Arts advocacy groups, be they short-term collaborations, ongoing coalitions or established organizations, are an important, if imperfectly distributed, part of the Canadian arts scene. Some operate on a municipal level, others serve provincial or territorial populations, and others again (such as the Canadian Conference of the Arts and the Canadian Arts Coalition) operate nationally – but the provision is uneven across the country.

On July 27, 2011, a group of arts leaders in Winnipeg took a great leap forward. They held an open town hall meeting at aceartinc, to assess the arts, culture, creative, and heritage sectors’ willingness to explore the idea of creating a Manitoba-wide, broad-based creative sector coalition. This coalition would be called Culture Manitoba, and would provide a strengthened, united voice to represent the arts, culture, creative, and heritage sectors to government, funders, and the community.

Over 80 people were in attendance, and approximately 85% of those in attendance voted, by a show of hands, in favour of creating such an organization. Four working groups were created after the meeting, each led by an interim leader – and meetings will pick up again in September.

Congratulations to all!