Important Member Information
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Important Member Information

To all Arts Education Action committee members,

This letter contains important, TIME SENSITIVE information about your continued inclusion / removal from the ARTSBINDER.COM website.

It's been a long time with no news and I know many are wondering what's going on with this group. I am writing on behalf of a small steering committee that came together to meet this past year to discuss the future of AEAC. We were the members who responded to the calling of the first meeting in September 2009: David Anderson, Bonnie Blasetti, Gaye McVean, Wendy Passmore and representatives from the CSSD and CBE school boards Terry Edwards and Leslie Yeates. Molly Hamilton and Adam Kuzik were at the first couple of meetings.

The Steering committee emphasizes that our overall goal is to involve all our members and we encourage everyone to participate. However it was believed that working as a small group initially, was the best way to move some important ideas forward.

This letter will summarize our meetings of 2009-10 and outline decisions reached for future activities.

a) Preamble
b) Strategic sessions
c) Reinstate Paper Binder
d) Artists application process
e) Web site policies - including deadline to update your page
f) Other items - membership requirements

The AEAC has three primary functions:
1) Advocate the need of quality arts education in Calgary and area schools
2) Provide easy access for teachers to find arts education providers and programs in Calgary.
3) Create opportunities for AEAC members to meet each other in friendship and learning.

In the first couple of meetings the steering committee engaged in some strategic discussions on what and why the AEAC exists. Thank you, Leslie Yeates, for facilitating. It was apparent that for the school boards to continue to justify supporting the AEAC we had to have a greater and more effective presence. Arts education advocacy was the initial reason the AEAC formed over ten years ago when changes were being made to the arts curriculum. The school boards saw a role for AEAC as a conduit to arts program suppliers.

Now in 2009-2010 changes were/are once again proposed for the arts curriculum. Further to this the committee organized the teacher panel on November 18th 2009 to inform and discuss these proposed changes. Sixty five members attended that event.

In our next meetings the value of the Arts Binder web site was discussed. It was decided that, while the web site was useful to those with internet access, there were teachers who were still not able/willing to use it and for them the paper binder was still favoured. (FYI - not every classroom has a computer)

It was observed that an added consequence of having a web site presence only, was that member's lacked involvement in AEAC. The organization has lost member commitment and connection.

For these reasons it was decided to reinstate the paper binder for the
school year 2010 -11.

Please read the attached important information on timelines and requirements.

Further it was recognized that the committee needed a faster process for accepting new artist applications. Apologies to the artists who have been waiting to join AEAC.

David Anderson was appointed, until June 2011, to vet new artist applications with the following notes:
a) If artists clearly meet the criteria of i) headquartered and operating in Calgary ii) offering educational programs to the schools then the AEAC will accept them.
b) If they clearly do not meet the criteria their membership application will be declined.
c) If they are in a grey area the application will be brought to the committee for discussion.

Regarding the AEAC web site, it was confirmed that our webmaster will continue to look after it. Thank you Mike Scullen from CADA. Because of the time commitment in monitoring and updating the "featured company" portion of the web home page this "perk" has been eliminated. It has also been determined in order to reinvigorate and keep the site current and thus useful to teachers that all members must update their site by August 26th Otherwise your page will be removed.

Membership requirements were discussed. There is no monetary fee to join AEAC but we all know the currency of time and commitment. As per the original criteria for membership please recognize that in order to keep your membership, you need to attend one meeting a year. (The binder assembly session doesn't count)
There is work to do and questions to answer. The arts curriculum is still in flux. Should we change our name to Arts Education Action Council? How can we guide/respond to the move to allow organizations outside of school being able to grant arts credits? How can we support teachers and student so that the arts curriculum is not marginalized?

So there you have it... the scuttlebutt on the AEAC.

Yours in art!

If you wish to participate in the paper binder, please sign up: