Viewing culture as cash.
Director of culture for the city of Barrie, Rudi Quammie Williams, gave a speech on how the city of Barrie developed its culture.
Cody Storm Cooper photo
Culture can be viewed as a product for business and bring quality to a tourism destination.
Just ask former Parry Sounder, Ron Shaw, now the chief administrative officer for Stratford, Ontario, where the Stratford Shakespeare Festival theatre was the community’s initial tourism driver.
“But we have to say: “Where do we go from here?” he stressed during Culture as Cash: Skin in the Game, a presentation by the Regional Economic Development Advisory Committee (REDAC) and Georgian Bay Country. Close to 90 participants gathered at the Stockey Centre, January 20, listened as Shawn and four other speakers explained how other communities have developed their cultural strengths.
“We’re going through challenging times with the theatre and very hard times with industry in southwestern Ontario,” Shaw said. “We’re taking a big hit on employment in our area. We really need to think about where we’re going to go from here.”
The answer, he explained, was the creation of the Stratford Tourism Alliance. The plan for 2010 is to continue to market developed assets and begin marketing undeveloped assets.
“Everything rests on what’s there and making use of what is unique to our community,” he explained.
Like Stratford, Niagara-on-the-Lake has a large repertory theatre, he explained, but it also has a wine industry. Now, Savour Stratford, in its third year, promotes locally grown cuisine at dining establishments as a part of sampling Stratford culture.
“You can’t market what you don’t have, in other words, you’re going to market what you have and develop it,” Shaw stressed. Some assets being developed in Stratford include heritage buildings, antique and artist studio tours, a chef school, and agriculture.
The Stratford Shakespeare Festival didn’t just happened, Shaw told the group.
“There was vision, and people who championed it through to fruition, and dedicated resources,” he explained. “It rests on the assets of the community, I don’t think the Stratford Festival would have been as successful without the parts being in place in the first place and of course, the people came. There was a need. Our industries were closing down, they desperately needed something to take its place and this was seen as an opportunity, and the planets all lined up.”
Speaker, Anita Brunet-Lamarche, regional advisor with the Ontario Ministry of Culture, also emphasized the importance of the community.
“Your municipal culture plan is going to be what you want it to be,” she said. “People will come in and talk to you about their experiences, or maybe someone you hire, a consultant, can help you with the plan, but ultimately it’s got to be your plan. It has to look the way it makes sense for the people of your area. You can’t bring in something from the outside. It won’t work.”
She explained the benefits of “mapping” the cultural resources in our area – looking at what we have, what we don’t have, and seeing how we can support those sectors that need to be developed.
Brunet-Lamarche talked about the tools and funding available and urged the group to find new ways of working together and making sure their solutions are local.
She urged the group to consider both tangible and intangible assets.
“Who we are, what our traditions are, what our folklore is and look at tangible assets, what identifies our community,” she prompted. “What do we have that no one else has?”
Façade development programs were described as being significant not only in providing incentives for businesses to develop the downtown, but for anyone, including homeowners, interested in preserving the cultural heritage and integrity of the area.
Brunet-Lamarche emphasized the important role of culture in establishing a “quality of place”.
“We travel because we’re looking for something we can’t find any place else,” she told the gathering. “That quality of place is what makes our community competitive with other communities that have similar attractions. It also allows us to focus on what we have in our community, and what makes us unique.”
The municipality of Bracebridge, in partnership with the BIA and the local Chamber of Commerce began seriously developing “a sense of place” with its Heart of Muskoka branding and web site. Its slogan is “Live, Learn, Work and Play”.
In 2008, while trying to overcome job losses, the community entered a community planning process called convergence, which involved 726 stakeholders in online and hard copy surveys, a public open house, and focus groups.
“I truly believe we got what the community wanted,” said Cheryl Kelley, director of Economic Development for Bracebridge. “We heard that they wanted to ensure we have a vibrant downtown, they wanted to see our natural being the centre of our community, they want become a centre for higher learning, they want to focus on the arts, they want to maintain tourism, they want us to have jobs. They do want us to develop this, but not so that when you drive down the road here, you don’t know if you’re in Newmarket or Mississauga. They want that sense of place, that identity.”
The municipality is now working on a 10-year planning horizon.
“Every one of the municipal staff reports now refers to our strategic plan, and our strategic goals,” she explained. “Decisions that council is making are based on how they relate back to the planning goals.”
From 2007 to the present, Barrie city council had a mission to make culture one of its strategic planning priorities, explained Rudi Quammie Williams, director of culture for the City of Barrie.
“With the final result being, not only an enhancement in the lives of the people, but culture as an economic driver for the community,” he said.
One objective was to revitalize the city centre.Annual workshops on the grant writing process held in Barrie, help partners gain funding.
A mentoring, marketing and retention program was developed to encourage and enable emerging artists in Barrie to stay in the community and develop careers there. Hosting multi-day festivals, making Barrie a destination for culture, not only offered local artists opportunities for employment, but attracted tourists who require overnight accommodation and other amenities.
”What I have observed is that the decision to participate in this type of activity – certainly when you’re in a municipality – everyone has to buy in,” he said.
“Nothing that we do, or were able to do in the last two years, or will do in the future, is possible without the support and participation of the entire community.
And I don’t just mean those who are arts-friendly or artistic. I mean all of the stakeholders in the private sector.
“It really takes the whole community and a wide range of partners to achieve some of these tasks,” Williams said, noting that the department built a community consultation process into everything they did. “So the residents are able to input in such a way that we always end up with solutions that are for Barrie, by Barrie, rather than the guy from Toronto coming with a vision of how it should be done and sort of imposing it.”
Culinary identity
Savour Muskoka has been developing culture as a product for business by providing consumers with a wide selection of regional culinary products, services and packages that are unique to Muskoka and Parry Sound, and bear the Savour Muskoka brand. By promoting culinary identity, associating food with locales across Muskoka and Parry Sound, Savour Muskoka adds to the creation of a “sense of place”.
General manager, James Murphy, described Savour Muskoka “as a community catalyst for culinary tourism and the development of agriculture.”
Through increased presence in the area – at local farmers’ markets and showcasing events such as food tasting festivals, Savour Muskoka encourages business interaction and networking between chefs and farmers.
Savour Muskoka is now engaging in an ambitious two-year plan to execute workshops throughout the area.
Not only are Savour Muskoka participants considering what can be grown here – everything from honey, garlic, root vegetables, and mushrooms to maple syrup – but some have been introducing others to farming and new agriculture-based businesses have opened.
“Over the years, we’ve raised the demand for local product and we now see the demand exceeding the supply,” Murphy told the group.
The Culture as Cash presentation concluded with an invitation from REDAC’s area economic development co-ordinator Kirsten Ledrew, to those in attendance to participate on an ad hoc committee.
“One of the main messages we’re hearing here today is that we have to do this together,” she noted.
Ledrew also welcomes forming other partnerships in the community, beyond those attending the presentation.
Building on cultural strengths in the community was described as one of REDAC’s big initiatives this year.