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Visioning session builds on Arts Council success

A day-long visioning session for the Flin Flon Arts Council left members feeling energized and focused. The council holds a visioning session each summer. This year’s session, held on Aug. 6, marked the event’s five-year anniversary.
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A day-long visioning session for the Flin Flon Arts Council left members feeling energized and focused.

The council holds a visioning session each summer. This year’s session, held on Aug. 6, marked the event’s five-year anniversary.

Crystal Kolt, cultural coordinator for the Flin Flon Arts Council, said the yearly session is a valuable tool see how things are going and to keep on track with goals.

“Five years later we look at all the bullets we want to tackle, the tasks that we want to tackle and we’ve virtually tackled all of them,” said Kolt.

This year’s session was an opportunity to look at where they’ve come from, she said, and it was interesting to see the energy in the community since the beginnings of the arts council.

Arts council president Sheri Pearson said going over that timeline, back to the beginnings in the late ’70s, was enlightening. Although she’s only been in the community for four years, she said she can see how Flin Flon has embraced the arts in a way other communities its size seldom do.

“Because of our geographical distance, being so far from a major city, we pretty well have to be self-sustaining and self-creating,” said Pearson.

She noted that Flin Flon’s Culture Days activity rating was the highest among communities of less than 50,000 people in 2017, with 105 events over the course of the celebration.

Overall, only Winnipeg and Toronto beat the community of just 5,185.

She expects the next five years for the arts council and the community to be “super exciting.”

Pearson said, “We’re always looking for ways to build on what we have and engaging outlying communities.”

Kolt said at this year’s visioning session the council had the chance to fine tune things they want to address in the future, including the Youth Arts Council, which was started last year.

“It’s something we’re still really excited about doing – expanding on that to provide more of a support for youth in the community and enjoy the things that they find, the art and culture that they are so excited about.”

She added, “Susan Gunn offered theatre for young people last year. That is something we are definitely excited about and wanting to see encouraged and flourish.”

Continuing to add value to arts events is another goal. Visioning sessions are a chance to take stock of various events they host and how they host them.

“With touring productions, we’re looking at value added on every show,” said Kolt. “If you want to come to a theatre production, there might be cabaret or special prizes connected.”

Coming together as a council and examining their goals has become a broad-based examination.

“This is about the future, not only for the arts council, but a vision for the community at large and how we can support that,” said Kolt.

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