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URGENT ARTS ADVOCACY APPEAL
Dear Friends & Colleagues
Alliance for Arts and Culture in Vancouver, BC is launching a Creativity Counts: Restore Arts Funding Now campaign as our contribution to the groundswell of arts community protest against the devastating cuts in provincial arts funding this past fall.
There are six simple requests:
1) Forward this message to everyone on all of your email lists—professional and personal. The government needs to hear from everyone who cares—working artists (professional and amateur), media people, audience members, arts board members, and their friends, colleagues and neighbours.
2) Go to www.creativitycounts.ca and send an email message to the Premier and your own MLA. We have created an auto-letter tool for your use.
3) Review our Advocacy Toolkit and use and adapt it in your personal advocacy efforts. It contains a wealth of information, accurate statistics, case studies in the damage these cuts are doing to our communities, and ideas for action.
4) If you are an arts or community event manager and have an event coming up, donate some advertising space in your program to this campaign. Contact me a communications@allianceforarts.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I can send you working files and other periodicals which can be adapted to any format.
5) Consider featuring the Creativity Counts logo (design courtesy of our friends at Hamazki Wong Marketing Group) as a hotlink button on your own website and social media pages. Email me at communications@allianceforarts.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I will provide you with the button’s html code and some accompanying text.
6) Volunteer to distribute buttons, postcards and bookmarks at local arts venues and collect donations for the Alliance Advocacy Fund. Email communications@allianceforarts.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to express your interest and I will get back to you.
7) Donate to the Alliance’s Advocacy Fund. Buttons and postcards and bookmarks and lobbying and organizing meetings all cost money. Your support will keep this campaign going. There is a PayPal link at www.creativitycounts.ca.
What do we hope to achieve with your help?
We have only a few more weeks in which to influence discussions and decisions around the budget that will be brought down in early March. A relentless drumbeat of protests, letters, emails and community-based activism will ensure that the decision makers in Victoria hear our message loud and clear right up to the last moment.
Creativity Counts. Restore Arts Funding Now.
Y’rs,
KDM
Kevin Dale McKeown
Director of Communications
Alliance for Arts and Culture
604.681.3535 (215)
communications@allianceforarts.com
To All Residents of British Columbia:
Petition to Reinstate All Charitable Gaming Grants in British Columbia.
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This is part of the preamble to an online petition that has been instituted on behalf of all Organizations affected by the budget cuts to the gaming grants of 2009 – 2010. It is our hope that when the budget is tabled in March after the Olympics we will not be targeted again.
Our hope is that each Association will forward the petition link to each of its members with a request that they forward the link to their members and supporters as well.
Please follow the link below to review the complete petition and to add your support.
http://www.petitiononline.com/VCBS2010/petition.html
Thank you,
Geraldine Foster, Secretary
Bingo Council of British Columbia
The BC Provincial government tabled its new budget at the beginning of the month. As we all know by now, the BC government has announced some brutal cuts - not only to our sector but to much of the social-rofit sector in the province. This is the only provincial government in Canada to be cutting funding to the arts at this time, as they recognize the economic stimulation the arts provide. Despite the Ministry's rerversal on the multi-year grants many organizations are now facing extremely difficult times (one-year and project grants were not restored), and some will be forced to close. The provincial government is planning to cut over 80% of a budget that represents only 1/20th of 1% of the provincial budget - the savings will be miniscule, the social cost huge. Gaming grants are just that - the funds come from the profits derived from provincial casino, lottary and bingo revenues and are mandated to be dispersed to social-profit organizations. No money comes from the tax base.
Beyond the economic spin-off, many studies have shown that participation in the arts benefits the community on various levels including improving social skills, critical thinking, health and well being; it provides the ability to express oneself in a non-physical manner and helps decrease violence and bullying, increases tolerance and social bonding, and induces civic pride. It can also help family cohesion, teamwork- building skills, enhance community engagement, political dialogue, the transfer of values and ideals, and help induce a sense of belonging. If you are concerned about the devastating effects this budget will have on vital social programs, please talk or write to your local MLA about your concerns.
If you haven't written to the Finance Minister and your MLA urging them to accept the Finance Committee's recommendation to restore arts funding, it takes only a minute:
http://greysquare.ca/send_letter_finance_minister.php
Advocacy Alert
Do the arts enrich your life? Do you and your family enjoy the gallery, theatre, museum, heritage sites in your community? Do you find meaning, stimulation, beauty, and intellectual challenge through your participation in arts and culture?
Do you realize the arts and culture are under serious threat in BC? The BC government is threatening to cut the Arts and Culture budget by 40 – 50%. This will have a devastating effect on organizations throughout the community and the province. Programs that you enjoy will be decimated, organizations will be forced to scale back their services and some will be forced to close.
The Provincial Government contributes $19.5 million to the BC Arts Council – less than .05% of the overall budget – money that has a 138% return for every dollar spent. According to the Alliance for Arts and Culture, the cultural sector in British Columbia is $5.2 billion industry that employs 80,000 people. That is bigger than the forestry and fishing industries combined. According to countless studies, the Arts and Cultural sector builds healthy communities, enhances education, and helps to shape our cultural identity.
The Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Kevin Krueger, believes that the community is not concerned about this issue. The government’s own studies have shown that investing in the arts and culture are “critical drivers of dynamic growth.”
Please take action – every letter sent to the government counts. Send your concerns to:
Hon. Kevin Krueger
Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts
124 - Parliament Bldg
Victoria, BC V8W 9E2
Kevin.Krueger@gov.bc.ca
and send a copy of your letter to your MLA (go to http://www.leg.bc.ca/Mla/3-1-1.htm for name and address).
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