Rewarding Partnerships

for Guelph Arts Council

 

During 1999, Guelph Arts Council entered into many interesting and rewarding partnerships to help promote and stimulate arts, culture and heritage in Guelph. To name a few: Discover Guelph: Be a Tourist in Your Own Town; the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival; Art Jam for the Schools; the Art-in-Guelph website; A Visionary Tradition Conference; the City of Guelph Millennium Time Sculpture; and the promotion of Guelph as “The City of Music.” Guelph Arts Council has also been pleased to play a role in City undertakings such as the Communities in Bloom competition which produced a national championship for Guelph this year; the Festivals and Events Network; and the Guelph Millennium Committee. Most recently, there has been the partnership with the Downtown Board of Management whereby Guelph Arts Council provided the historical descriptions, packaged and sold the 1999 Pewter Ornaments depicting four Guelph heritage buildings.

 

Throughout the year, Guelph Arts Council has been fortunate to have had the support of several levels of government as well as more than two dozen corporate partners who have sponsored various Council services and programs. We will have an opportunity to recognize all of these next spring, both in our Annual Report and at our 25th Annual General Meeting.

 

At this time, however, there is one partnership we would like to single out for special mention. We refer here to the relationship with Royal City School of Ballet. Every three or four years, this school offers a performance that showcases the accomplishments of its students in a high-quality, exquisitely produced production. Since 1985, Guelph Arts Council has been associated with these performances, and has also been the fortunate beneficiary of performance proceeds.

 

The school’s Performance ’99 was no exception! Presented for the first time ever at River Run Centre, this year’s production on June 21 and 22 generated a great deal of excitement as dancers had the opportunity to shine on the River Run’s spacious, sprung-floor stage. Both performances were sold out, resulting, once again, in a significant donation to Guelph Arts Council. In these times of shrinking government dollars, these funds will go a long way towards ensuring that Guelph Arts Council will be able to continue providing services and programs in the Guelph community. Whether we refer to youth awards, historical walking tours, newsletter, master events calendar or other services for artists, arts groups, and the community at large, all these Guelph Arts Council offerings benefit from this partnership with Royal City School of Ballet.

 

So, as we end one year and make plans for the next, Guelph Arts Council would like to offer a very special thank you to Royal City School of Ballet Director Linda Godwin who has carried on a wonderful tradition initiated fifteen years ago by the school’s founder Pat McLeod. Thanks, too, to Pat who was responsible for the choreography for Performance ’99, and whose enthusiastic, continuing support we greatly appreciate. Also, we commend her generous efforts to assist the Gramma School of the Arts in Bayamo, Cuba, and urge anyone who could donate items of dance clothing (all ages), costumes, stereos or sheet music – all desperately needed by students at the Gramma School – to contact her (before the end of January) through Guelph Arts Council.

 

To all Guelph Arts Council members and supporters, we thank you and hope that Year 2000 is good for everyone.