[Bcma-l] CMA Clip Serv: Arts groups funding whacked by funding reversals
bcma-l@museumsassn.bc.ca
bcma-l@museumsassn.bc.ca
Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:59:20 -0700
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<b>Arts groups whacked by funding reversals</b></span></font>
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Jennifer Smith, Kelowna Capital News, Tuesday, September 1, 2009</span></f=
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Emergency meetings are underway all over Kelowna’s arts
community today as various boards of directors try to figure out how
to cope with overnight cuts to their budgets.</span></font>
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Late Friday afternoon, the provincial government dealt a shocking
blow to non-profit arts organizations with emailed memos stating
money expected to arrive on Sept. 1 under signed commitments
would not be in the bank Tuesday morning.</span></font>
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“It means $25,000 from a three-year funding agreement…so, of
course, it’s budgeted for,” said Wayne Wilson, Kelowna Museum
executive director.</span></font>
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>From federal, provincial and even municipal funding grant
applications, Wilson explained that non-profit organizations are now
increasingly told they must provide multi-year budgets as part of the
grant applications.</span></font>
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When the provincial government provides two days notice the money
already budgeted and spent will never arrive, it presents a major crisis
for non-profits depending on that money to meet their operating
budgets, he said.</span></font>
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In the museum’s case, the shortfall is likely to mean immediate cuts=
to their public speakers series and temporary exhibits, although
Wilson had not had a chance to sit down and crunch the numbers to
be sure what he would cut.</span></font>
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At the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, director Jennifer
Pickering says she has no idea how her board of directors is going to
cope with the $34,000 loss.</span></font>
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The money is from lottery earnings and those gaming fund grants are
considered to be completely stable, she said.</span></font>
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Pickering said while her gallery has a year-long grace period to figure
out how to cope, this loss comes on top of another 40 per cent loss in
their B.C. Arts Council funding as well.</span></font>
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Today, the board of directors at the small gallery will be meeting to
ascertain how some $12,000 can be trimmed between now and the
end of December from the money they planned to pay their rent and
utilities, along with the salaries of Pickering and her assistant.</span><=
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“It’s opened the floodgates,” she said. “We go int=
o competitions
every year and we compete for federal funding.</span></font>
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“This is going to mean that centres across B.C. are just not going t=
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have money to compete with much better funded centres across
Canada.”</span></font>
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Pickering cannot believe the government could not even provide the
gallery with some notice, and she’s stunned a government which won
its Olympic bid on a pitch to promote a “Cultural Olympiad” co=
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this to cultural organizations.</span></font>
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“They pledged to support the arts for three years. They had this thi=
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called the Cultural Olympiad where they were putting money into the
arts community to create a legacy and support some of the top artists
in B.C. so we could, in turn, support them at the Olympic Games. To
make this kind of a cut is such a slap in the face,” she said.</span=
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VANOC’s website says this is the first Olympic Winter Games to
host a Cultural Olympiad for the two years before the games,
promoting the arts community across Canada.</span></font>
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“Host cities are required, as part of the Olympic Charter, to produc=
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cultural program that showcases the culture of the host nation in an
international context,” VANOC’s website states.</span></font>
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Support for the arts was an integral part of the pitch.</span></font>
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But on the ground in Kelowna this week, Olympic legacies are the
last thing on Caroline Miller’s mind—she is just trying to sal=
vage the
legacy her symphony’s 50th anniversary was to leave.</span></font>
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Monday morning she discovered the Okanagan Symphony Society is
losing $76,000 in funding as a result of the gaming cuts—virtually t=
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same cost as one weekend concert cycle, five rehearsals and three
shows in Penticton, Vernon and Kelowna.</span></font>
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“We do have concert contracts with musicians, theatres, guest artist=
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and subscribers, so should we have to cut a concert, we have to re-
open all of those contracts and make adjustments,” she said.</span><=
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That means losing more money to refunds, so at the symphony’s
emergency board of directors meeting, also today, she will be trying
to figure out if somehow, somewhere another pot of money can be
found.</span></font>
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“I don’t want to sound cavalier. In this economy businesses ar=
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quite stretched, people are stretched, so I think we have to be
realistic,” she said.</span></font>
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While she doesn’t want to cannibalize the current sponsors she has,
finding this amount of funding on a time frame that ultimately means
they need the money now, is going to take more than creative
thinking, she figured.</span></font>
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Thankfully, Sunshine Theatre and the Rotary Centre for the Arts
managed to escape the cuts this time, as they are on a different
funding schedule, according to RCA director Tracy Ward.</span></font>
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Ballet Kelowna was not so lucky. The organization lost $20,000 even
though it is the B.C. Touring Artist of the Year, said Alison Moore,
Ballet Kelowna’s development manager.</span></font>
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It would have been Ballet Kelowna’s fifth year of receiving the dire=
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access gaming grant and the money is budgeted to pay dancers’
salaries.</span></font>
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“The money goes directly to the professional dancers, six of whom
have moved to Kelowna, made it their home and work here every
day,” said Moore.</span></font>
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Moore said they were thrilled to be receiving their B.C. Arts Council
funding, but that the gaming grant loss represents an 18 per cent cut
to their grant funding.</span></font>
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