Monday, January 28, 2013
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
"I'm Not the Indian you are thinking about" at Harbourfront
Since I first worked with Sandra and Carlos at Red Sky in 2003 on "Caribou Song" while serving as General Manager at Soundstreams Canada, I have admired their choice in projects and their voice in Canada in dispelling stereotypes about native people.
There is actually a lot of vested interests on both sides in keeping those stereotypes alive but until we move past them we really can't have understanding nor begin to work together on the social justice problems that we'd all like to see addressed effectively.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Note to Factory Theatre Board: Please reinstate Ken Gass and stop the foolishness
I only came across this news (don't know how I missed it) when I saw Ken Gass's job posted on Work in Culture and wondered what the story was, had he retired, or whatever.
I just signed the petition in support of re-instating Ken. I first met Ken when I was a theatre student and a play I wrote was selected for one of Factory's reading nights at the old JCC. At one point I was shortlisted to work with him as General Manager at the theatre and we hit it off famously and stayed in touch. I regret that I didn't get the job but couldn't argue with the fact that I had only a small amount of experience with facility management and the building renovations were most important at that juncture. Whatever one thinks of his particular merits, there is a more important issue: Arts Boards in Toronto need to be told that the arts public does NOT want them to treat dedicated arts leaders and staff in this fashion. Arts organizations are not US corporations and we should not be sending our arts leaders to the door with their belongings in a shoebox.
Here's some press:
Change.org|How to Start a Petition
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Delegation # 1: Why managers are afraid of delegating.
When you talk to unhappy employees and ask them what is wrong with their jobs or their relationship with managers, the leading issue is usually poor delegation techniques. In the arts and non-profits we are often working as managers having no business training in supervisory management and as employees we are working with bosses who may be wonderful in their fields but don't know the first thing about managing people.
Why do so many managers fear and avoid delegation?
# 1. Fear of loss of control.The inexperienced and insecure manager is afraid that if they don't do everything themselves things will spin out of control and they will lose authority to shape projects. Let's examine this fear:
- If you recognize this as your own fear as a manager, remember that you have the power to require employees to check in with you, report progress, and you can set the schedule for completion of stages in a project to build in time for edits and tweaks you feel are needed.
- Delegate from a sense of your own power and your fears will fade
# 2. Fear/Dislike of employees stealing credit or sharing the limelight.
Let's look hard at this fear:- Just as your organizations failures ultimately reflect on you as a manager, so do the successes
- A part of maturing as a manager and human being is learning to enjoy your new role as a mentor to a new crop of professionals. Their successes are your successes.
- If an employee truly tries to steal credit or becomes unduly competitive, that is a separate issue that you can deal with, ultimately you have the power to fire them so why be bothered by small expressions of ego?
#3. Don't feel you have time to teach employees how to do the delegated work or supervise them:
- If you are feeling time crunched, only effective delegation will get work off your desk so a small hump of extra work will pay off in the long run
- Part of delegating the task can be assigning the employee to job-shadow, read, take a course, do online tutorials to acquire skills. You don' t have to take on all the training yourself.
- While a lot of supervision might be needed the first time an employee takes on a job, it will decrease markedly the next time.
- Delegation and supervision IS your job as a manager. Likely all the work on your desk is really not your job and needs to be delegated.
#4 Worry that your employees will make mistakes, use methods you don't approve of, generally goof up something.
- Employees will make mistakes and that is a part of learning.
- Planning for training and supervision and scheduling to allow for error correction is part of your job as a manager and part of your effective delegation strategy.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Boundaries, clock-watching and values-based management
You need to leave on time for once because of family plans. It's busy at work and your boss says, "Well I don't know about you, but I've always been the sort of person who doesn't watch the clock at work because I prefer to just get the work done". It stings because your self-image has always been that of a hard-worker but there is nothing in the current situation or workplace that motivates you to stay late. What has changed? Is it you? Is it the job?
Getting to understand your own values helps to answer with confidence about the balance you have between commitments to work and to other parts of your life and what you need in order to give more time to work. As a manager, knowing your employees values helps you negotiate for the flexibility and extra effort you may need for a project.
Understanding what are core expectations for your position is the starting point. While you might have regular work hours, some contracts have language that requires a flexible schedule or extra hours in peak periods. It is only when we are asked to exceed the language in our agreement that we need to consider where our boundaries lie. While we like to give ourselves labels like "dedicated", healthy individuals have limits about the amount and type of work they are willing to do on their own time and the conditions under which they find it reasonable to put in extra hours. If you don't know your own priorities you could find yourself agreeing to work you'll resent or saying "no" to an opportunity that might be congruent with your goals. Neither of these outcomes is good for you or the workplace.
What motivates you to take work home, put in hours over the weekend, or stay late to finish a project? For me I know that I will volunteer to work on projects that involve learning new skills that are congruent with my goals and interests. I'll also burn the midnight oil for a project that I'm given ownership of that I can add to my resume folder in future. Affirmation goes a long way with me also. Even if there is nothing in it for me, I'll do extras when I feel appreciated.
As a manager, you need to know what your employees value and use that understanding to motivate appropriately. This is a part of values-based management.
- Employees motivated by financial security will go the extra mile for raises, promotions, contract renewal
- Employees with a thirst for learning will be motivated by staff training or time for taking on new work with steep learning curves
- Those with interests outside of work, family, hobbies, enjoying nature will be motivated by time-off in lieu of overtime hours
- Praise, recognition, and simple thank-yous motivate most of us, but are often the most neglected motivational tool in the management toolbox.
Friday, February 17, 2012
New animation from Prashant Miranda
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Writing Grant Proposals as a Team
Grantwriting in a Team Environment
Grants written with a collaborative team are usually stronger, more realistic and tied to the real activities and history of the organization and provide opportunities for team-building. Grants written with a collaborative team can also be among the most frustrating and time-wasting of activities if there is no plan for the collaboration and team members don’t adequately understand their roles.
Why write a grant collaboratively?- Capitalize on multiple talents
- Get multiple viewpoints
- Increase organizational and/or partnership buy in to the project proposal
- Define roles
- Choose the team
- Chart a realistic timeline
- Choose tools
TEAM ROLES:
NOTE: Many times one individual is responsible for more than one role in grantwriting, but it is useful to break down the roles to understand all areas of responsibility. For most grants the roles include:
1. The Grant Lead: This is the person, often referred to as “the grant developer” who is delegated responsibility for team leadership on the grant. They define the process, assign grant tasks, manage the timeline and are ultimately responsible for declaring when grant components are final. They may or may not be the actual grant-writer.
2. Grant Researcher: This role requires someone with skills and experience in researching funding bodies and (if applicable) expertise with the fundraising database used by your organization. They identify funding programs with high relevance to the activities of the organization.
3. The Grant Analyst: This role requires someone able to summarize the grant requirements and provide the information to key individuals within the organization for decision-making about whether and how to proceed and to set out key requirements needed to be met (such as signed contracts).
4. The Organizational Historian/Fact-checker: This role provides up to date content on organizational history, mission, projects, as well as needed documents such as board lists, audited financial statements, incorporation papers, photos, biographies/profiles of team members and partner organizations.
5. The Needs Manager/Project Rationale Researcher: This role is able to research the “need” that the project addresses whether it is a need in the community or an organizational need. Articulating the need is important to making a case for the relevance of your project (whether the application asks you to answer questions about needs or not).
6. The Grant Writer: This is the individual who takes all content provided and crafts it into a coherent argument that is presented with one voice through the document. They are ultimately responsible for style, grammar, format.
7. The Collaboration Organizer: This role is responsible for the nitty-gritty of the collaborative effort, sending invitations to team members, organizing meetings according to time-line, chasing people for content, and tracking the receipt of all needed materials, signatures, support letters, etc.
THE GRANTWRITING TEAM:
While above, I have defined the ROLES needed within a grant-writing process, one team member will likely assume more than one of the roles. Your grantwriting team may be 2 people or 20 people (or more). Most grants involve 2-4 key contributors with some input from stakeholders. Who you choose for your team depends on your organization and the nature of the application. While you typically would want only one person assigned to some roles (such as project leader and/or lead writer), others can be performed by teams (such as researching community needs or literature surveys, getting equipment quotes).
KEY SKILLS:
The skills you need to assure are on your team include:
1. A professional within the organization who has key insight in the organization’s history, goals, and able to speak to the nature and importance of the key points of the proposal.
2. A grantwriting professional who is skilled in researching funding opportunities in tune with organizational needs
3. A budget specialist able to craft a realistic project budget and answer financial questions about organizational finances
4. Writer/editor who will be the “voice” of the grant--responsible for the tone, grammar and persuasive language of the grant
Unless one person has ALL of the skills above, you need to develop a team however small! If you are the Grant Lead--taking into account both the roles needed in the grant and the list of key skills--consider who will make up your team. Following the rules for good delegation, you will need to assure that team members understand their role(s) on the team as well as the role of others. Each team member must have the tools and resources needed to perform the tasks (time, materials, budget) and the authority (existing or clearly delegated) to successfully fulfill their role.
TIMELINE:
Chart your timelines with key points for completion of stages of grant development through a work back schedule from the due date with full understanding of that due date which can vary from “postmarked by X date” to “must be in our hands by 5 pm on the due date”. While generally the earlier the better, a too early start date can undermine any sense of urgency about the work and lead to procrastination and dropped balls. Likewise some RFP have tight timelines that mean that intensive work will be unavoidable.
Generally the charting done by an experienced Grant Lead will look like this:
By making your first draft completion date far enough in advance, you can allow for a second round of commenting and revision if necessary or if the project gets behind schedule due to external factors or difficulties in obtaining all information needed, you can forgo this step.
TOOLS FOR COLLABORATION:
Do you need special tools for collaboration? Not necessarily. It depends on your team, process and proximity. If a grant is being written by one person who edits submitted content and incorporates 2-3 team members content and comments (the majority of grant-writing scenarios) no special tools are needed. Emails, word documents or notes written on a table napkin, will all be incorporated by one individual into a master document that is not available for editing by anyone else. No tools beyond a word processor needed.
Where it gets dicey is where multiple individuals are working on writing/editing sections of the grant collaboratively (and there has to be a strong rationale for this approach). Here version management becomes difficult and if there is no system in place, valuable content can be erased by a contributor who lacks the big picture. The grantwriter has started by organizing content into paragraphs dedicated to single ideas, ensuring that all building blocks are in place over the entirety of the grant. This can become lost as new writers add irrelevant details to paragraphs unaware those ideas are stated later, or in a different section of the application that they may not have in front of them. Simply tracking the revisions becomes a chore. Take this as an example: Susan has written the first draft of a project timeline that outlines a series of workshops. She sends it out simultaneously to Sandra and Kevin by email. Sandra gets back to Susan first with her revision and has added 2 workshops to the list. Kevin (working on the original document) adds one workshop. If Susan saves the most recent edit (Kevin’s) as final, she will not have incorporated Sandra’s input. So how will this be avoided without adding hours of pouring over revisions with a fine tooth-comb?
The need for a unified voice and coherence within the full application dictates that:
- The process for editing needs to be clearly articulated
- There needs to be a start and end point to edits (a date where no more edits will be received and the key writer will consolidate).
- A system or tool for tracking versions must be decided on and used by all contributers
- The final edit must be done by one person assuring a single voice and coherent thread.
MS Word “Track Changes”:
When two or three editors work on a document and only one or two revisions are anticipated, the tools within Word for tracking changes, emailed back and forth will likely be sufficient to the team’s needs, provided they agree on version labeling and documents are not sent to multiple editors at one time without the knowledge of the key writer. The key writer needs to know which version of the document the edit is based on to not lose content previously submitted.
The drawback of “track changes” with multiple edits and editors is that the document becomes unreadable unless the revisions are hidden by selecting “show final”, however in that view content crossed out by one editor which may be necessary and need to be restored can be lost.
Google Docs
Google docs are similar to MS Word’s track changes in look and feel. The advantage of using Google docs is that two people cannot work on the document at the same time so that the most recently saved document is always based upon the work of all previous contributors.
Wikis
Wikis were developed specifically for collaborative writing and allow team-members to look at all version histories. Within a wiki, it is easy to roll back to a prior version or ensure content is not lost. There are a number of free wiki spaces available online and using wiki tools are highly recommended where team-writing for sections of a grant involve three or more people and or is anticipated to involve more than two rounds of editing. My favorite wiki spaces include: http://www.wikispaces.com/ and http://pbworks.com/
Proximity (a collaborative tool we sometimes forget):
Grant-writing teams seldom go off the rails when collaborators work in the same office space and work the same days/shifts. When they do not, it is important to be able to simulate the good synergy effects of proximity. Wiki tools help with this. Meetings, web conferencing, shared Skype calls, and even meeting virtually in online environments can avoid the pitfalls that occur when collaborators feel they are working in a vacuum at some points and are surprised by input from other team members at other points.
Symptoms of failed collaborative grantwriting:
Reluctance to contribute in a timely fashion: One of the leading signs of a process that is failing is the hording of information and avoidance of content sharing until the last moment of a grant deadline. People do this as a defense when they feel that earlier input will be lost or be subject to so many revisions that it will add to the time they will actually be required to spend on grant-writing. "Why contribute now, it will only have to re-done 10 times?"
Lost or confused content: Editors are simultaneously working on the same document making tracking versions difficult to impossible. "I'm sure we had something in here about X in an earlier version. Where did it go?" The wrong tools are being used for collaborative writing.
Surprises and conflicts: "Why are you working on X? I've already done it!" The team and roles were not clearly defined.
Loss of engagement by project and/or writing lead: You send your lead writer comments and edits galore and they stop responding. There's likely a timeline problem. The editing process needs to have a clear end-point so that final draft can be constructed. Grantwriters who are unsure of when they are needed for final edits may be reluctant to contribute until they are sure the dust has settled to avoid wasting their time.
Lack of consistent voice and format in final grant: Editing and commenting has not been terminated with enough time for grantwriter to polish and format or grantwriter has not been correctly delegated authority to override edits that are off message.
Lastly take this quiz
- We always have organizational buy-in for our grant-writing before we begin. Yes/No
- Our grant team all know their own roles and responsibilities. Yes/No
- All team members know from the outset who will contributing and how. Yes/No
- Our grant process has a defined time-line for key steps. Yes/No
- Our tools match the number of collaborators we are involving. Yes/No
- We work in close proximity or have plans for meeting/conferencing as needed. Yes/No
- We have no difficulty tracking revisions to grants. Yes/No
- We are never surprised at the last minute by missing documentation or signatures. Yes/No
- Team members contribute on schedule with confidence their input will not be lost. Yes/No
- Grant proposals have a unified voice and a coherent argument on completion. Yes/No
SCORING:
Give yourself a point for all your “yes” answers.
A perfect 10: Where do I apply to work for you as a grant-writer? Great going.
7 to 9: You are like most organizations, doing most things correctly but there’s probably just one area where you could avoid conflict and time wasting if you planned a little better.
4 to 6: You are probably experiencing some staff stress or even conflict. You may be wasting time and energy due to duplication of work by people not understanding their roles and/or doing intensive last-minute grant-writing due to lack of pacing.
Less than 4: Grant-writing collaboratively is either very new to your organization or has become a huge trial that your staff members view with dread. They react with either avoidance/delay strategies or by jockeying for position when a grant-writing task is announced. The process is likely always contentious and the results are worse than if one person completes the grant leading you to feel it is better you do it yourself. (Most of us have been there.) Consider, if you feel this way, whether your team really lacks the skills or whether the process is at fault.
Friday, November 18, 2011
December 1 & 2 Creative Works Studio Annual Exhibition
If you care deeply about access to the arts as I do and also support diversity of voices in the arts you'll want to come out and support a community of artists that are finding healing through art--even as they share their vision of our city with anyone who is able to make time and come out to view the art and meet the artists.
It will make you feel great!
TORONTO TREASURES
Creative Works Studio features new works at our Toronto Treasures Art Exhibit. We will also launch our 2012 art calendar, The Blues, which will be available for sale at the gallery. www.creativeworks-studio.ca
The Creative Works Studio, is an occupational therapy arts based community program that helps individuals living with mental health challenges heal and cope through the power of artistic expression. It is part of St. Michael Hospital's Inner City Health Program and operates in partnership with the Good Shepherd.The studio believes in public education to reduce stigmatization.
THANKS TO OUR PATRONS:The Al Green Gallery, Boome Canadian Graphics, CIHR-Canadian Istitute of Health Research, TD Canada Trust, The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, Lundbeck, Ontario Arts Council, ShaRna Foundation, Toronto Arts Council, Long and McQuade, Dimensions Custom Framing & Gallery.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Silverberg Art Showing at Sage Cafe on McCaul
Jerry Silverberg
SAGE CAFE - 166 McCaul (north of Dundas - just around the corner from the AGO)
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Clay and Paper Theatre's "Night of Dread"
"Oh look, we can PARTICIPATE", exclaimed a young mom to her partner and children as they arrived at the launch point of Clay and Paper's annual "Night of Dread" event that began and ended at Dufferin Grove Park in Toronto. Volunteers helped the family outfit themselves with masks from the theatre's assembled accessories available for sign out. Participation proved to be but one of the extraordinary components of this community arts event.
Halloween has always seemed to me a bit of a difficult holiday in modern times. Most of us no longer believe in ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. We feel guilty as parents about scaring our kids with superstition. Besides, aren't there enough horrors in the world? When we think "okay, let's dress up in more fanciful, happy clothes" we run into another set of dilemmas.
"A fairy princess?"
"No, no, too sexist! Gender stereo-typing, that will never do!"
"A belly-dancer? An Indian brave?"
"No, no! Cultural appropriation! What will the neighbours think!"
And what about the whole thing of "trick or treating"? In a time when so many children are overweight, we know the dangers of high carbohydrate loads on the whole system, not to mention tooth decay, do we want our kids super sugar-loaded. We fear for their safety on dark streets at night. It's just hard to celebrate the tradition anymore.
How do we update this late autumn holiday in a way that is meaningful to modern times without causing the wincing feeling that we are going against our core values or exposing our children to harms of various sorts? Clay and Paper Theatre has crafted an annual event that keeps the core components of Halloween, while avoiding all of the baggage. Their creativity has resulted in a new celebration in harmony with the season and our actual lives.
Halloween is a festival for a time when the days are becoming darker and primitive people might have worried that the sun was dying. It is a time of fears and shadows. Some of the oldest civilizations had traditions of building fires on hillsides to feed the sun and wearing disguises to fool malevolent spirits.
In our modern world there are shadows of fears that haunt all of us in our dark moments. Near the gardens in Dufferin Grove Park, Clay and Paper Theatre had set up a garden of fears. Economically (and humorously) using pizza boxes on sticks, they had emblazoned the boxes with modern fears: nuclear annihilation, global warming, bio-hazards, isolation, losing a home, bankruptcy, financial ruin, war... and so on. What a fantastic opportunity for family dialogue as people moved about the garden of fears and chose which fear to pluck from the garden and carry in the parade as representative of that individuals worst fear this year.
Masks were black and white papier mache creations that, to me, symbolized the dark and light in all of us, in the changing seasons and our world. Walking about among us as we selected our fears to carry and our black & white masks to wear (if we chose to wear a mask) were a collection of giant puppets representing some of our fears. I was struck in the gut by the representation of pollution. She was a giant blue puppet with a serenely beautiful appearing face and flowing blue silken fabric, horrendously littered with bits of plastic garbage bags and excretions of fast food containers, drink cups, plastic water bottles and straws. Some of the huge puppets were a bit more mysterious and we didn't quite know what they were representing until the end of the event.
A bugle call and drum roll signaled the assembly of the march and about 1,000 people or more set out following as we paraded our fears through the streets of Toronto. It was interesting to watch the faces of the people who came out of houses and stores to watch the passing march. Some were delighted and seemed to know what to expect. Others were extremely puzzled, even a little worried. It was a long enough route that children were wanting to be carried by the end of the journey so families with young kids are advised that a stroller or wagon will likely be required at some point in the trek.
Back at the Dufferin Grove Park we walked along a path of shrines. This lacked any explanation but it seemed to me that they were shrines erected to things lost in the past, a loved pet, a farm. Made from the simplest of materials they were reminiscent of Day of the Dead shrines built on grave sites.
We walked towards a bonfire in the middle of a circle of people. Here the fears we had carried through the dark night streets were burnt in a warming sacrificial fire. The crowd cheered the burning of the fears. The giant puppets representing major fears like "Corruption & Greed" "Nuclear Annihilation" were introduced as they did their final macabre dance around the fire. With a fanfare of humorously discordant circus music, the "Fear of the Year" was introduced. In this year's case that was "The fear of selfish leadership" represented here in Toronto appropriately by a giant gravy boat. The artistic reference was to our hapless Mayor Ford who promised to save billions from the city budget by cutting the "gravy" and then his hired consultants couldn't find any such gravy. His attempts to instead define libraries and culture as gravy have met strong citizen opposition. The gravy boat was taken on a last lurching voyage. The responsive creativity of the team at Clay and Paper Theatre added a last minute touch drawn from the latest headlines as a Margaret Delahunty lookalike pursued the gravy boat on it's final voyage to the fire. A great cheer rose up from the crowd as the final great fear went up in a tower of flame.
Death dancers waltzed around the bonfire as our fears burned. Only the fear of death which can never totally leave us remained alive. The figures of death beckoned to the crowd to come and dance with death. The message to my understanding was that only when we learn to dance with death are we truly alive. The circle of dark and light, yin and yang came into focus in this conclusion, sombre, meditative and graceful. Then exploded into light with fire twirlers and jugglers harking back to a primitive time where warmth and light drove away the terrors of winter and darkness.
What a wonderful achievement and gift to the people of Toronto. My one and only suggestion to the creative team is that they lost people at the conclusion due to the length of the march. It was a very cold night, so that was also a factor. Some great entertainment was available at the end and I would have liked to stay and dance but like many others I was freezing and very tired so we packed up at the conclusion of the fire twirlers.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Clay & Paper's Night of Dread Oct. 29
Night of Dread
Dufferin Grove Park
Saturday, October 29, 2011
4-6PM: Gathering
6PM: Parade
7:15PM - Fire Circle
Learn the fire circle chant:
"We laugh at fear, And we laugh at death, And we'll laugh at you, 'Til our very last breath, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
8:30PM: Celebration with Lemon Bucket Orkestra
Dress Code: Black & White & Dreadful
Pay-What-You-Can/ $10 Suggested Donation
Monday, October 24, 2011
Speaking up on behalf of aboriginal children
Today the Winnepeg Free Press reported that "Child rights' advocates are hoping to shame the federal government into improving the treatment of aboriginal children.The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the ecumenical group KAIROS are asking the United Nations to ensure that Ottawa gives the same services to aboriginal children as it does to other Canadians. In a report prepared for the United Nations committee on the rights of the child, the groups say government funding for health, education and child welfare is much lower on reserves than off.
As a result, they say native kids often lack the basic necessities of life.
They point out that Canada signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its performance is under review right now."
One of the truths that I came to understand while meeting with representatives of band councils while developing the first summer literacy day camps, and spending last season working with Equay-wuk (Women's Circle) is that liberal white guilt about children's welfare in First Nations colludes with right-wing priorities to result in a "do-nothing" outcome. Well-meaning child welfare advocates too often allow themselves to be silenced because they feel that as white people, they cannot address First Nations issues, even when they know that education or child welfare dollars are not being used effectively in a community. There is not one set of problems with children's welfare in First Nations communities. Because these communities are self-governing, the picture differs from community from community and it is important for decision-makers and social justice advocates to understand that it is not a "one-size fits all" solution. It is messy and complex and if we care about justice for these children we have to be prepared to listen and also be prepared to speak out.
Sometimes it takes more than a village to raise a child when that village is failing the child. Sometimes it takes a nation to care and not to be silenced because of some ancient mistakes made by some of our ancestors.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Ottawa Days of Action to End Canadian Involvement in Torture, October 24-26
Torture, October 24-26
We Cannot Let Canadian Individuals and Institutions Get Away With
Torture
In addition to many reasons already listed (see http://
homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/2011/09/csi-ottawa-ending-canadian-
involvement.html ), here's three more good reasons to join us:
1. CSIS and the RCMP, which were found to be complicit in the torture
of Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati, and
Muayyed Nureddin while all were detained in Syria, have been silent
on their ongoing relationship with Syrian Military Intelligence,
which regularly engages in torture and is complicit in the mass
detentions and horrific acts of torture and murder that have been
taking place for years and which have intensified during 2011 in
response to demands for democracy.
Leading up to CSI Ottawa and during those three days, we will seek a
public statement from both agencies that they have (or will
immediately) break all ties with Syrian Military Intelligence and
that they will apologize for their past relationship with such a
blood-stained agency (as well as to those tortured with Canadian
complicity).
2. A Libyan-Canadian citizen who was imprisoned and tortured for
eight years by the Gaddafi regime says that agents from the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) were among foreign agents who
interrogated him. Documents confirming this were found by members of
Human Rights Watch. See http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/28/canada-
intelligence-service-accused-libya-interrogations
This is of course a common practice that CSIS will partner with
brutal, torturing regimes such as Syria, Egypt, and Libya and then
claim that they "did not know" or "did not have available to them"
publicly available reports of systematic torture.
3. On 18 October 2008, Ivan Apaolaza Sancho was deported from Canada
by special charter flight, manacled hand and foot, and handed over to
authorities in Spain. The deportation was a bitter ending to a
fifteen month campaign in which the Basque man was imprisoned in
Montreal, denied the right to apply for refugee status, and
eventually deported - all on the basis of information that a Canadian
tribunal recognized was obtained under torture.
Members of the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture raised
Ivan's case across the province in 2008. Now, he faces a trial after
three years of detention in Spain, and could be jailed for 30 years.
More at http://www.peoplescommission.org/en/sancho/
A CULTURE OF IMPUNITY
The culture of impunity around Canadian involvement in torture is
widespread. Officials in numerous government agencies complicit in
the torture of Canadian citizens, refugees and permanent residents
continue to proceed with the dangerous assumption that when it comes
to torture, whether "direct or indirect," they can get away with it.
While Canadians were rightly upset that the government did not arrest
visiting individuals who are proudly complicit in torture (such as
Dick Cheney and George W. Bush), we also need to focus on the fact
that officials here in Canada continue to engage in policies and
decisions which result in the most unimaginable of human rights abuses.
CSI Ottawa is an attempt to remind the public, and the government,
that they cannot get away with their involvement in torture, and that
our exercise of direct democracy and seeking accountability will not
end until permanent changes are made.
Join CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Involvement in Torture
Organized by Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, a wholly realized
subsidiary of the Homes not Bombs network, tasc@web.ca
_______________________________________________
TASC mailing list
TASC@list.web.net
http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/tasc
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Commonsense Social Media for Small Arts Orgs
Do remember to include in your plan all your skills that are relevant to a successful social media campaign
You've been talking to your supporters, colleagues and audience for a long time and you know them and their interests better than anyone. You also are skilled at reaching out to them creatively and inexpensively. For pete's sake, you are artists! Those skills will be key in making your social media campaign a success!
Don't be phony in your social media voice
Social media is ... well... social. It's got a tone like talking to your neighbours about your work today. Your neighbours and friends will be delighted to hear your voice saying "here's what we've been working at in the studio today" in your own voice. Having that voice delegated to someone outside your company will feel phony and insulting to them. If it feels like a trick in social media, people turn off.
Do have the confidence to run your own social media campaign
The best social media campaign is grass-roots, just like you started your arts organization.
Don't feel you have to spend big bucks on a social marketing professional
No social media "guru" knows your art and your audience like you and your staff do. So what if they have 2,000 Twitter followers, are they relevant to you, or just other social media gurus all jabbering to each other with re-cycled tweets and links?
Do take the time to blog yourself
I know you don't have the time, but you know the best blog-posts are short ones. Here's some good tricks. A photo is worth 1,000 words. Snap photos with your cellphone or digital camera and post to your blog with a small comment. Tumblr is a great platform for quickie bloggers. If you are more of a talker than a writer, make brief voice recordings and ask someone to transpose them as blog posts. Or, make a time to sit down once a week with someone in your organization who does like to write and give him or her a list of things to interview you on. Or just have a chat and record it. A 30-60 minute meeting about what's going on with the company right now should yield a week's worth of blog posts that can be timed for daily release.
Don't let a staff member turn the Artistic Director into a sock puppet
If a post is listed as being from the Music Director or AD, it really should be that person's words. To charge a staff person to write on your behalf without input or approval isn't fair to them or you.
Do make meaningful connections with colleagues and organizations with common-cause.
Guest write for your colleague's blog and share your posts with organizations that will be interested for example your post on set-construction with an umbrella theatre organization or your post on financial planning with an arts administration website. Ask your colleagues to post to your sites. Include the news from other organizations in your tweets and Facebook updates.
Don't be territorial in social media
If all you tout in your blog, facebook page or twitter stream is your own news, you will be preaching to the choir instead of reaching new audiences.
Do listen to your followers and engage with them
Social media is social, so a part of every social media campaign should be to spend a little time reading what your followers are saying: about you, about other arts organizations, and about things in general. Comment, re-tweet, and thank them for their favorable mentions of your organization.
Don't be a broken record
You wouldn't invite your neighbour to a party and then invite them again, and again, and again, using the same message, would you? So invite and follow-up in social media much as you would in other media.
Do use more than one social media that is relevant to your company
As a suggestion, pick one blog platform to share your news in greater length than a twitter post or Facebook update allows. Create a Facebook group for your followers to publicize events. Use a photo site like Flickr or Picasa to host photos & slideshows and a video site like YouTube for video snippets. You may or may not find the social aspect of the photo & video sites useful. But embedding photos in blogs and Facebook posts enlivens them. Finally use Twitter to connect followers in short news bursts to your content in blogs and Facebook. As you develop your social media campaign you will find other tools to use, but no one tool will make effective use of your social media time or effectively distribute your news.
Don't get too enthusiastic about linking and automating your social media messages
As we've seen different social media platforms have different uses and formats. A 140 character twitter post sounds brief and possibly rude when repeated on Facebook, so be thoughtful about linking media. Auto welcoming followers used to be recommended but has become so prevalent that many people regard this as spam and will unfollow anyone who uses the tools. Services that spam followers with auto quotes are fairly universally despised and will lose you followers.
Do use buffer apps to time distribute your posts.
You may want to do all your social media posts at one time of day and all your blog posts one day a week, but many posts at one time will bore your audience and also not reach some potential followers. Twitter streams are one place where people only are likely to see the posts made in the last hour, so use a buffer to send your tweets over the day (twitter is probably the only social media where you can repeat a key message like an event reminder). Facebook posts can also be spaced through the day. (I use http://bufferapp.com ) and you can choose whether blog posts will be published now or at a future date.
Do remember that the message of your company is important
Probably only the artistic director and/or senior management can really articulate key messages about projects, mission and artistic direction of the company. Identify the person or people within your company who will craft the social media messages. Make sure everyone is comfortable with the plan and will follow-through.
Don't give the social media job to the intern
The intern may be able to Facebook up a storm about their keg stand at the party last night but that doesn't mean they know how to tell your story to your key audience. Interns can help but don't leave them in charge of the process or be prepared to accept the results.
Do use your grassroots skills in building up your number of followers
Hey you built your mailing list & email list from 0 to thousands, right? How? By asking people who visited your website to join the mailing list right? By capturing Box Office data, by asking people to enter contests and by asking people to save money, save the trees by signing onto your email list instead. When you have events, that's the time to ask people to join your Facebook group or follow you on twitter. Make it easy with slips of paper they can take away, inserted in programs or available in the lobby on info tables.
Don't get greedy
Don't try to build followers by following hundreds of random individuals. They won't stay and aren't relevant to your success. In the worst case scenario you could lose your account through being listed as a spammer. Having 100 followers who actually come to your events is better than having 3000 followers with only 25 actually coming to your events.
Do give incentives
You know how to do this! Give potential social media contacts incentives by running contests for free tickets or other goodies available only to Twitter followers or Facebook Friends (but don't make these goodies valuable enough to annoy other contacts).
Do evaluate your social media plan
How are you doing? Did you sell out a show using just Facebook? Are you getting more re-tweets of your news? How many lists is your twitter stream on? How many mentions did you get on Twitter last month? How many blog visitors have you logged (Google analytics or site-tracker have good tools).
Don't get discouraged if you don't see results right away
A good social media campaign is not going to happen over-night for most of us. It is slogging work like building a mailing list. If you are not seeing results after a few months you may need to fine-tune your plan, discover why your blog posts and updates are not engaging & growing your audience.
Do remember the goal
You want to deepen the engagement of your existing audience with your company so that they will be more likely to support you by increased attendance and financial contribution. Plus, you want to reach new audiences-- while spending less money on advertising and postage. You also want to be able to brag about how efficient and green your company is in achieving these goals.
That's pretty hot stuff so it's worth some work, right?
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Metropolitan Opera Company breaks fundraising record
In arts offices around the world, questions are being asked about this outcome. Is this an endorsement for the Metropolitan Opera's revolutionary electronic distribution in theatres; a vote of confidence for their current artistic direction; or simply the effect of donor behaviour--backing core arts groups in hard times?One major donor David Knott agrees with the electronic distribution policy saying it was a decision that "if we can't bring people to the opera, let's bring opera to the people". He put his money where his mouth was in making a $500,000 one-time gift and pledging a bequest to the company through it's planned giving program. Electronic distribution certainly seems to be a way to follow the market. In its 2003 study "The Magic of Music", the Knight Foundation found that while 60% of Americans listened to classical music, only 5% had ever entered a concert hall. Listening to classical music is not declining, going to concert halls is declining. Smart, business-minded donors like David Knott will be more inclined to invest in arts organizations that make decisions soundly based on audience trends, it would seem.
In a time when 2 out of 3 arts organizations have sustained a decline in income, the phenomenal success of the Metropolitan Opera in increasing its donations has to be seen as tied to the most significant new part of its program, the electronic distribution of opera in theatres. This fact should be an encouragement to those trying to pioneer new methods of distribution and electronic outreach initiatives. From my own work in virtual music, I know that resistance to new forms of distribution seems like a brick wall at times, but smart donors are rewarding those arts organizations bold enough to break through to reach their audiences outside the concert hall.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Difference Engine Initiative presents results!
Monday October 3rd, 7pm
Ballroom of the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street W.)
Free
The first round of the Difference Engine Initiative, a six week gamemaking incubator for women, is nearly over and we will be presenting the games that they made at this Hand Eye Society Social for the community to play!
Most of the creators will be in attendance and Mare Sheppard, co-coordinator of the DEI, will be hosting the evening. In addition to the usual drinking and chatting, this Social also features a special guest from Chicago, Erin Robinson, who will be doing a presentation touching on her experiences as a game developer (including Puzzle Bots and the freeware Nanobots) as well as her role helping highschool girls make games.
The first and second rounds of the Difference Engine Initiative are part of the OMDC-funded TIFF Nexus.
Contact Contemporary Music Sept. 18
Mary-Katherine Finch, violoncello
Wallace Halladay, saxophone
Sunday, 18 September 2011
8pm
With
Ryan Scott, vibraphone
Allison Wiebe, piano
Russia, b. 1972
Contact Contemporary Music members Mary-Katherine Finch and Wallace Halladay curate a concert of music for saxophone and violoncello. From beauty to vulgarity, and from the sacred to the profane, these two virtuoso musicians present an intimate programme at Gallery 345.
One of the Soviet composer Edison Denisov’s last works highlights the lyrical qualities of the two instruments. As Denisov said, "Beauty is the principal factor in my work. This means not only beautiful sound…but beautiful ideas as understood by mathematicians.” The programme includes the works of Russian followers of Denisov: the religious transcendence of Vustin (with guest percussionist Ryan Scott), and the stoic expressionism of Karassikov (with CONTACT pianist Allison Wiebe).
The music of German Helmut Oehring is some of the most interesting to emerge from East Berlin – with late training in classical music, this electric guitarist explores sound and vulgarity in his musical description of Fred Leuchter - Holocaust denier and designer of instruments of capital punishment. Allison Wiebe will spend the intermission preparing the piano to join the duo again.
Vancouver-based composer Dorothy Chang’s Walk on Water provides the title for the concert, and fellow Canadian Robert Lemay was inspired to write this dynamic duo a work for this occasion.
Saxophonist Wallace Halladay captures the qualities of the modern virtuoso, being at home in numerous styles, from the traditional to jazz and beyond. A specialist in the performance of contemporary music, he has commissioned and premiered numerous works. A soloist with the Vancouver Symphony and Esprit Orchestras, he also inaugurated the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony's "Intersections" Series. He recently worked with Philippe Leroux on the North American premiere of his saxophone concerto in Montréal. He recorded the two saxophone Sequenzas of Berio and the Colgrass concerto for NAXOS and is in demand as a performer with new music groups across Canada and the US. Wallace holds a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, and studied at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Arno Bornkamp. Wallace was the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Virginia Parker Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts, the first woodwind player to be awarded in its 25-year history. Wallace is a Conn-Selmer Artist and plays Selmer (Paris) saxophones.
Cellist Mary-Katherine Finch holds both Bachelor and Master degrees in performance from the University of Toronto. She performs frequently in recital with pianist Ron Greidanus. Playing an authentic baroque cello, she has appeared with Aradia, Baroque Music Beside the Grange, Grand River Baroque Festival and Toronto Masque Theatre. In the area of new music, she regularly collaborates with the ensembles Toca Loca and Ergo, and has premiered several chamber works of Canadian composers. Mary-Katherine frequently plays with the larger ensembles of the Mendelssohn, Isler, Amadeus and Elora Festival Choirs.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Sept 11 Burlesque fundraiser for Fringe Show "Infinitum"
ELEFANT II
On Saturday September 10th, The Cheshire Unicorn will be hosting a Burlesque and Fashion Show Fundraiser to help raise money for their upcoming production, Infinitum.
Along with inspirational BURLESQUE and AERIALS SILKS performances by their talented and sexy cast, attendees can witness and participate in an exciting INFINITY AUCTION and cutting-edge THAI TEXTILE FASHION SHOW, all bought directly from the seamstresses themselves. In addition, there is promises of CHEAP DRINKS, MUSIC and DANCING!
Special guest burlesque performers include: RED HERRING as well as BILLIE BLACK from Les Coquettes!
So come out and support local theatre—it will be a night you won’t want to miss.
$10 for admission.
Show starts 8PM sharp.
Happy hour from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm!
19+ only.
Annex Theatre - 730 Bathurst Street