Operating Support
ACHF Arts Access
Strengthen/develop strategic relationships and partnerships with community arts and cultural organizations, educational partners, and social service groups to insure access to and participation in our programming. Provide regional schools opportunities to connect through workshops, school only performances, and related events. Cooperate with other community organizations to present visiting artists in performance and through outreach opportunities. Continue the dialogue that helps identify how to best provide access to visiting artists' performances and outreach opportunities to regional social service groups. Our main stage programs all have paper surveys available for people to answer specific questions and to add comments about their experiences. Through interviews with partner collaborators we determine which aspects of which events were successful and which will require further refinement. Through personal interviews with outreach participants we learned what was valued and what was less so. Our ongoing conversations with school educators assist us in better providing meaningful and useful events. The senior focus of afternoon events is valued by the participants. The attendance numbers indicate we will need to do marketing if we are to continue with these programs to make this a more widely used resource for the community. 2: Develop ongoing conversations with community groups that work with nontraditional and underrepresented community members. Connect with seniors at the Winona Senior Friendship Center and provide outreach programs with opportunities for hands-on and audience participation. Invite patrons of local social agencies to our events, and provide transportation, mentorship, and support as required. Provide fully subsidized access and study guides for underserved students in regional rural schools to access workshops and conversation with artists. Through paper surveys distributed at our main stage programs we receive direct feedback from audience members. We also informally interview partner organization staff and participants at outreach events. We report our findings at staff briefings and make notes for improvements needed or ideas generated. Through personal interviews with organizational staff that choose to not participate or are unable to, we learn more of their needs and how we can look to provide programming either on-site, as at the Winona Senior Center, or in the case of rural schools either at their facility or a nearby partner group. We seek to continue improving our ability to serve the larger community.
We collaborated with the Winona County History Center through three Page in History events. We partnered with the Winona Public Library for two related Gatherings at the Library programs. Two Off The Page events were held at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, as well as two music related workshops held at the Winona Senior Center. Seventeen school groups participated in our school matinee performances, some for multiple events. The Tibetan Monks residency welcomed many community members to view the sand mandala construction and hands-on community sand painting; the lecture at the Winona History Center; the opening and closing ceremony; the public performance; and lectures for university and high school students. We initiated opportunities for seniors to participate in our performances by creating an abbreviated The Nutcracker late afternoon matinee; and for the first time we invited seniors and others to the matinee performance by the Dance Repertory Company. 2: We provided two music related programs in association with the Winona Senior Friendship Center that included a story telling/song workshop with Simone Perrin and Dan Chouinard and holiday sing-along with singer Vanessa Trouble. Both were well attended and positive feedback was provided by both the administrators and participants. We provided a senior-friendly afternoon performance of The Accidental Hero. We also opened up the morning matinee to seniors of the Dance Repertory Company's spring concert. We invited members of Big Brother Big Sisters, Family and Child Center, Winona Senior Center, and various senior housing facilities to these events as well as to an abridged The Nutcracker matinee. We had less good luck connecting to more regional outlying schools in Minnesota. School officials identified lack of funding, logistics of transport, school schedules, and weather as aspects of their non-participation in further programs.
Other
local or private