[Forum] Meeting Notes & List Discussions

[Joshua Field]

i have a topic that i would love to hear thoughts on. lately, it feels 
like pittsfield is kicking north county's (depending on where you draw 
that line) butt in the promotion of all things cultural. some think this 
to be largely attributable to the the great job that Megan Whilden is 
doing running the "cultural pittsfield" initiative and the buy-in of 
their city government (the cultural council grant of $65 two years ago, 
the $40k last year and $50k year toward that initiative can't hurt 
either!). my question/topics for the group:

1) is it okay that pittsfield take the lead in promoting the berkshires 
as a cultural destination? should there be a similar effort in north 
county? should the effort be berkshire-wide? whose job is it anyway??

2) north adams may be home to mass moca, the eclipse mill, gallery 51, a 
burgeoning arts community and soon an arts focused program at mcla - but 
how does this fit under a broader umbrella that is something people 
outside of this community will understand/appreciate/be drawn to?

my feeling is that ,while north county has the advantage of number of 
large arts organizations (moca, the clark, wcma/williams, mcla) who 
often cooperate, the arts community and smaller organizations seems to 
have a hard time breaking into that group (due to lack of coordination, 
funds, etc?) in order to take advantage of big summer marketing 
initiatives, group grants, etc. i personally feel that we would really 
benefit from someone in a role like megan's with buy-in from local gov't.

if you aren't comfortable sending responses to the group, feel free to 
send them directly to me and i'll try to synthesize.

thanks!!

-- 

// www.joshuafield.com
// joshua at joshuafield.com
// +1 [413] 329-4789
// 121 Union Street, Studio 1E
// North Adams, MA 01247 USA 


Kurt Kolok wrote:
> I think we could accomplish a great deal more if we have some of these 
> discussions online (on this list-serve). 
>
> I sent out a message a couple of weeks ago with a suggestion on how we 
> might actually begin to make some progress on achieving some of our 
> goals (first by identifying what they might be) and only noticed one 
> response.  It may be that many of you have never used something like 
> this for a discussion tool.  I think it's critical that we literally 
> record that type of information to begin putting words into action and 
> I think it's much easier to do that via email than in person.  It is 
> my opinion that if we're to accomplish any long term/community-wide 
> goals we need to be communicating between meetings and social 
> gatherings.  With this forum, we can do that whenever each of us has 
> the time.
>
> To take full advantage of this great opportunity driven by Joshua 
> Field's generosity...we should remind ourselves what the definition of 
> a forum is...
>
> --the center of judicial and business affairs and a place of assembly 
> for the people.
> --an assembly, meeting place, television program, etc., for the 
> discussion of questions of public interest.
>
> Food for thought,
>
> Kurt