CANMORE – Work is underway to develop a 10-year cultural master plan that will become the guiding policy and long-term vision for Canmore’s cultural policies.
A. Adair & Associates Consulting was awarded the contract late last year and will now spend the next 10 months gathering information about the community’s cultural assets and priorities to help it develop the plan.
Annalee Adair, one of four members on the consultant team, was in town last week to kick off the process, which included meeting council, stakeholders and touring the community.
“While the views of artists and culture practitioners are key, we hope that it will be driven by the people and the place,” said Adair.
To help develop the plan, she said her team will use a second-generation cultural planning framework.
This framework will take into account the factors and forces that are generating challenges in the community to transition the town from advocating for the value of arts and culture to positioning arts and culture as a community asset that is key to community building.
To develop the plan, she said her team will hire a community research and engagement team consisting of local artists and community researchers to lay the groundwork for community consultations. A project advisory group will also be established to help guide the consultants’ work and provide a diverse range of community perspectives.
“The advisory group and local engagement and research team are key to our process because there is no way outside consultants can come into a community and expect to have the time or the knowledge to be able to get the full picture that you will need in order to have an impactful plan,” said Adair.
“They’re the community voice and they’re the check in for us.”
To connect with the community, the local engagement team will hold a number of pop-up sessions over the next six months to ask specific questions about how residents see culture in their community, what types of activities or cultural assets are important to them and where they are located in the community. She said it will also be an opportunity to better understand the “invisible” activities that are part of Canmore’s cultural landscape.
The pop-up sessions will be held at events such as Canmore’s Winter Carnival, Food and Friends and artsPlace among other locations.
As part of the plan, she said her team will also look at the origins of Canmore’s culture to get a better understanding about the past.
“Only when we look to the past and what the current situation is, only then will we be able to actually look at where we want to go in next 10 years,” said Adair.
Part of the planning process will also incorporate Indigenous views and perspectives as well the town’s strategic priorities and plans.
Community engagement is expected to run from February to May with a draft plan completed by the summer. The final plan is expected to be presented to senior management and council at the end of September or early October.
