Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe it’s the middle of the calendar year and the beginning of my third year with The Arts Partnership. We have such big plans for this year, and they all include you, our existing Primary Partners and those of you who are interested in joining us to learn more!
This year we will:
- Offer the CSA program again. This will include at least 9 Primary Partner artists and arts organizations, three Partner organizations who want to host a party in their space and up to 3 Partner chefs/restaurants who want to cater the events. The current CSA program has already proven very lucrative for the first round of artists, and we expect that kind of ripple effect to continue to grow as the program does.
- Host a series of lunch&learn events. The dates are July 10, August 13 (note the changed date), September 10 (note the changed date), October 9, November 13, January 8, February 12, March 12, April 9, May 14 and June 11 from 11:30-1. These will be informative, topic-driven and fun events where you will learn new information that will be useful for expanding your reach and impact as well as make new or renewed connections with other Partner artists and arts organizations. The Arts Partnership will purchase lunch for every Partner who comes to the first event, so RSVP today. The first topic will be: Engaging and Expanding our Community. We will talk about how you can get involved with an arts enrichment program we are developing in Davenport (22 miles from Fargo). Location TBA.
- Grow our Individual Artist Arts Partnership Grant program. in 2011-12, we awarded 5 grants to artists; we hope to do even more this year!
- Offer a series of Business of Art courses for individual artists. More on that as we develop the program.
- Have new hire Kris Kerzman, our Digital Media Producer, out and about, covering and amplifying your work, your events and your programming to a larger, socially-driven community.
This is going to be an exciting and expanding year for the arts in our communities, and I invite you to join us for as much as you can. The overall success of all the arts will only come, I believe, through our collective work as a whole. I’m looking forward to spending time with you!
Please let me know if you have topics for the lunch&learns or other ideas for how we might continue to engage, educate and cultivate the arts in our community. It’s going to be a great year!
P.S. If you are not currently a Primary Partner but are interested in joining, your dues will be half price since we are half-way through the billing year. Join us for the last 6 months of the calendar year and see what value we provide! The application is on our website.