Simcoe County reveals Cultural Study results at public session

April 16, 2014 · 0 Comments

After holding a series of stakeholder meetings and public forums last fall to determine how to facilitate the growth of arts and culture in the area, the County of Simcoe put on a presentation to show their study findings at the Cookstown Library last week.

Rachel Sullivan, the economic development manager for the County, said the group will now take their findings to figure out what comes next in terms of the County taking tangible actions to facilitate the growth of culture in the area.

“What we’ll be doing is reflecting back on all of the input we receive from these sessions…and try to zero in on specific actions, real tactical actions that we can take part in,” Sullivan explained. “Not just broad stroke objectives, we want to support the cultural sector, we want to get really specific.”

Sullivan said the culture study project goals are: to compile a cultural asset inventory; to foster linkages and networking opportunities within and beyond the tourism sector; and to recommend an appropriate role for the County in the culture sector and recommend framework to guide the long term actions of the County in supporting the culture sector.

The study said communities seem to want the County to take a role as a facilitator, give funding, help people network and with marketing and promotion of events, create educational opportunities and physical space, and to create the inventory database.

Sullivan said simply getting people in Simcoe County together talking has made a big difference.

“We also wanted to come back to these sessions because we were getting conflicting information,” she said. “We had lots of calls for new multipurpose facilities, but then the current space operators were saying they were underutilized, so we felt there was a bit of a disconnect and we needed to dig a little deeper on that to figure out what the opportunity is for us to address this.”

The County will go back to the drawing board once all the sessions are complete and hope to come up with actions to present to County Council before the summer.

By Jeff Doner