Durham Arts Council

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Durham Cultural Master Plan

Durham County has launched the creation of the Durham Cultural Master Plan to create the vision and plan for the sustainability and continued development of its diverse cultural resources. The year-long planning process will be led by nationally recognized planning firm, Wolf, Keens & Co..

The entire community will have the opportunity to articulate the citizens' vision of current and future county cultural priorities through community meetings, surveys and interviews. The result will be a dynamic plan that identifies Durham County citizens' cultural assets and needs, focuses resources where they are most needed, and provides concrete implementation strategies to answer those needs.

MaryAnn Black, former Chairman of the Durham County Commissioners, Peter Anlyan, Chair of the Durham Chamber of Commerce, and Sylvia Kerckhoff, former Mayor of Durham serve as Co-Chairs for the 62 member, County-appointed Steering Committee which will oversee the planning process. The Durham Arts Council provides local administrative support for the project.

The completed plan is scheduled for spring of 2004. The plan will continue to provide critical guidance to cultural policy decision makers in the coming years. Click here for a detailed Fact Sheet of the Plan.

Discussion Papers from June 17th Community Meeting, Hayti Heritage Center

On June 17th we held the first Community Meeting to gather citizens' opinions and concerns for the Durham Cultural Master Plan. Over 115 people attended and lively discussions were held around seven different topics. Below you will find Discussion Papers, in Adobe pdf format, summarizing those conversations. Please read any or all of them and send us your thoughts, whether or not you were at the meeting. We will be having additional Community Meetings in September and October (see below for October). Details coming soon!

Discussion Papers:

Fostering Cultural Diversity
Supporting Economic Development
Imrpoving Cultural Education
Strengthening Leadership
Building Cultural Audiences
Sustaining Cultural Organizations
Increasing Cultural Funding

Please send your comments or inquiries to: mdemott@durhamarts.org. Thank you for your interest.

Next Community Meeting - Please Come!

The next community meeting in the planning process will be held on October 15, 2003 at the Museum of Life and Science at 433 West Murray Avenue in Durham. Parking is available at the main entrance. For directions, visit their Web site at www.ncmls.org or call 919-220-5429.

The meeting will be led by Marc Goldring of Wolf, Keens and Company and Lynette Turner of AMS Planning and Research. Citizen input gathered at the meeting will continue to shape the rest of the planning process. The meeting will begin with an overview of issues identified to date and then move to small group discussions of issues such as cultural education, racial and cultural diversity, economic development, cultural facilities. Participants will have the chance to comment at the meeting and at the Web site.