Success Stories

The concept of municipal cultural planning, the challenges it is poised to address and the potential outcomes of its implementation are so prevalent in current affairs that hardly a day goes by that I don’t read an article, hear a story or see a segment related to MCP. I recognize that I am hyper-aware of issues and topic relating to MCP, but I also think this observation reflects the energy, interest and currency of MCP.

Most recently, the Tuesday, February 26th edition of CBC Radio’s The Current was devoted to economies in transition—specifically the downturn in the manufacturing sector. The program focused on St. Catharines; the city once had a booming economy supported by factories and well-paying factory jobs. With cheaper labour elsewhere, many of these factories have moved, leaving people out-of-work or maintaining low-paying jobs.

The program then discusses how St.Catharines, is attempting to move from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. For example, Brock University offers North America’s only degree cool-climate grape growing and winemaking and entrepreneurial programs for students.  read more »

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.