Medford Arts and Culture Summit Nov. 14th

What does the future of our arts and culture landscape look like to you? What is changing in Medford’s creative community? Do you have great ideas to share, or want to connect with new collaborators?

To engage the public in these questions and others, the Medford Arts Council will convene a citywide Arts and Culture Summit on Saturday, November 14, 2015. This special forum will bring together interested individuals, community stakeholders, and representatives from Medford’s many cultural organizations for a collaborative visioning process focused on the arts, humanities, and creative economy. This event has a formal program agenda for all participants. Those wishing to attend should rsvp to summit2015@medfordartscouncil.org.

The Arts and Culture Summit will take place from 1:00 to 4:00pm at the

Howard Alden Memorial Chambers
2nd Floor, Medford City Hall
85 George P. Hassett Drive.

Registration begins at 12:30 p.m. with light refreshments and a chance to mingle before the program.

The event seeks to create new knowledge and new relationships that will be useful to participants and those served by their programs and projects. The afternoon’s agenda will include small group discussions and open exchange seeking to identify common needs, overlapping goals, and shared aspirations for enhancing a wide array of cultural activities throughout the community. The Medford Arts Council will facilitate conversations among summit participants in order to generate and collect information that can be shared afterwards with the entire community as part of a grassroots cultural planning process.

Input derived from recent community outreach suggests that many residents believe Medford is poised to take a significant step forward in realizing the great potential here to create an even more vibrant and diverse cultural scene. The City’s recent decision to double funding for the Medford Arts Council and the voter adoption of the Community Preservation Act are just two indicators of a new level of commitment to a shared future. Public participation is critical to the success of the summit and the Medford Arts Council is hoping interested residents will come to contribute ideas and inspiration to this important effort.

– Submitted by Gary Roberts