Mac announced the current leader in Vacation Lottery Sales, which is Everton Wilmot.  He encourages everyone to keep selling as our goal is 100,000 in sales and we are just over 11,000 in week one.

 

Graham Gardiner reminded us of the upcoming green shirt day in memory of the Humbolt Bronco’s hockey team accident, and as critically important, making sure we talk to our families and donate our organs.  A selfless act, our organs can help others and you are reminded to visit www.beadonor.ca 

 

50/50 – Three marbles were removed, no winners, the pot grows from its $288.00

 

 

Alten presented on his vision for Unwrap Theater.  Unwrap Theatre supports the arts sector by investing in artists careers’, building their capacity towards lifelong employment in the arts and facilitating audience connections through increasing the entire public’s access to their work. 

 

Recently enjoying their fifth birthday, Alten provided some background to arts funding, which comes 62% from fundraising, of which 48% is from federal government backing.  This comes with its own challenges, but among the largest of barriers to entry to get art to be enjoyed is many small artists do not have the capacity or capabilities of chartering the fundraising part of their ambition.  Unwrap helps artists with this challenging need.

 

Focusing on smaller groups and independent artists, whose median income in Canada is $24,000 a year,  and a lot of that comes from work outside their craft, Unwrap works to create opportunities for independent artists. This is especially necessary as communities change, and planning moves to smaller 15-minute neighbourhoods.  Unwrap is focussing on bringing arts to these smaller segments of the population and shedding light on the arts communities for this niche.

 

Alten eloquently answered questions on the impact of covid being a general positive to Unwrap Theater as there was a lot of support available for digital efforts and to help smaller artists survive the pandemic.  Since then it is really been trying to help bridge the gap between resources and the arts, as business and funding play a huge role in the capacity to support art and artists and further permit it to be enjoyed not only in major ways like Centre in the Square, but also in small bites at the neighbourhood level, such as buskers on the stree, the singer/musician at the pub, or the local sculptures on you walks in public areas.  Members praised Alten for enhancing the enjoyment of the population during this “darker” time coming out of Covid.