News and Information

Applications Open for EC3’s Bierk Art Fund Bursary Program for Post-Secondary Studies in the Visual Arts

Hello Everyone,

The Electric City Culture Council (EC3) is pleased to once again be offering the Bierk Art Fund Bursary Program for Post-Secondary Studies in the Visual Arts.  This bursary is open to Peterborough high school students completing Grade 12 in 2021, who plan to undertake post-secondary studies in the visual arts during the 2021-2022 academic year. It is made possible with support from the Bierk Art Fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough.

The Bierk Art Fund Bursary Program will provide two bursaries of $1,000.00 each to graduating high school students in the City or County of Peterborough whose work demonstrates great promise (artistic merit) and who have a serious commitment to pursuing further studies at the post-secondary level in the visual arts. Students will have the opportunity to present their work (including but not limited to portfolios) to a virtual jury panel comprised of arts professionals. The two successful candidates will be announced virtually immediately and celebrated at this year’s Peterborough Arts Awards.

Eligible students are encouraged to fill out a Bierk Art Fund Bursary Application Form (PDF) and send it back to bierkartfundbursaries@gmail.com by Monday May 17, 2021 at 11:59pm.

Applicants will receive a confirmation email from EC3’s Assistant Program Coordinator Dorothea Hines with a designated appointment time and Zoom link to meet with the jury panel for a Portfolio Review during the last week of May. Appointments are 30 minutes in length. The jury will choose two winners after meeting with all of the applicants. All applicants will be assessed on the same criteria. Winners will be announced on Monday, May 31, 2021.

Find the full Program Guidelines HERE.

Portfolio Workshops

EC3 will also be running informal virtual portfolio workshops on Wednesday, May 5, 2021, and Tuesday, May 11, 2021 from 6:00 to 7:30pm on Zoom. We will talk about portfolio creation, portfolio review prep, and answer any of your questions about the application process. Additional portfolio workshops can be scheduled on demand.

• Register for the May 5 session
• Register for the May 11 session

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact

For Bierk Art Fund Bursary program information
Dorothea Hines
Assistant Program Coordinator
bierkartfundbursaries@gmail.com

For media inquiries
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

Peterborough, ON – The Electric City Culture Council (EC3) is proud to launch Artsweek SHIFT², a series of nine COVID-compliant arts projects and events taking place live, in-person throughout Peterborough and online, between May 1 and July 31, 2021. Watch for further announcements as details of specific events become available. All Artsweek SHIFT² events are FREE to the public!

Stay tuned and enjoy a panorama of the best in local arts events, from puppet shows and poetry, to circuses on Armour Hill, dance and music. Online events and action in the streets will make your spring and summer alive with great talent from the amazing minds and hands of local artists. Don’t miss your favourite dancers, poets, theatre performers, visual artists and storytellers at Artsweek SHIFT².

This Festival program was developed through an Open Call for Proposals. Nine successful applications by individual artists and/or arts organizations out of 19, were selected by a five-member Peer Assessment Committee and received an Artsweek SHIFT² Project Production and Presentation Grant of up to $3,000 to create, produce and present new works as part of the ‘pocket festival.’

A complete list of all Artsweek SHIFT² festival projects and details about the ‘pocket festival’ can be found on Artsweek SHIFT’s website, and regular updates will be provided on Artsweek’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Artsweek SHIFT is a new COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery project created by EC3 in response to the postponement, until September 2021, of Artsweek 2020, the city’s biennial, multi-disciplinary festival of the arts.

Artsweek SHIFT began with series of arts events that took place in-person and online from October to December 2020, including two curated projects: Downtown and Post-Code Tour. The second phase, Artsweek SHIFT², included an Open Call for Proposals for two grant programs: Project Production and Presentation Grants (announced above) and Mini Grants to Professional Artists (announcement coming soon).

EC3 extends our sincere thanks The City of Peterborough and the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA) for their generous support in making Artsweek SHIFT² possible.

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For Further Information Contact:
Su Ditta
Executive Director, EC3
705 749 9101
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org

Updates on Public Health, Federal Budget, and Grant Deadlines

Hello Everyone,

We hope everyone is still holding up and staying safe as we continue through this new stay-at-home order and the ”third wave.”

In today’s Bulletin, we provide some updates on a number of matters relevant to our sector. The 2021 Federal Budget for was recently announced, and it promises a significant amount of new funding coming to our sector in the next year (and beyond), as well as the extension of several key relief programs. We also have some important updates to pass on from Peterborough Public Health, and we have a list of some important grant deadlines coming up soon.

Federal Budget 2021

Earlier this week, the federal government unveiled their 2021 budget. The budget is heavily focused on pandemic recovery, and includes $1.9 billion in proposed funding for the tourism, arts, culture, and sport sector over the next five years. This includes new funding for festivals, music, heritage, cultural spaces, performing arts organizations, and more, and includes both expansions of current funding programs as well as new initiatives.

There are still many details yet to be revealed, and we will certainly be providing more updates in the coming weeks and months, but the Canadian Association for the Performing Arts (CAPACOA) has done an excellent job breaking down where the money is proposed to go. And for more details, see this media release from the federal government.

Note that all these announcements are in addition to the $181.5 million announced for the sector earlier this year.

Relief Program Extensions

The 2021 federal budget also includes extensions to several key programs that are helping many local organizations stay afloat: the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) are both being extended until September 25, and the deadline for the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) is being extended until June 30.

Updates from Peterborough Public Health

As we continue under a stay-at-home order, Peterborough Public Health (PPH) has some important updates to share:

• If you are an employer, you are reminded to please let your staff work from home if possible. The order states: “2.1 (1) Each person responsible for a business or organization that is open shall ensure that any person who performs work for the business or organization conducts their work remotely, unless the nature of their work requires them to be on-site at the workplace.”
• PPH has had an increase in calls from workplaces with questions about PPE and eye protection, and so has added more info to their Owner/Operator/Businesses Mandatory Masking webpage.
• Vaccine eligibility is expanding. Check if you’re eligible for a shot with this handy table, and head to PPH’s Vaccine Info page for more.
• PPH offers a page of safe activities you can do during COVID-19. Mental health and physical health are both important!

Upcoming Grant Deadlines

Here are some of the grant deadlines coming up soon:

• April 28: Digital Now (Canada Council)
• April 28: Media Arts Projects (OAC)
• April 28: Community Building Fund (Ontario Trillium Foundation)
• April 30: Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage (Canada Council)
• May 1: Peterborough Foundation grants (Peterborough Foundation)
• May 4: Visual Arts Creation Projects (OAC)
• May 5: Skills and Career Development: Indigenous Arts Professionals and Arts Professionals of Colour (OAC)
• May 13: Music Recording Projects (OAC)

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

Fill out the City of Peterborough’s 2022 Budget Consultation Survey

Hello Everyone,

We hope that everyone is still well and staying strong, even as the pandemic continues to stretch on and lockdowns get extended. Please feel free to reach out to EC3 if you need to talk or want advice on specific projects or initiatives.

THIS IS A SHORT BULLETIN WITH A SIMPLE, BUT URGENT REQUEST.

The public consultation process for the City of Peterborough’s 2022 budget is in full swing and there is an important survey, the 2022 Community Priorities Survey, that citizens can fill out to indicate what spending priorities matter to them. This survey has a deadline of this Thursday, April 22. It does not seem to circulating well through Facebook pages in the arts sector, so we are reaching out to you directly to fill out the survey yourself, and get it out to your board members, memberships and audiences too if you can, with a request for them to fill it out.

Last year, spending money on arts, culture and heritage was pretty much at the bottom of the budget priority list in this important survey and the results were published widely in the media. As a community, we need City staff and Councillors to hear loud and clear that municipal funding for our organizations matters and that the arts are essential to our communities’ health and wellbeing. Completing this survey is a crucial step.

If they don’t hear from us, we cannot assume that arts funding will be secure in the 2022 budget, or that Community Investments and Project Grants budgets, Service Grants budgets or Public Art budgets will be secure in 2022.

Take part in this democratic process. It matters and so do the arts. Please fill out the City of Peterborough’s 2022 Community Priorities Survey.

This survey is the first step along the City’s 2022 Budget process, as City Councillors and staff gather community feedback that will guide funding decisions next year.

The city budget is always important, but 2022 will be especially crucial for our sector, as the pandemic enters a new phase: recovery and rebuilding. There will be essential decisions to be made in the coming year about how we use our money, who and what receives support and, ultimately, what we want our city to look like when all this is over. We encourage everyone to participate and make your voice heard.

You can find the survey HERE. Please fill it out by Thursday, April 22.

Budget Roadshow

If you are interested in participating further, the City is hosting a virtual Budget Roadshow consultation session this Wednesday, April 21 at 7pm. This is an opportunity to speak directly with City Councillors and staff about what’s important to you in the city and in the budget process. Details HERE.

A Roundup of Recent News from the Sector

Hello Everyone,

As we mark the one-year anniversary of this pandemic, and we do so with Peterborough back into the ‘Red-CONTROL’ zone, we want to say congratulations on everything you have done to keep going, making work when you can and getting it to your audiences. The creativity, innovation and collaboration of the arts sector has been extraordinary throughout throughout COVID-19. Take care, stay strong.

This Bulletin offers some good news from across the sector, including information about a new injection of money into the arts and live events sector from the government of Canada which is resulting in some new grant opportunities; a FREE workshop on doing taxes as an artist; a series of townhall meetings on the arts sector; and more.

Canadian Government Funding for the Arts

The Government of Canada has announced $181.5 million in new funding to help out the struggling arts and live events sectors in 2021-22.

The funding is resulting in new funding opportunities as well as expansions/adaptations of existing grant programs, and are well worth exploring.

This is how the funding breaks down, with links to find out more about each of these programs:

• $25 million to Canadian Heritage, including
  • Canada Music Fund ($10 million), for music artists and the music industry through the NEW Support for Live Music Events program, administered by FACTOR and Musicaction.
  • Building Communities through Arts and Heritage ($7 million), to increase opportunities for local artists, artisans, heritage performers or specialists to be involved in their community through festivals, events and projects. It also allows local groups to commemorate their local history and heritage.
  • Canada Arts Presentation Fund ($8 million), providing financial assistance to organizations that professionally present arts festivals or performing arts series (arts presenters) and organizations that offer support to arts presenters. (Also: see upcoming town hall webinars, below.)
• $116.5 million to Canada Council for the Arts, including:
  • Digital Now ($50.5 million), a NEW fund to enable arts groups, collectives and organizations to adapt or create works to be shared with virtual audiences.
  • Explore and Create ($66 million), to stimulate increased research, creation and production of new work.

Please note: some of these programs (including Digital Now and Canada Arts Presentation Fund) have deadlines coming up within a few weeks – so don’t delay!

Tax Workshop for Artists

EC3 has secured eligibility for local artists to attend the Toronto Arts Council workshop Tax Time for Artists on Wednesday, March 17 at 2pm. Particularly with the disruptions to so many people’s finances this past year, we think this FREE workshop could be invaluable for many artists out there.

Event description via the Toronto Arts Council:

Sam Marinucci, FCPA, FCA, MBA, Partner with Hogg Shain & Scheck, a longtime arts supporter and former Board member of Toronto Arts Foundation, is joining us for a one hour webinar to help answer your questions:
• How to account for arts grants on your tax return?
• What to include as income?
• What expenses are eligible?
• What about work from home deductions?
• Tax impact of government COVID benefits.

Click HERE to register, and to submit questions to be answered druing the workshop.

Canadian Arts Presentation Fund Town Halls

The Canada Arts Presentation Fund (CAPF) is receiving an extra injection of funding from the Government of Canada (see above), and the CAPF team at Canadian Heritage’s Ontario Regional office is inviting artists and arts and culture workers to participate in an upcoming series of town halls. “It is our hope to reach the broadest segments of Ontario’s vibrant cultural landscape. Accordingly, we are immensely grateful to the many coalitions and service organizations partnering with us on this activity, and helping to get the word out.”

The sessions will take place March 16 to 18, and include general sessions and sessions for special target groups. See here (PDF) for details and invitation links.

Main Street Relief Grant

As Peterborough remains in the ‘Red-CONTROL’ zone, and COVID-19 restrictions on organizations and events continue, we wanted to provide a reminder about the Government of Ontario’s Main Street Relief Grant. This fund provides provides businesses in vulnerable sectors with up to $1,000 to help cover the cost of purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks, gloves, and face shield.

It’s not a huge grant, but it has a simple application process and is well worth it to help cover this now-essential expense.

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

Peterborough, ON – The Board of Directors of the Electric City Culture Council (EC3) is pleased to announce that more than $100,000 has been donated to the Peterborough Arts Alive Fund to support its program of COVID-19 Strategic Response and Resiliency Grants. This grant program will provide financial support to local arts organizations who have been impacted by facility closures, loss of box office revenue, fundraising, sales, sponsorships, rentals and other income, due to pandemic lockdowns. The arts sector has been one of the hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis and EC3 is both proud of, and grateful for, the extraordinary contributions made to the Fund in support of this response, recovery and resiliency initiative.

The Peterborough Arts Alive Fund was launched with a key donation and ongoing fundraising support from art lover and Trent University educator Deborah Berrill, and is hosted by the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough (CFGP), who also so kindly contributed to the fundraising campaign efforts. The City of Peterborough provided a generous and deeply appreciated contribution of $40,0000 to the Fund. EC3 also extends a big thank you to the Peterborough Performing Arts Recovery Alliance for their support in this fundraising project.

“Our deepest appreciation and gratitude go out to all of the donors who have made this happen, with gifts both large and small. It takes all of us to support our artists and arts organizations, and the success of this appeal demonstrates the strength of support for the arts all across our community.” –Su Ditta, EC3 Executive Director

“I contacted EC3, wondering what I might be able to do to support our wonderful Peterborough area artists whose livelihoods depend on live audiences and people visiting galleries. We knew then that we would all be in for the long haul, but few of us suspected just how long this would go on and just how deep the impact would be for various segments of our community. These funds send a strong message to our wonderful area artists that we treasure their contribution to our lives.” –Deborah Berrill, Educator and Arts Supporter

Details on the grant program and how to apply will be available shortly.

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For Further Information Contact:
Su Ditta
Executive Director, EC3
705 749 9101
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org

Hello Everyone,

To honour Black History Month, EC3 has launched a new project, Spotlight on Local Artists. This initiative presents profiles of Black artists living and working in Peterborough. Each Spotlight will include a photo of the artist, a bio and an artist statement. This project will be shared on EC3’s social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) and will culminate in a Resource Bank available on our website in a few months. You may also want to check out EC3’s response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

This project is a great opportunity to learn about these talented artists, include them in your programming and be sure to catch their work, whenever and wherever you can. Many thanks to all the participating artists!

We start today with theatre artist Beau Dixon.

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

Peterborough, ON – The Board of Directors of the Electric City Culture Council (EC3) is pleased to announce that EC3 President and Chair, Bill Kimball has been appointed to the Advocacy Committee of the Canadian Association of Performing Arts Organizations (CAPACOA), and EC3 Executive Director Su Ditta has been appointed Co-Chair of the Alliance of Arts Councils of Ontario (AACO).

A Trent University graduate, Bill Kimball has built a distinguished career in the arts sector in Peterborough, Ontario for more than 35 years, taking a lead role in organizations such as Theatre Trent, Artspace, City Stage, Peterborough New Dance, and of course as Executive Director at Public Energy Performing Arts. Kimball has served on ACHAC, the City of Peterborough’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Advisory Committee and on the City’s Community Investment and Project Grants Assessment Committee, and played a leadership role in renovations of the Market Hall. As President and Chair of EC3, Mr. Kimball has provided exceptional guidance and vision to the organization throughout its start-up phase.

The CAPACOA Advocacy Committee provides expert advice on federal and provincial policy matters affecting the arts, such as government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. CAPACOA provides a broad range of supports, tools and resources to the arts community and plays a leading role in maintaining a healthy and vibrant arts ecosystem in Canada. This organization has played a critical role during the pandemic and their work has been invaluable to hundreds of arts organizations all across Canada.

“CAPACOA is an outstanding arts service organization and I am honoured to have the opportunity to work with them, particularly in such challenging times.” –Bill Kimball

Su Ditta has served as Executive Director of EC3, Peterborough’s municipal arts council, for five years. Also a Trent graduate and an award-winning curator and arts administrator, Ms. Ditta returned to Peterborough after working at the National Gallery of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Ditta has served as an advisor and consultant to dozens of government agencies and not-for-profit arts organizations and educational institutions, is a founding director of the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough and has served on many City advisory committees.

The Alliance of Art Councils of Ontario (AACO) is a newly formed association of municipal and regional arts councils, artists networks, and community-based cultural councils. It provides professional support, knowledge sharing, information and other resources to its members, advocates on behalf of its members and the artists and arts organizations that they serve, and provides recommendations on government policy and programs at both the federal and provincial level. AACO is dedicated to building a strong, sustainable, inclusive and responsive arts environment in the province of Ontario.

“I am proud to be a founding member and the first Co-Chair of such a dynamic and important organization and thrilled to work with such dedicated colleagues to advance the arts sector in Ontario.” –Su Ditta

EC3 is proud to see the skills and experience of our leadership team members recognized in this way.

Promotional images

• Bill Kimball, EC3 President and Chair
• Su Ditta, EC3 Executive Director

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For Further Information Contact:
Su Ditta
Executive Director, EC3
705 749 9101
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org

And a Small Update to the Eligibility Guidelines

Last week we announced the Open Call for Artsweek SHIFT², and we have been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response so far. Artists are reaching out with great feedback, excellent questions and exciting ideas, and we can’t wait to see what this project produces!

Thank you to everyone who came out to the two Artsweek SHIFT² Application Information Sessions, which we held last Thursday, February 4 over Zoom.

We have now uploaded recordings of both of those sessions to the Electric City Culture Council YouTube page. Here’s the 5:30pm session and the 7:30pm session. Note: both sessions covered roughly the same material, but with different audience questions.

You can also read through the PowerPoint presentation from the workshop.

Eligibility Guidelines Update

We have released a minor update to the Eligibility Guidelines for Artsweek SHIFT². The update clarifies that both Components 1 and 2 of Artsweek SHIFT² are open to residents of both the City and County of Peterborough.

Read the full guidelines and find the application forms on our website.

If you have any questions about eligibility or anything else surrounding Artsweek SHIFT², contact EC3’s Program Coordinator Gabe Pollock at infoartsweek@gmail.com.

We can’t wait to see your proposals!

Follow Us Online!

For up-to-the-minute updates about all Artsweek programs, be sure to follow Artsweek on Facebook, @Ptbo_Artsweek on Twitter, and @artsweekptbo on Instagram, and check out the Artsweek SHIFT website for more information.

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

“The Showstopper: How COVID-19 Affected Local Performing Arts Organizations” by Elizabeth Milton, Trent Arthur.