CCACS vision: A fully functioning, effective, efficient and well-respected agent for the support, promotion, and development of arts and culture in the Central Cariboo.
CCACS mission: To promote and support arts, culture, and the creative impulses necessary for their development in the Central Cariboo.
History
The Cariboo Regional District (CRD), in 2009, was the first rural BC Regional District to create an arts and culture function. In 2010, the Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Society (CCACS) was formed to administer this function. The CCACS also serves cultural organizations and events, and facilitates the development of arts and culture in the City of Williams Lake, and areas D,E and F of the CRD.
The notion of assisting the development of the arts is something the Society takes seriously—not simply supporting the status quo. The CCACS administers a biannual Grants Program, the CRD’s Fee-for-Service Program, and oversees the annual Performances in the Park concert series.
In 2010, the City of Williams Lake, together with the Cariboo Regional District, redeveloped the old fire hall into the Central Cariboo Arts Centre. The Society manages this facility, which provides studio space to four tenant groups and provides performance and meeting spaces for the broader arts community.
Mandate & Structure
The CCACS’s aim is to effectively administer an important function of local government, and to serve the cultural enrichment of the region. The Society’s purposes, as defined in its constitution, are as follows:
- Support artistic and cultural organizations and events in the Central Cariboo (the City of Williams Lake and areas D, E and F of the Cariboo Regional District)
- Facilitate, coordinate and assist in the development of arts and culture in the Central Cariboo
- Provide strategic advice on arts and culture to local governments and other organizations
- Educate the public with respect to arts and culture matters
The Society also manages the Central Cariboo Arts Centre.
The CCACS is not a “producing” organization. It is better described as a service organization which provides assistance to arts and culture groups and organizations within the region.
Sources of Funding
The Cariboo Regional District’s Central Cariboo Arts and Culture function provides funding for the Society. This function was established by CRD bylaw #4420 (2009), and dedicates tax revenue to arts and culture in the Regional District Areas D, E and F and the City of Williams Lake. All allocations to the Society from this function must be approved by the Regional District Board, on the recommendation of the Central Cariboo Joint Committee. This committee is made up of councillors of the City of Williams Lake, and elected directors of the Central Cariboo areas of the CRD.
Two service agreements are in place. One requires the Society to manage the Central Cariboo Arts Centre. The second, and more comprehensive, requires the Society to administer the arts and culture function. The agreement sets out the expectation that the Society will be active in leveraging funds for arts and culture from other sources. This is not to say, however, that the Society is to engage in fund raising on its own behalf—to do so would be fund raising at the expense of the region’s other arts and culture groups and hence contrary to the spirit of the mandate.
The Society’s Governance, Staffing, and Programs
The Society is a BC registered non-profit society governed by a seven-member Board of Directors. There is one full-time employee (the Executive Director), and one part-time employee (the Arts Centre Administrator).
The Central Cariboo Arts Centre is regularly used for meetings, rehearsals, workshops and performances. The Society continues to administer the grants program offering arts funding to groups and societies in the region, the CRD’s Fee-for-Service Program, and the annual outdoor summer concert series Performances in the Park.
