TONAC meeting today

Once a year, representatives from the Arts Councils in the Thompson Okanagan region get together for a networking meeting. That is a fancy way of saying "full day of visiting, bragging, whining and laughing." We spent three hours on item 2 of the agenda, which was "highlights," interrupted by a dreadful lunch at the bistro at Rotary Centre for the Arts. At the end of the day, we skipped items 3, 4, 5 and 6, and moved on to item 7 which was determine the date and place of the 2011 meeting. Does anyone else operate like this?

The Paper Newsletter

Now is the time to let me know if you actually read this blog. The Arts Council is considering the elimination of the hard copy Umbrella newsletter and going to an online newsletter only. Currently, the monthly one-page newsletter is distributed free of charge throughout the downtown, malls, schools, hospital, etc - a run of about 600 copies. About a dozen volunteers pick up their "route" and deliver within the first few days of the month. The cost per year - about $1500 in printing, and maybe $4000 in wages for the crazy person who puts it together. The big question is "Do we need it?"

The Umbrella newsletter began 20 years ago in response to a lack of effort by local newspapers to cover/publicize arts and cultural events. Now we have four community newspapers, most of which do a reasonable job of such. SDAC stopped mailing out the newsletter to members when it became a monthly, and at the request of a few members who simply didn't want more mail. Now some are asking for just the simplified online version, "Artscape."

What to do? Please, give me your thoughts about this dilemma. The Umbrella has gone through several evolutionary changes over the years, but this is a biggie. We should know what the community wants and needs before making this decision.