Rural Institute for a Creative Economy

Subject: RURAL INSTITUTE FOR A CREATIVE ECONOMY ANNAPOLIS & AREA
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:02:08 -0300

FYI Klaus and I were delighted to be part of this effort to bring a catalyst
(a rural institute) into our area to help with our shift to a "creative rural
economy".It was inspiring to be in a room with over 30 people who all had a deep
respect for our rural life and the vision and skills tohelp work together to
actually have something innovative and creative come out of it all. The
discussions were great and everyone seemed toshare the same page with respect to
small scale and sustainability, etc. This summer there will be a mapping of all
of the artists in Annapolis and area -Don Rice and ourselves are hoping that
"and area" will include us artists who live on the Digby side too. Will keep
you posted.Business News ReportCULTURAL MAPPING AND CREATIVE ECONOMY WORKSHOP
Team Annapolis may be more of a nickname than an organization, but in the last
year Heather Leblanc, Linda Brown, Bob Maher, Amery Boyer, and friends have
accomplished some pretty unique projects, including last fall’s Living for Today
and Tomorrow Energy and Climate Change conference in Annapolis Royal, and the
totally unique Ride the Lobster event, an 800-kilometer unicycle marathon which
drew over 100 unicyclists from 13 countries to race through 130 communities from
Yarmouth to Baddeck. Imagine, this is a group that recognizes a unicycle race
tracked online via GPS-units strapped to each racer can draw international media
attention for Nova Scotia’s tourism industry and form the core of entertainment
events along the route. Frankly, Nova Scotia could use more of that kind of
thinking. So, it isn’t surprising that Team Annapolis is responsible for
spearheading a recent workshop on Cultural Mapping and the Creative Rural
Economy. The event attracted participants from varied backgrounds ranging from
artists and artisans to engineers, development agents, entrepreneurs, research
scientists, naturalists, real estate agents, elected officials and CAOs. What
does a creative economy mean? Why do we want a creative economy? And, what do we
do in the short term in order to build one for the long term? By day’s end,
these questions still hung heavy in the air, but the workshop was successful
nonetheless. Although it asked more questions than it answered, it asked good
questions and drew together exactly the people most likely to work together over
the coming years to answer them, and that’s a very good start. Now that Team
Annapolis has opened the toolshed on discussions like how to developing a Banff
Centre for the Arts-like education institution in Annapolis Royal, we can roll
up our sleeves and get down to the nitty gritty of building the creative rural
economy. Or, in the words of Team Annapolis member Heather Leblanc, “Let’s stop
talking about things that can’t be done. Let’s talk about what can be done. I
don’t want to study this anymore – I want to move forward.”cheers, Klaus and
Shirley
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