I was invited to attend a meeting for local arts organizations at the Dr. Lillian Vitanza Ney Renaissance Center. The meeting featured Paul Hogan, Vice President of the Oishei Foundation who shared ideas about how the Buffalo region addressed the current funding crisis for their arts and cultural organizations. The theme for the meeting was teamwork and working together to solve problems.

The meeting had a great turnout and almost all of the big players in the community for arts and entertainment projects showed up and voiced concerns, problems and ideas for the future. As CEO of Galactic Systems, I was representing The Forum, the culture center in Galactic Systems Headquarters. It was very nice to see everybody in a room talking and listening.

Before the meeting I got a chance to speak with Jim Fincher of Chautauqua Rails to Trails (http://chaurtt.org). This organization transforms old train tracks into trails and has already converted thirty miles of unused train tracks into trails for bird watching, cycling and hiking. Just by getting together at this meeting and having a random conversation with Mr. Fincher, I was able to suggest how a soon to be announced Galactic Systems project could help out with a project Chautauqua Rails to Trails is planning.

As the meeting started everybody got a chance to introduce themselves and share problems their organizations are facing or just general concerns. A notable concern mentioned was the need for more arts education. Of course as it is well known in areas across the United States when funding gets tight, arts and education funding are the first to go, unfortunately.  When it was my turn to speak, I brought up something positive. I mentioned that I really like how the Arts Council for Chautauqua County operates a website called Arts On Fire (http://artsonfire.wordpress.com) where they promote all arts and entertainment events in the region.

Arts organizations are facing tough challenges due to lack of fiscal resources. Mr. Hogan offered many ideas for how arts organizations can get more things done by working together. One thing he said in particular struck a chord with me because it is exactly what Galactic Systems is doing. Mr. Hogan said that arts organizations need to think in more broad terms about what the arts are. By placing a culture center inside an astronautical engineering and science research facility, Galactic Systems is expanding on how arts and entertainment can influence people and inspire creativity in all fields. Mr. Hogan gave examples of how arts and health care can go together, by allowing artists to be a part of the care management team. Indeed, art can inspire people in many ways, not just by giving them a smile, but helping people become healthier through positive activities. Mr. Hogan also talked about how the arts and neighborhood stabilization go together and offered the example of how teen reality theater can help young people learn about how to deal with difficult situations. By using the arts to aid in other aspects of societies’ needs, arts organizations can actually improve already existing infrastructure.

It was also discussed at the meeting how arts organizations need to be able to show how the arts have a big impact on the community. Providing jobs and tourism revenue are some limited examples. It is often hard for arts organizations to give specific data on this, and so Mr. Hogan brought up the Cultural Data Project (http://www.culturaldata.org). Organized and operated by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Cultural Data Project is a source of data that shows the economic value of arts organizations in specific regions. The key to this project is that arts organizations need to share and upload their data to the project’s database. With this type of teamwork on a national scale, the flood gates on relevant data about the direct economic impact of arts organizations on local economies is being opened. This means it will be easier for arts organizations to better justify funding needs.

Most of the meeting was spent discussing how arts organizations can work together and the benefits of doing so Mr. Hogan had a lot of interesting things to say on this. By working together on projects, arts organizations can share expenses, thus reducing cost associated with operating programs. When different arts organizations work on projects together, they are able to expand on their missions and open up new avenues of funding. Of course communication is the first step for this. Mr. Hogan provided the example of the Greater Buffalo Cultural Alliance (http://www.greaterbuffaloculturalalliance.com) which has a membership of around forty arts organizations all working together for arts advocacy and public education about the arts. It should not be news to anybody that teamwork accomplishes great things.

I felt the need to make some points during the meeting based on different thoughts that were discussed throughout. On the notion of being optimistic about Jamestown, I gave a positive example on how to think about the high taxes in the area, by looking at how good the education system is compared to other areas. I also talked about how work that employees and leaders do needs to be redefined; I gave the example of how the artistic director for one of the largest theater companies in New York City, American Theater of Actors, mops the facilities' bathrooms. I spent three years at the American Theater of Actors as a technical director and resident sound designer, and I was often amazed at how Jim Jennings would do these odd jobs around the theater, and he once told me a leader should never be afraid to get their hands dirty from cleaning. I then asked everybody if they had a way to press a button on a computer and look at all relevant data on ideas, task and time associated with them. Nobody raised their hand to indicate they had this capability. Thus, I brought up that it is indeed the 21st century and this technology exists; it is free and an open source, and Galactic Systems would be happy to consult with everybody about this anytime. Finally, I brought up that teamwork takes forgiveness, and that sometimes it is hard to work together because of egos or past experiences, and that sometimes we need to bite our tongues, put our feet forward and all work together to build a better Jamestown.

The meeting ended with very positive sentiments. Steven Gustafson, technical director for the theater at Jamestown Community College made a wonderful comment; he said something to the effect of the more time together, the more ideas that are created. A piece of paper was passed around and e-mail addresses were shared. There are hopes of annual meetings between all these different and wonderful arts organizations. I myself look forward to the next meeting and to see how Galactic Systems and The Forum can build closer relationships with these organizations that make Jamestown an exciting place to visit and reside. By working together and sharing infrastructure, we can all make use of valuable resources and offer even more to the community.