municipal cultural planning in other municipalities. The Survey will produce a database of colleagues working in similar positions in Ontario municipalities to support networking and information exchange. Participants who do not wish to have their contact information publicly disclosed can exercise this right by checking the appropriate box below.

Please respond by Wednesday December 10.

On Tuesday, October 28th a group of about 20 librarians and municipal staff spent the day discussing the role of the library in municipal cultural planning. Everyone agreed that the library can play an incredible catalytic role in the municipal cultural planning process.

Two particular topics of discussion really resonated with me.

1.  Libraries have the capacity to engage the community around the process of municipal cultural planning. Sustained community engagement is one of the characteristics of municipal cultural planning. In some municipalities, the cultural planning process is initiated at the community level, while in other municipalities the process is initiated at the municipal level. Either way, libraries can play an integral role in engaging the community person-to-person or virtually for the initiation, development and implementation of a municipal cultural plan.

2. I am completely intrigued by the idea of the library offering specialized space for various cultural activities. For example, a recording studio or a kiln.

For the workshop attendees (or anyone else who is interested), here are a couple of links and files:
1. Greg Baeker's presentation
2. Stephen Nelson's presentation
3. Lori Sims' presentation
4. Creative Cities Network of Canada Cultural Mapping Toolkit
5. Combating the“Geography of Nowhere” by Greg Baeker
6.  read more »

Last week, Dan Taylor (Economic Development Office for Prince Edward County), Lorraine Hogan (Regional Services Branch of the Ministires of Citizenship and Immigration, Culture, Tourism and Health Promotion) and I travelled to beautiful Halton Hills to talk about municipal cultural planning. We met with the Arts and Heritage Action Committe in a truly dynamic space, the Halton Hills Cultural Centre.

The former Congregational Church now houses a library, theatre, art gallery and meeting space. It is truly remarkable. I was also completely enamoured with downtown Georgetown.

As always, Dan gave a fantastic presentation about "municipal cultural planning 2.0, the creative rural economy". The success of Prince Edward County is truly inspiring and the Arts and Heritage Action Committee was intrigued and amazed. The presentation will soon be posted in the Library section of the website.

During session, we talked about the importance of the creative economy in the face of declining manufacturing and natural resource industries. In reference to mills in Northern Ontario, Dan said, "They're gone. They are not coming back. We need to stop fixating on the problem and start focusing on opportunities." Dan's candour preceded this article by Margaret Wente in Saturday's Globe and Mail, "Leaving the Old Economy behind: RIM's world is our future, GM's world is our past".

During the second week of April, Thunder Bay, Dryden and Atikokan hosted MCP workshops. The workshops consisted of formal learning, peer learning and problem solving. Greg Baeker, Mark Kuznicki and Dan Taylor were on hand to provide MCP information, tools and inspiration to workshop attendees. Here is what some attendees had to say:

"Wonderful to see the links--they are everywhere if you remain open to them."

"The workshop was informative. Was able to network with other community members--seeing where they are--share and steal ideas."

"Excellent. Wish we had more time."

"I really enjoyed the affternoon 'learning from each other' share sessions!"

"The City needs to assign a senior level administrator to move municipal cultural planning process forward."

"This is a critical opportunity to engage the aboriginal sector of our community throught the cultural mapping process. This is a significant percentage of our population...this sector is growing no only in population, but also in business, service industry, education, arts and heritage etc."

We learned a lot from the experience too and are considering the feedback from attendees and organizers. Thank you to everyone who participated in planning and attending the workshops.

In a major announcement made in Chatham-Kent today by MPP Pat Hoy, the Municipality of Chatham-Kent has been awarded $7 million from the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Initiative, (MIII), to complete the Chatham Capitol Theatre.

“For the last decade a group of concerned citizens have held out the dream of completing the reconstruction and opening the Capitol”, said Capitol Theatre Association Board President Kevin McMillan. “Honestly, there were times when we wondered whether it would ever happen, but we continued to persevere in our dream knowing that it was the right thing for Chatham-Kent. This announcement today is the best possible news and we are deeply grateful to the Municipal Council for their courage in agreeing to make the Capitol their project of choice for this important funding programme and to the province for their foresight in funding it.”

“This magnificent grant now allows my team and me to focus our energies and resources where we’ve always wanted to focus them and that’s on operating a facility that we will make a source of pride for all residents of Chatham-Kent. We believe that this day will become a turning point in what Chatham-Kent can become and we are honoured to be at the vanguard of that change,”said General Manager Dan Donaldson.

It is expected that the tendering process and construction phases will be completed so as to provide for an opening night in late 2009.

It is an exciting time in Barrie! A year after Barrie City Council implemented a component of the City's cultural plan by creating a Cultural Development Office, the city's first culture director has been appointed. Quammie Williams was appointed on March 10th. In his first address to the arts council he said, “One of the first things I have to do is foster some sort of cohesion, to assist the community in forming that cohesion with the city playing some central role.” The Cultural Development Office exists to provide advice, counsel and planning on cultural development to all City Departments, to City Council and to the cultural sector of Barrie.

The City's cultural plan, Building A Creative Future includes a 300-seat performing arts centre as well as a larger 1,200- to 1,500-seat facility, at a total cost of $15 to $20 million. The Barrie Examiner reports that this has merchants in Barrie's downtown core buzzing. There is currently a proposal for a performaing arts centre to be built downtown and plans for a hotel and convention centre. "As the city grows, we are going to see things you would normally see in a larger centre. A performing arts centre would be an injection into the downtown, which we need to keep it vibrant," said Maj. Roy Randell of the Salvation Army.  read more »