The Arts & Culture Planning Project comes to Groundwork!
Some readers may already be aware that the City of New Bedford is in the process of creating what it hopes will be a comprehensive arts plan. In my other life as a Standard-Times columnist, I wrote about it recently for State of the Arts, and you can find those words here.
For those of you who aren’t aware, here’s the 411…
To come up with a plan, the city has designated the New Bedford Economic Development Council – located right upstairs from Groundwork! In the Quest Center at 1213 Purchase Street – to coordinate the effort. They’ve contracted a cultural strategist, Margo Saulnier, to help facilitate meetings between city artists, arts patrons, arts administrators and interested citizens with a planning firm, Webb Associates, which will draft the actual plan after collecting input.
In all, it will be a six month process that will end in June of this year. So, month two is just about to wrap up – with another series of outreach meetings, one of which will take place right here at Groundwork!, this Thursday, March 1 at 4:00 p.m.
An initial series of meetings has already taken place, and a bunch of one-on-one interviews. So, Webb will be sharing some preliminary results at all four meetings, and here’s the complete schedule in case you can’t make the one this coworking facility is hosting.
Meeting 1: WEDNESDAY, FEB. 28 at 3:30 p.m. at the NEW BEDFORD WHALING MUSEUM, 1 Johnny Cake Hill, NB.
Meeting 2: WEDNESDAY, FEB. 28 at 6:00 p.m at HATCH STREET STUDIOS, 88 Hatch Street, NB.
Meeting 3: THURSDAY, MARCH 1 at 4:00 p.m. at GROUNDWORK!, 1213 Purchase Street, NB.
Meeting 4: THURSDAY, MARCH 1 at 5:00 p.m. at GLOBAL LEARNING PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL, 190 Ashley Boulevard, NB.
At each of these meetings, you can offer your opinions as to what you think an arts plan should look like, what its goals should be and what its purpose for the city should be. Just to clarify, the different meetings are categorized by the strategist into separate artistic disciplines – but that’s just a guideline. All artists – visual, musical, literary, what-have-you – are welcome at all of them.
I’ll be attending at least two of the meetings – and will no doubt be reporting on what transpires both here and in The Standard-Times.
But that’s for another day – today, just know that you’re invited to all the meetings, and as always, particularly welcome to Groundwork!
See you at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 1!
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