Wisconsin Rural Arts & Culture Forum

On Tuesday I attended the Wisconsin Rural Arts & Culture Forum along with about fifty other peole. This forum is held every year and moves around the state. This was Menomonie's turn.

The forum used most of the Mabel Tainter Memorial building, starting out in the morning in the Spirit Room with coffee and breakfast, moving up to the theatre for most of the events, and ending in the Gallery upstairs for some round-table discussions. 

After coffee and snacks, the meeting started with a discussion of tourism and marketing, led by Tammy Simon, Tourism Director at the Menomonie Chamber of Commerce. This was an informative session covering tourism dollars and arts in the area. Arts are an economic driver. During this session a check from the Department of Tourism for $28,204 was presented to Tammy Simon and Becca Schoenborn to fund advertising for the upcoming Menomonie Murals event. 

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This was followed by a roundtable on resources and opportunities for arts in Wisconsin. Members of the panel were Delia Kovac, Deputy Director of the WEDC Office of Rural Prosperity, Georgina Tagert, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Dunn County, and Audric Buhr,  Theater Director at UW-Stout. Tagert explained the role of Community Foundations, while Kovac and Buhr explained the irrent projects of their own organizations.

Lunch was provided and that time was used for networking between the attendees, followed by a tour of the beautiful Mabel Tainter Memorial.

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Another panel followed on state and federal budget issues, with State Senator Jeff Smith, George Tzougros, Director of the Wisconisn Arts Board, and Ann Katz, Director of Create Wisconsin. 

The day closed out with a number of roundtable action discussions on multiple topics, and  a happy hour with more networking between the participants.