Read on for Details About Provincial and Federal COVID-19 Financial Relief Support Programs for the Arts

Hello Everyone,

Happy new year! This year has started off on a challenging note, with a province-wide lockdown leading into a full stay-at-home order. This is putting additional strain on arts organizations and individual artists who are already facing serious financial challenges.

This Bulletin provides an update on financial relief programs that are available at the provincial and federal levels that may help with some of the burden. Read on for more details, and as always, don’t hesitate to reach out to EC3 if you need support or help during these times.

And, at the end of this Bulletin, we are offering an opportunity for local artists to WIN passes to this year’s ReFrame Film Festival, which starts this Thursday, January 22.

Ontario Small Business Support Grants

Along with the latest round of stay-at-home orders, the Government of Ontario has announced the new Ontario Small Business Support Grant. This grant will provide up to $20,000 to small businesses that have experienced revenue loss since the beginning of the pandemic, and who were deemed non-essential and had to close on December 26, 2020. EC3 has also confirmed that non-profits and charitable organizations are eligible for this grant.

This includes performing arts organizations, theatres, museums, galleries, and film and television productions, as well as any retail that was forced to close for in-person shopping.

Apply for the grant here, and read more details in the Application Guide (PDF).

The Ontario government is also offering property tax and energy cost rebate programs, as well as Ontario’s Main Street Relief Grant: PPE Support, to offset the cost of purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE) – read more about those programs here.

Federal Relief Programs

Throughout the pandemic, the Government of Canada has offered a range of programs that can benefit organizations who are struggling financially, including:

• Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), offering wage subsidies for organizations who can demonstrate lost revenue
• Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS), which tenants can now apply for directly
• Canada Emergency Bank Account (CEBA), offering partially-forgivable loans to organizations – with a max now increased to $60K from the original $40K.

Business/Arts recently held a webinar entitled “The State of the Arts,” which discussed the federal government’s COVID response from an arts perspective and looked at some of these programs, as well as looking ahead at what other initiatives are expected in the coming months. You can watch a full recording of the webinar here.

We also recommend the official government page Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, which goes into detail on all the programs available for organizations, individuals, and specific sectors.

You Could Win!

The ReFrame Film Festival is going virtual this year, streaming online from January 22 to 29, 2021.

EC3 is partnering with ReFrame’s Community Access Pass program to give away 8 Festival 5-Packs for ReFrame, to local artists facing financial barriers. Each pack will gain you admittance to five films screened during ReFrame.

To Enter

Send an email to ec3.research@gmail.com with the subject ‘ReFrame Ticket Giveaway’ and:
a) your name
b) your email address
c) answers to as many of the following Peterborough film trivia questions as you can.

Deadline

Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at noon. Winners will be contacted via email.

Questions

1. What was Samuel L Jackson doing in Peterborough in 2006?
2. Identify the Peterborough filmmaker who said this to KawarthaNOW before a screening of his documentary: “I feel scared because it’s a big deal for me. I mean, my birthmark is on the film, and everyone is going to see it…. It’s really a ritual of me owning up to my people — my family, my community.”
3. Name 3 Peterborough movie theatres that no longer exist.
4. What Peterborough-based filmmaker made the short narrative dance film Ecstasy, about missing and murdered Indigenous women, that screened at the 2020 ReFrame Film Festival?
5. What Peterborough filmmaker and Trent professor’s films include “In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey” and the upcoming “The Cost of Freedom: Refugee Journalists in Canada”?
6. What Peterborough band is the subject of the documentary Before We Arrive, which also features interviews with Ronnie Hawkins and Serena Ryder?
7. Who were ‘The Peterborough Four’ and what did they do to support independent Canadian filmmakers?

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

“businessNOW: Hillary Flood is new communications manager of Peterborough DBIA” (EC3 discussed at bottom) by Bruce Head, KawarthaNOW.

“Art in spite of all: how the Kawarthas arts community survived the year of the virus” by Sarah McNeilly, KawarthaNOW.

Happy Holidays Everyone,

We are trying to breathe, slow and deep, as everyone is at the moment, rushing to a much-needed break in what has been both an incredibly difficult, and at the same time, inspiring year.

We want to thank each and every one of you who have helped with advocacy, fundraising, provided leadership and emotional and moral support to the EC3 team, and for everything you have done to keep our arts, culture and heritage (ACH) organizations going, creating opportunities for artists to make work and for audiences to experience it, COVID-19 or no.

It is a time of both great gratitude for what we have and for what the ACH community has done to carry on, and a time of deep concern for the very tough circumstances so many people are facing and for what the near future will bring.

Many artists and arts organizations are still suffering, and we are a long way yet from fully opened venues and the return of box office ticket sales, familiar fundraisers, and a “normal” landscape of exhibitions, concerts, performances, fees paid to artists, groups working together and live arts experiences. In the meantime, this community has shown outstanding resilience and extraordinary imagination and innovation with digital projects and performances in every imaginable safe outdoor space. We are honoured, proud and so grateful to work in this amazing community.

Special thanks go out to City Council and City staff for their support of the ACH sector and to the Peterborough Performing Arts Recovery Alliance for their terrific advocacy and fundraising efforts. We are also so very grateful to campaign champion Deborah Berrill and all the folks who donated and are still donating so generously to the Peterborough Arts Alive Fund in our partnership with the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough.

EC3 owes a particular thank you to curators Hannah Keating and Justin Million, and all the fine artists who took part in Art Loves Pride and the Artsweek SHIFT projects Downtown and Post-Code Tour. Thanks as well to Christy Haldane, Sarah McNeilly, Julie Gagne and all the artists who participated in ESSENTIAL and Conversations on Art in a Pandemic.

Finally, a huge thanks to Gabe Pollock who brings such great skill and intelligence to his work as Research Lead and Program Coordinator every day, to our inimitable bookkeeper Susan Newman and ou ever-creative designers Jeff Macklin and Rob Wilkes, to our amazing President Bill Kimball, and to all our Board members who work so hard serving the ACH community.

EC3 wishes you and all your near and dear ones a good break, and a happy, healthy and safe New Year. Keep the faith. Bring on the joy!!!

Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
(705) 749-9101

Hello Everyone,

The Electric City Culture Council (EC3) invites you to our 2020 Annual General Meeting, taking place online over Zoom on Tuesday, December 15 at 5pm.

If you are interested in attending, please register in advance for the Zoom meeting. (You will receive a confirmation email with the meeting link after you register.)

If you would like to sign up for an EC3 membership, or renew your membership, please do so by Monday, December 14 to be counted among voting members at the AGM. You can sign up though our website. Payment can be made via PayPal.

If you have any questions, please email electriccitycc@gmail.com.

This ‘Giving Tuesday,’ Make a Donation to the Peterborough Arts Alive Fund for COVID-19 Response and Resiliency

Hello Everyone,

Today is Giving Tuesday, and we’re encouraging everyone to help keep the arts alive with a donation to the Peterborough Arts Alive Fund. You can donate HERE.

The Peterborough Arts Alive Fund, administered jointly by the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough (CFGP) and the Electric City Culture Council (EC3), provides Strategic Response and Resiliency Grants to local charitable arts organizations working in any discipline and in any capacity (creation, production, exhibition, presentation, performance, etc.). These grants will assist organizations in managing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, responding creatively to the current situation and preparing to effectively reopen/relaunch when they can. Your donation will help keep theatres, concert halls, festivals and galleries alive and well, and ensure that artists can create and present their work.

Throughout the day on Facebook and Twitter, we are sharing stories of the challenges arts organizations are facing due to the pandemic. The Peterborough Arts Alive Fund will help these organizations survive the pandemic, and thrive when it’s all over.

Click to donate.

If you would prefer to give “directly” to the campaign, you can write a cheque to the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough and put “PAA Fund” in the memo line (and/or include a brief letter of explanation with the cheque). Cash can also be accepted with a letter of explanation – but please do not mail cash. Click here for the Foundation’s address.

For more information, email electriccitycc@gmail.com.

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

The Latest Artsweek SHIFT Project Explores Disability, Accessibility and Inclusion – Now and into the Future

Hello Everyone,

Artsweek SHIFT is on! This special COVID-19 project, produced and presented following the postponement of Artsweek 2020 to September 2021, is bringing six months of arts pop-ups to Peterborough, in person and online. In October and November, Downtown, curated by Justin Million, brought poetry readings to The Theatre on King and paintings by John Climenhage to downtown storefronts.

Now, the second project in Artsweek SHIFT, Post-Code Tour, is underway, and we wanted to tell you about it, as well as providing some other Artsweek SHIFT updates.

Read on for more details about all of this, and for up-to-the-minute updates, be sure to follow Artsweek on Facebook, @Ptbo_Artsweek on Twitter, and @artsweekptbo on Instagram, and check out the Artsweek SHIFT website for more information.

Post-Code Tour

Live on Instagram, Post-Code Tour (@post_code_tour) features multidisciplinary new works by local artists that explore disability, accessibility and inclusion in Peterborough, in the present day and far into the future. How do people with different abilities, who face challenges and barriers traversing our urban landscape, experience the city? How could it be different? What would that look like and how might we get there?

Curated by veteran Artsweek producer Hannah Keating, Post-Code Tour uses iconic downtown Peterborough locations like Millennium Park and Market Hall as jumping-off points for a discussion of how open our public spaces actually are. The project challenges three artists – multidisciplinary performance artist Sioux Lily Dickson, visual artist Bethany LeBlonc, and writer Derek Newman-Stille – to re-examine and re-imagine what these spaces are now, how they might change, and what they could become. Photography, video, painting, writing, design and illustration are all constructed to work on Instagram, presenting a radical view of people’s current experience and charting a course in the struggle for a different future.

The results of their work are being posted in installments throughout the month of November to @post_code_tour on Instagram, creating a virtual exhibition. Each week three works of art will be posted, one from each of the artists, all exploring the same space from their unique perspective and artistic medium. It will culminate the week of November 30 to December 4, to coincide with the International Day for Persons with Disabilities on December 3, 2020.

More Post-Code Tour events are coming in the new year, in person and online, with opportunities for the artists and community members to engage in deeper critical discussion about the issues the project has brought up.

Follow along on Instagram @post_code_tour to see the posts and for more announcements, coming soon.

All Artsweek SHIFT events are FREE!

‘Downtown’ Thank You

A big THANK YOU to everyone who took part in Artsweek SHIFT’s first project, Downtown: to curator Justin Million, for heading the project; to artist John Climenhage, for loaning us his gorgeous and haunting paintings; to all of the poets and spoken word artists (Jon Hedderwick, Katherine Heigh-Roper, Elizabeth Jenkins, Shaun Phuah, Nick Taylor and ziysah), for sharing their voices and their work; to Ryan Kerr and Kate Story at The Theatre on King, for their assistance and guidance; and all of the stores who took part (Dreams of Beans, Providence, Rare, The Sapphire Room, Sam’s Place Deli, St. Veronus Cafe and Tap Room, The Garnet and The Night Kitchen), for providing a space for John’s work.

Also thank you to the City of Peterborough and the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA) for their ongoing support of Artsweek and Artsweek SHIFT.

Open Call for Proposals

Artsweek SHIFT’s Open Call for Proposals is coming next week! EC3 will invite applications from local artists and arts organizations, for projects/events to take place, either in-person (following public health guidelines) or online, before March 31, 2021.

We will be sending out another Bulletin when this Open Call is live, or follow Artsweek on social media for announcements.

Follow Along

Details on all Artsweek SHIFT projects can be found on Artsweek SHIFT’s website, and regular updates will be provided on Artsweek’s Facebook, @Ptbo_Artsweek on Twitter, and @artsweekptbo on Instagram.

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101

“Local poet Justin Million becomes downtown Peterborough’s first artist in residence” by Sarah McNeilly, KawarthaNOW.

“Photos: Words, images, SHIFT in Peterborough,” The Peterborough Examiner.

With A Roundup of Recent Announcements:
EC3 is Hiring, Artsweek SHIFT, and a Special Thank You

Hello Everyone,

November is here and COVID-19 is still here. While short days and cool weather are on the agenda, so too are a wealth of great arts events, programs and opportunities. This Bulletin brings you a roundup of important announcements, a job opportunity and a special thank you. Stay tuned, because there is lots more to come.

Please be sure to follow us on Facebook, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram.

Announcing the 2020 Downtown Artist in Residence

EC3, in partnership with the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA) and Leslie Menagh of Madderhouse Textile Studios, is proud to announce that local poet Justin Million will be the 2020 Downtown Artist in Residence.

As Downtown Artist in Residence, Million will work out of Madderhouse Textile Studios (383 Water Street) in the heart of downtown Peterborough from mid-November to December 31, 2020, creating new work, as well as providing arts awareness and participation opportunities through events such as public performances, studio visits, and workshops.

Justin Million is a poet living in Peterborough. Through projects such as the Show and Tell Poetry Series, Keyboards!, and bird, buried press, Million has a track record both as a writer and a producer of creative events that support the literary and spoken word community, and provide audiences with unique live opportunities to experience some of the best literary artists in our region.

Watch for more announcements about Million’s project and public events.

EC3 is Hiring

EC3 is hiring an Arts Program and Production Assistant. This is a Canada Summer Jobs position, so we are looking for someone 30 years or younger. The deadline for applications is November 23, 2020. This is a great opportunity to get hands-on experience with our dedicated team of arts professionals and serve and support Peterborough’s arts, culture and heritage community.

See the job posting for more information.

Artsweek SHIFT

Artsweek SHIFT is underway! This project brings six months of great arts programming, online and in-person throughout Peterborough. Check out the Artsweek SHIFT website. Regular updates will be provided on Artsweek’s Facebook, @Ptbo_Artsweek on Twitter, and @artsweekptbo on Instagram. All Artsweek SHIFT events are FREE!

Here’s what’s coming up in Artsweek SHIFT:

This Saturday at 3pm, come out to The Theatre on King for An Afternoon of Spoken Word & Poetry #2 with poets Katherine Heigh, Justin Million, Shaun Phuah and Nick Taylor. Bring your mask, bring your own chair. (more info)

Menacing Beauty: The John Climenhage Storefront Project is on now until November 13. Stroll through downtown Peterborough and experience eight paintings by John Climenhage depicting the downtown during lockdown, displayed in storefront windows. (more info) You could even take it in as part of the First Friday Art Crawl tonight.

Post-Code Tour, curated by Hannah Keating, features local artists Derek Newman-Stille, Sioux Lily and Bethany LeBlonc in a futuristic digital exploration of iconic local sites that reimagines them through the lens of disability and accessibility. The project starts November 9 on Instagram – follow @post_code_tour to watch it unfold. (more info)

ESSENTIAL and KawarthaNOW

EC3 extends a huge and heartfelt thank you to KawarthaNOW for their outstanding support of our Peterborough Arts Alive program. Over the past two months, they have published 17 images featuring 20 artists from the ESSENTIAL Photo Project, which EC3 undertook with local photographer Julie Gagne. These eloquent photos documenting the lives of local artists during COVID-19 lockdown make us think about what has really mattered to us during the pandemic, what’s made a difference and helped us get through.

KawarthaNOW has been a fantastic partner on this project, providing outstanding design and editorial frameworks, while working tirelessly during this pandemic (and before) to get the word out about local arts and culture.

You can see the entire project – and lots of other Peterborough arts and culture coverage – on KawarthaNOW’s website.

Please stay well and let us know how we can help.
TRACK THE IMPACT.

As always, keep checking the EC3 Facebook page, @ECThreePtbo on Twitter, @ec3ptbo on Instagram, and the COVID-19 Updates page on EC3’s website, where we are providing daily updates on programs and services available for ACH workers and organizations.

Be safe, stay healthy, and please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Su Ditta and the EC3 Board and staff

Contact
Su Ditta
Executive Director
Electric City Culture Council (EC3)
electriccitycc@gmail.com
www.ecthree.org
705 749 9101