This Cultural Plan for Emmet and Charlevoix Counties is the result of input received from more than 200 individuals and organizations who participated in interviews, completed surverys, and attended public meetings during the summer of 1999. The Plan's goals, objectives, and strageties reflect the collective direction received from citizens, community leadership, artists, arts and cultural organizations. The Emmet and Charlevoix Counties Community Cultural Plan is to be considered a living document in the sense that it is expected to be amended and modified as new opportunities arise and as the region continues to grow in the coming years. The Plan sets forth a blueprint for the continued cultural development of the bi-county region's cultural resources and assets.
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Funding for the Emmet and Charlevoix Counties Community Cultural Plan was provided by:
A CASE STATEMENT FOR ARTS & CULTURE
This Cultural Plan Steering Committee believes that arts and culture are essential to a complete education and to a community's overall quality of life. The arts are the final product of a process that encourages independent thought as well as teamwork, imagination as well as logical problem solving, spontaneous expression as well as long years of study and discipline. The artistic process demands integrity and an internal, personal sensibility. The work itself then has the ability to reach out and touch another human being with that truth and benevolence as nothing else can. It is often said that to sing is to pray twice, and there is that element of spirituality in the arts that cannot be denied. The arts counterbalance much that is callous, rude and brutal in modern society. The arts make us sensitive and humane and civilized, and for these reasons, this Plan has been created to stimulate and nurture regional efforts for cultural development.
THEMES
The integration of arts and cultural facilities, programs, and services into major private and public initiatives...represents an important implementation approach. The Emmet and Charlevoix Counties Community Cultural Plan has, at its foundation, the following broad themes which lay a groundwork for the specific goals and objectives which follow (abridged): At the forefront of this Plan is an overall philosophy of access and inclusively. It is the intention of the Steering Committee that expanded efforts be made to expand access to the region's arts and cultural resources to a broad cross-section of the population. The Cultural Plan is intended to serve as a map or blueprint for arts and cultural development strategies. The Steering Committee believes that a series of public-private partnerships should be brought to bear in order to implement the Plan's goals and objectives. The plan has been crafted to make use of existing resources rather than create new entities or overhead. The plan aims to facilitate greater coordination and bi-county-wide service provision by cultural organizations such as arts councils, libraries, nature conservancies, schools and colleges. Celebration of, and establishing stronger linkages between arts and culture and the bi-county region's natural resources are underlying themes of the Plan's goals and objectives. Similarly, the region's rich heritage, and particularly, its Native American history, should be incorporated into programming and promotional strategies related to lifelong learning (education), tourism development, and other areas of this Plan. This Community Cultural Plan seeks to be, at once, visionary and pragmatic. Above all, the Plan's goals and objectives are intended to take advantage of opportunities within the community and to help foster an overall approach to further development and promotion of the region's arts and cultural resources. While the Plan establishes a series of strategies for arts and culture in the region it seeks to marry these visions with existing and future developments in the two counties. The integration of arts and cultural facilities, programs, and services into major private and public initiatives...represents an important implementation approach.
SUMMARY OF GOALS:
1. FACILITIES To meet the cultural facilities needs of the Bi-County Region 2. EDUCATION To provide lifelong learning opportunities in the arts and culture 3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION To increase participation in arts and cultural activities 4. RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT To enhance the capacities of arts and cultural organizations 5. ADVOCACY To increase advocacy efforts on behalf of arts and culture 6. ART IN PUBLIC PLACES To place and integrate works of art into public spaces 7. CULTURAL TOURISM To position the 2-county region as a cultural destination
Filename: Chx_EmCoCommunityCultural_Plan_.doc