CAO Announcement
Community Arts Ontario Suspends Operations

“The board and staff at Community Arts Ontario (CAO) regret to announce the suspension of operations at our 401 Richmond St. West location effective October 31, 2012. We will be available via email at cao@communityartsontario.ca until the end of 2012.

While Community Arts Ontario’s vision statement still stands…

CAO envisions diverse communities across Ontario expressing and celebrating a multiplicity of stories, experiences, and identities through community arts engagement, collaboration, and relationship building…

the organization is no longer able to carry out its mission. The last few years have been very challenging at CAO. The board did not spare any effort to revive the organization, after it was hit by consistent funding cuts, programing challenges and changes in leadership.

Although we are saddened by the folding of yet another community organization that serves the arts and the artists, particularly those from marginalized and racialized communities, we are proud of the CAO’s 20 year history. We are also very hopeful that there are many other community groups who are better equipped and ready to carry on such services into the future.

In review, Community Arts Ontario was established in 1990, first as a volunteer organization serving community arts councils. As CAO established itself as a province-wide arts service organization, it undertook strategic planning exercises and research projects that resulted in opening membership to other community arts and cultural development organizations, and later to organizations and individual artists involved in community arts practices. The programs and services that developed reflected this changing constituency.

The outreach program that CAO was most proud of was the Annual Gathering. Held in a different Ontario community each year and co-facilitated with a community partner, the event promoted and supported community arts practice in that particular town or city. Highly successful Gatherings locations include Owen Sound, Hamilton, Manitoulin Island, Toronto, Temagami and Kitchener. These were rich and memorable experiences that were bold in their vision to link arts with issues of social and political concern specific to these communities.

The most successful service that CAO provided to its members was the CAO Insurance Program that had been negotiated with Halpenny Insurance Brokers to provide discounted liability insurance to its member arts organizations. The good news is that the insurance program will continue. CAO has negotiated an agreement with Artist-Run Centres and Collectives of Ontario (ARCCO) to take over the administration of the program. Halpenny Insurance has confirmed: All members who renewed their Community Arts Ontario membership in 2012 will qualify for the upcoming January 2, 2013 – January 2, 2014 renewal term under the new Halpenny Insurance ARCCO Insurance Program. Details regarding the transfer will follow in a separate document to CAO members currently participating in the program.

Along the way, there are many people to thank, including all the board volunteers who have donated so much of their valuable time for so many years, and the many members, friends, community partners and funding agencies that have supported CAO. The board would like to particularly thank Nancy Chong for her steadfast commitment to CAO to the very end.”

Community Arts Ontario
Board of Directors

 

– posted with permission from Nancy Chong, Community Arts Ontario

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