This is the address given by Board President Lesley Landis during the Annual Meeting for 2012:
Welcome to the ChathamArts Annual Meeting. Your presence tonight makes you a shareholder of sorts in ChathamArts as some of our operational money comes from the admission you pay at the door. Thank you for supporting local!
This year ChathamArts celebrates 30 years working to enliven our local communities, enrich education, and enhance economic development through the arts and this year we’re reminding people that the Arts Mean Business! Paul G. Allen, co-Founder, Microsoft gets it, he says, “The arts have a crucial impact on our economy and are an important catalyst for learning, discovery, and achievement in our country.”
The arts are an investment essential to the health of our local economy, our public education system, and to the community connections that sustain a healthy, connected atmosphere.
This is why your support of ChathamArts is vital.
Thanks to your financial investment and funds from grantors such as the Galloway Ridge Charitable Fund, ChathamArts brings to our schools opportunities like the Shooting4Change Youth Documentary Program in collaboration with mentoring agency Chatham Together! We’ll see the culmination of that in a bit. These arts education programs help students find their voices, identify their passions, build their self-worth and prepare them to be powerful leaders, communicators, and innovators.
Our agency is well positioned to continue to lead and guide our young people into the future. It is with great pride that I’m able to announce for the second year in a row that ChathamArts ended the year in the black. We also grew our reserve to about $27,000.
This is why The NC Arts Council considers ChathamArts to be one of the leading arts agencies in the state. Nancy Trovillion, Assistant Director, North Carolina Arts Council says “Chatham County is an Arts Goldmine.”
Other Chatham arts organizations like the Chatham Artists Guild, Junior Appalachain Musicians and Bynum Front Porch, among others, continue to provide arts experiences that entertain residents and draw tourists. Meanwhile dance and theater camps are popping up all over. However, there are struggles ahead for others.
A majority of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners recently voted to withdraw all funding from the North Carolina Arts Incubator in Siler City for the coming year. Support sheets are circulating for those who wish to sign it to be included in an an ad that will be submitted to local Chatham paper to list the Incubator’s accomplishments and some of the roles it plays in the arts community. If you wish to receive current news about the Incubator, provide your email address and check the appropriate box.
ChathamArts is pulling for the NC Arts Incubator. We hope you will too. The Incubator demonstrates how, slowly but surely, properties and streetscapes are enhanced by the energy that artists and their work bring to a community.
Culinary artists in bars and restaurants spring up. Freshly baked goods and other foods and services create a scene that attracts both residents and tourists seeking unique items and authentic experiences away from franchises, strip malls and suburban sprawl. This creative culture draws more, larger and diverse businesses and develops a quality of life that other corporations look for to make their relocating employees happy.
So, whether one reads the latest work from our host of literary artists, enjoys delicious foods from local culinary artists, luxuriates in a massage from a healing artist, or enjoys sculptures made of wood, metal or clay, Chatham County residents are lucky to be surrounded by the incredible creative talents embodied in the artists that calls our county home and enrich our community and our coffers.
Thank you for your investment in ChathamArts I hope we can continue to count on your support and participation.
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