Background

Over the last 20 years, there have been previous attempts at creating a county-wide arts council serving the creative community in Oxford. In the summer of 2003 a cultural focus group was held in Oxford. Thirty-five individuals representing a cross-section of creative artists, performing artists, curators, museum organizations, arts organizations, senior municipal staff and individual artists met to discuss the benefits of working collaboratively. At the end of that session there was consensus that creating an umbrella arts/heritage/cultural organization could be an exciting way to bring together the 'creative class' in Oxford.

However, no one took the lead as the 'change agent'. Then in October of 2005 another cultural focus group was held and a brainstorming session with over 60 participants and it was concluded that the time had come to look at the development of a roundtable. A small task force comprised of volunteers from that focus group met over the winter months and took the momentum to the next level.

The outcome was collaboration between Tourism Oxford, The Oxford Community Foundation and the Oxford Small Business Support Centre to apply on behalf of the entire creative community, for Ontario Trillium Foundation funding. With that funding in place, Dr. Greg Baeker was hired to provide research and guidance to take Oxford to the next level which included research and community consultation through 35 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and a web-based survey completed by 90 people in the community. Throughout this process, a database of over 400 contacts from the broadly defined cultural community across Oxford County was also developed for future communications.