The BreakFest Blog
News about Ottawa Festivals and our Member festivals, special events and fairs.
Cartoons! Part of the Ottawa brand?
Last night a group of people congregated at Power House Memphis to take in “Micro Cinema Club No. 53: The Best of Ottawa 2008,” as part of a mini-film festival devoted to the art of the short film that is hosted by Indie Memphis. On the bill were shorts culled from the 2008 edition of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
This is a great example of how festivals and events occurring in Ottawa can extend well beyond the boarders of the National Capital Region while helping to define Ottawa’s “sense of place” and contributing to the “Ottawa brand”. These are important factors in positioning Ottawa as a cultural and creative hotbed – often cited as key factors in both people’s decision about where to visit and where to live.
How important was the availability of cultural experiences in your decision to relocate or remain living in Ottawa?
If you have recently visited Ottawa, was it due to our cultural attractions and events? What role did that play in your decision to visit Ottawa?
United Way Sharing Our Strengths Community Conference
The last couple of days, Barb Stacey, Lee Dunbar and Tamer Mansey from the Ottawa Festivals staff participated in the United Way Sharing Our Strengths Community Conference in Ottawa.
We would like to extend our thanks and congratulations to the staff and volunteers who put the conference together. Great Job!
Throughout the two-day conference, we attended workshops on:
- Collaborative Community Relationship Building presented by City of Ottawa, Aboriginal Working Committee; Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition; and United Way;
- Community Hubs – Harnessing the Benefits of Shared Spaces and Shared Services presented by United Way;
- Board Selection and Governance presented by Stonewood Group;
- Lessons Learned on the Implementation of Outcomes Evaluation presented by United Way;
- Banking Strategies to Enhance your Organization’s Financial and Operational Success presented by RBC Royal Bank;
- The Fundamentals of Strategic Planning presented by Governance Solutions Consulting;
- Reaching In, Reaching Out presented by Andrew Fleck Child Care Services;
- Grant Writing for Success presented by Ontario Trillium Foundation;
- Conducting Organizational Capacity Assessments presented by United Way and Governing Solutions Consulting; and
- Working Better, Together: Sharing HR Services presented by HR Council for the Voluntary Non-profit Sector.
Rent your wheels in bike share trial
There is an article in Metro Ottawa about a pilot program being undertaken by NCC, Gatineau and Ottawa to promote healthier/cleaner transportation by way of bike rental. It is an idea borrowed from other communities that have this infrastructure in-place, and festivals such as Rideau Canal Festival and Bluesfest already promote the use of bikes as a preferred source of transportation to get to their events. We’ll be interested in seeing the findings of the project this Fall.
TRACEY TONG | METRO OTTAWA
This summer, residents on both sides of the river will be able to take advantage of fast, healthy, eco-friendly transit – without owning their own bikes.
The National Capital Commission and the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau launched their Ottawa-Gatineau Bike Share Trial Run Monday. The program – which allows residents, workers and visitors in the National Capital Region to travel in a greener way – is also part of a feasibility study for a permanent bike share program.
“This is another positive step towards making the National Capital Region a more vibrant, livable and attractive place,” said NCC CEO Marie Lemay. “It lays the groundwork for a broader progressive initiative that encourages environmentally friendly travel.”
Read the full story: Rent your wheels in bike share trial
Ottawa Twestival: using Twitter to raise money and awareness for charity
On February 12, 2009 Ottawa will join over 184 cities across the globe bringing people together through the social networking service, Twitter, to raise money and awareness for charity: water – a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.
The Ottawa event, which will coincide with events the world over will feature local musicians, comedians and lots of goodies for grabs through a silent auction. The night will kick-off at 7 p.m. at Suite 34, 34 Clarence Street in the Byward Market area. This event is supported and brought together by local businesses and social networkers, including Ben Watson of Overlay.TV, Ryan Anderson of Fat Canary Communications, and Kevin Waghorn, an Ottawa-based event organizer.
Full article available here – Ottawa Canada Twestival 2009
Festival Plaza to be renamed in honour of Marion Dewar
The City of Ottawa is paying tribute to Marion Dewar.
Rachael Raven | Centretown News
Paying tribute to former Ottawa mayor and peace activist Marion Dewar, Festival Plaza will be renamed Marion Dewar Plaza next spring.
City council made the decision last week after consultations with the Dewar family.
The plaza is a space located between city hall and Laurier Avenue across from Confederation Park and is the home of many festivals and events such as Winterlude, Bluesfest and the mayor’s annual Christmas celebration.
As mayor, Dewar campaigned against nuclear disarmament and fought to improve low-income housing and childcare. She also launched Project 4000, trying to find sponsors for 4,000 Vietnamese refugees living in Ottawa.
Full story: Festival Plaza to be renamed in honour of Marion Dewar
Writers Festival Silent Auction – send us your swag!
We’d like to forward a message from our friends over at The Ottawa International Writers Festival who are looking for items to place in their silent auction.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture,” Ray Bradbury wrote. “Just get people to stop reading them.”
The Ottawa International Writers Festival is a force for literacy, and not only through its festival programming. Its Step into Stories festival brings the world’s best writers and illustrators into contact with young readers, many from disadvantaged schools. The festival, with its literacy partners, is working to create opportunities for readers and writers who have been pushed to the margins for too long.
And you can help.
The 2009 Spring edition of the Festival will feature, for the first time, a silent auction to raise funds for the festival’s literacy programming. We need friends of the Festival to donate signed books, photographs or other items. Ideally, the item for sale should have some connection to the festival, or at the very least to the writing life, but that connection can be … creative. (Have a cellar of wonderful wine that pairs well with a good read?)
A festival of riches
A recent article in the Ottawa Citizen outlines the impoertance of the festival industry to the communities in which they are hosted.
Growing evidence suggests it would be counter-productive for governments to endanger the province’s festivals with dramatic funding cuts, simply because such events might seem like frills.
Ontario’s various festivals — ranging from Ottawa’s Canadian Tulip Festival to the Shaw Festival at Niagara on the Lake and everything in between — are actually engines of the economy, contributing more than half a billion dollars every year to the province’s coffers and creating tens of thousands of jobs, according to Festival and Events Ontario. Many people who attend the world-renowned Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, for example, will stay in hotels in the city, eat in local restaurants and visit other sights of interest. They might even decide they want to live in a city like Ottawa after attending a festival here because of the quality of life it offers.
In addition to the economic uplift that results from festivals, there are less easy to define benefits, such as bringing people together, and helping to give communities an identity. Stratford and Shaw, whose theatre festivals draw visitors from around the world, largely owe their identities to their festivals.
The economic benefits of festivals are something Ottawa residents should understand as well as anyone. With 40 festivals in the city each year, Ottawa might well be the festival capital of Ontario, if not the country.
Read the full story: A festival of riches
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