Remarks by Diane
Rausch
President, Charles County Arts
Alliance, Inc.
Annual Grantee and Membership
Reception
An Evening of Three Celebrations!
Historic
Old
Waldorf
School
Saturday, November 3, 2007
6:00-
8:30 pm
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen!
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Charles
County Arts Alliance, I'd like to welcome you to a very special evening,
a very historic evening in the life of our nonprofit arts organization.
We are calling this event, An
Evening of Three Celebrations!
Tonight we are celebrating three very important milestones in
our history:
The 20th
Anniversary of
Charles
County
Arts
Alliance
The awarding of Arts Grants to deserving schools and community nonprofit
organizations to present arts and arts events in Charles County in the
coming year
The near- completion of our Arts Vision 2020 strategic planning effort
In fact, you might say that what we are really
celebrating tonight is our past, our present and our future!
I'd like to spend just a few minutes this evening
speaking to each of these milestones.
The Past
Our first celebration tonight is a major historical
milestone- the 20th
Anniversary of our organization!
We were legally incorporated in the State of
Maryland
on September 17, 1987. The
Charles County Arts Alliance is a truly unique organization, and has
been from its inception in 1987. From
the very beginning, it was envisioned to be an "alliance"- not a
club, not a council, not a commission, not an advisory committee-
but an alliance comprised of primarily the arts organizations in Charles
County that worked together to enhance the quality of life in Charles
County. In addition, we
welcomed and encouraged our individual performing, visual and literary
artists to join us in our efforts, for we understood the importance of
the phrase, "united we stand, divided we fall."
We knew there was "safety in numbers" and as the population grew
in
Charles
County
, the population of "arts stakeholders" and concerned citizens would
also continue to grow. From
the very first year of the CCAA, the main arts and arts- related groups
in
Charles
County
were active members of our organization.
Such organizations as (in no particular order):
Southern Maryland
Concert Band
Maryland
Indian Heritage Society
African American Heritage Society
Port Tobacco Players
Port Tobacco Art Guild
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (Nu Zeta Omega Chapter)
The Links, Inc. (
Southern Maryland
Chain Chapter)
Charles
County
Library
Charles
County
Concert
Series
Gallery Committee,
Charles
County
Community College
Fine
Arts
Center
,
Charles
County
Community College
We developed our very first Mission Statement, and
it has stood the test of time- 20 years!
While it has gotten a little longer, the first and most important
sentence has never changed:
The mission of the
Charles
County
Arts
Alliance
is to stimulate, promote,
encourage and provide recognition
of the arts and the creative spirit.
I believe this is a noble goal for our
organization, and I believe we are making a difference in the overall
quality of life for the citizens of
Charles
County
. Since 1987, we have
provided literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funding to
enhance the arts in the schools and arts in the community.
And it has really paid off, for
Charles
County
today is a much more vibrant, exciting and culturally diverse county
than it was 20 years ago. It
may sound like bragging, but I truly believe the
Charles
County
"arts scene" we have today is in many cases the direct result of the
focused, sustained attention of the CCAA in nurturing the arts in our
county over these past two decades.
Everyone here tonight should take great pride in your association
with the Charles County Arts Alliance!
Our sole purpose in life is to promote ALL the arts:
Music
Visual Art
Drama
Dance
Literature
Over the past 20 years, we have developed so many
additional programs- not just arts grants- but also arts
scholarships, art boxes for needy children, live professional cultural
events such as opera, ballet and dramatic productions, partnerships with
other nonprofit organizations, helping to manage the Fine Arts Building
at the Charles County Fair, and of course, River Artsfest- to name
a few! About 10 years ago,
we added "a paid staff of one" to help us in our efforts, and this
addition to our all- volunteer organization has been indispensable to
our growth and continued forward momentum.
I also wanted to note that one of the brightest
moments in our history was when this organization "stuck its neck out"
and helped to save this wonderful building we are enjoying tonight -
the historic
Old
Waldorf
School
- from the wrecking ball!
In 1994, this unique, historic building - built in 1930 at the
height of the Depression, and the last public building remaining from
the early days of Waldorf- was only weeks from being demolished,
and the Charles County Arts Alliance was one of 14 nonprofit
organizations in Charles County that came to the rescue with a letter of
support to the Charles County Commissioners.
In our letter, we attested to its value as a potential future "arts
center" for Waldorf and for the entire county.
In fact, at that time, the Charles County Arts Alliance offered
to make
Old
Waldorf
School
its official home and manage the facility as an arts center.
Although this did not happen for a variety of reasons, we have
always held a soft spot in our hearts for this wonderful, warm and cozy
place, and still believe it would make a wonderful contribution as a
future center for the performing and visual arts in the northern part of
Charles
County
. After all, Waldorf is the
population center, with over half of the county residents living within
5 miles of the front doors of this building!
Yet ironically, Waldorf has the least amount of "live" arts and
culture of any region in the county.
We need to work together to change this negative image that
Waldorf is only about retail, restaurants and asphalt!
And I'm happy to report that this "arts center"
concept has now taken hold - with the arrival of our newest nonprofit
arts organization in
Charles
County
, the
Ballet
Arts
Academy
at the
Old
Waldorf
School
. You will receive a special
"treat" tonight - not a Halloween "trick"!
The
Ballet
Arts
Academy
students will perform a "taste of Russian classical ballet" for us a
little later in the program.
We also are so pleased to have two of our
County
Commissioners
with us this evening to share in our 20th Anniversary celebration!
Thank you Commissioner Gary Hodge and Commissioner Reuben Collins
for joining us this evening and demonstrating your personal support of
the arts and quality of life in
Charles
County
.
We have some additional surprises planned as well
this evening, and a special CCAA 20th Anniversary cake we
will all share together, along with coffee, immediately after this
ceremony.
The
Present
Our second celebration is about Arts Grants!
Tonight we celebrate the awarding of approximately
$44,000 in grant funding to the "winners" of our annual competition for
arts grants to support arts enhancement activities in the community and
in the schools of our county. Since
our first year in 1987, we have offered two grant programs to help
promote the arts here in
Charles
County
:
Community Arts Development Grants (for nonprofit
organizations)
Arts in Education Grants (for schools)
The grant program is our oldest program of the
Charles County Arts Alliance - we are very proud of it and how well it
is managed. Statistics from
just last year show that our approximately $40,000 invested in the arts
in
Charles
County
were matched by cumulative total funds of the applicant organizations on
a 10:1 basis. That's right,
a ten-fold return on our investment!
And the activities presented with Charles County Arts Alliance
grant funds touched the lives of over 50,000 of our county residents.
Wow - we touched the lives of over one- third of the entire
population of
Charles
County
!
Who says we are not making a difference?
We have dedicated a large portion of our program
tonight to celebrate the individual winners of our annual grant round,
so I will keep my remarks brief on this topic.
Let me just say on behalf of the entire Board of Directors of the
Charles County Arts Alliance, congratulations and thank you for all the
good work you are doing this year to present arts events and arts
activities in Charles County. We
respect and admire each and every one of you, and appreciate your
dedicated efforts to make our county a better, more vibrant and more
culturally diverse place to live,
The
Future
Our third and final celebration is all about our
future- Arts Vision 2020.
Most of you know that over a year ago the CCAA
spearheaded a truly major effort to develop the first- ever strategic
plan for the arts in
Charles
County
through the year 2020. We
call this effort Arts Vision 2020. This
title is a "triple entendre"- it has three meanings:
This project was timed to coincide with our 20th
Anniversary year
The timeframe covered in the strategic plan is through the
year 2020
And, if we do it right, our "vision" will be "2020"-
in other words, we got it right, and our vision was perfect!
Almost exactly a year ago, we held the first- ever
Charles County Arts Summit. We
were so pleased that the
College
of
Southern Maryland
hosted us, the "arts community" of
Charles
County
, for a day of brainstorming, visioning and prioritizing of our vision
for the arts in the years ahead. We
shared our hopes, dreams- and yes, frustrations- in a spirit
of mutual respect, warm friendship and creative energy!
It was truly a special day, a day we launched our collective
future vision for the arts together.
And since that time, many of us have worked together to bring
this long- term strategic plan for the arts into final form.
We have held many, many meetings since then- meetings of
the Steering Committee, meetings of four (4) Action Teams, meetings with
our wonderful professional facilitator (Sherwood Shankland) and meetings
separate from him. Meetings
of the writing team, phone calls- and hundreds of emails in
between!
Our final report, Arts
Vision 2020: A Strategic
Plan for the Arts in Charles County, Maryland, is being written as
we speak, and our goal is for it to be completed by the end of the year.
Stay tuned- we will keep you posted on this!
At this time, I'd like to invite anyone and
everyone who had any role to play over the past year in the Arts
Vision 2020 strategic planning process to please stand and be
recognized. A round of
applause please for these very dedicated arts stakeholders in
Charles
County
!
Conclusion
So these are the three celebrations we're having
tonight- celebrating our past, present and future.
We honor the Charles County Arts Alliance's 20th Anniversary and its impressive past, we
salute the current Arts Grantees
of our present, and we look forward with great anticipation to
the completion of our Arts Vision
2020 strategic plan, which will become a lasting legacy, reference
guide and roadmap to a very bright future for the arts in
Charles
County
!
Thank you very much for your time and attention.
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