Each year the Town has an evening where awards are made to citizens who have made significant contributions to the community. These are mostly for volunteers but also include sporting achievements and bravery. Professionals and town employees are not eligible. The selection is made by a committee chaired this year by Karen Chalovich and they are now accepting nominations. Any citizen can make a nomination but it’s not a trivial task since you need to get supporting documents from others who agree with your choice. You can get the necessary forms from the Town by download (link below) or pick them up from the Town Hall. The “Theme” this time will be “Arts and Culture” so cultural organizations are encouraged to nominate “…dedicated individuals who selflessly volunteer their time to make our community rich and vibrant.”
This year, the awards will be presented in a ceremony on April 10, 2019 and the MC will be Olinda Casimiro, Executive Director of the Art Gallery of Northumberland. Recipients of major awards will receive a Hoselton sculpture of Victoria Hall and others will receive pins and certificates. [The photo at right is of the award I received as the 2016 Senior of the Year]. Go to the links below to access a report on the last one (Cobourg’s Feel Good Night).
A key decision when making a nomination is to choose the category from this list:
- Angus & Bernice Read Volunteer Award
- Outstanding Youth Award
- Outstanding Senior Award
- Bravery Award
- Arts and Culture Award
- Sportsmanship Award
- Layton Dodge Athletic Award
- Environmental Award
- Heritage Award
- Lloyd C. Stinson Award for Community Service
- Distinguished Civic Awards for
- Arts and Culture
- Athletics
- Accessibility
- Community Service
- Environment
- Education & Technology
- Heritage
The deadline for nominations is Monday, February 15, 2019.
Links
- Official Town Brochure – also available at Victoria Hall, the CCC and the Library.
- Nomination Forms online – Town website page
- Cobourg’s Feel Good night – 5 April 2018
Print Article:
Great to see ‘Arts and Culture’ chosen for this year’s Civic Awards’ theme.
This area of Cobourg’s life is almost completely the domaine of volunteers.
There is a bit of public funding to support our volunteers, but even that rouses the ire of the ‘Back to Basics’ folks.
So celebrate our Arts and Culture and all who serve in it!
Walter, why is Art(s) so often appended to the concept of culture, just as has been done here, when culture includes sciences, beliefs (including religions), behaviour, sport, customs, dress and adornments, etc.? Why do we not let Art(s) stand alone? Why do the Arts appear to struggle for support and to survive in a world that embraces and willingly supports, on a grand scale, so many other elements of society? We could begin by celebrating the Arts independently of the cultural umbrella. Perhaps the hugely diverse element of Art(s) spreads resources too thinly to support sustainability in some sectors without the extensive contributions provided through volunteerism. Lumping together all of its sectors under one label, Arts, might actually be detrimental to the sustainability of each sector under it’s own strengths. Let’s avoid the convenience of referring to the individual arts as simply the ‘ARTS’ and identify them individually. Who knows, it might lead to stronger support for individual sectors and appear less of an ever struggling money pit in general.
Good points, Manfred!
And the ‘Back to Basics” Ford folks are cutting funding for the Provincial Trillium Foundation.
Walter, would you be so kind as to share the source of this information?
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/12/14/tories-cut-cultural-funding-revamp-tribunals-in-scramble-for-savings.html
thank you Walter
“Let’s avoid the convenience of referring to the individual arts as simply the ‘ARTS’ and identify them individually.”
And what are they individually? List? And what is the problem with “convenience” that it should be avoided?
Why avoid the intersectionality of the arts?
some of the heavy weights would include dance, acting, music written, played and sung, graphics, painting, sculpting, writing, intellectual pursuits, design of all kinds, for starters…and others that you could add I’m supposing. If I wanted to support the “Arts” I might want to focus on any one or more as opposed to having my support doled out irrespective of my preferences, by some funding formula or wide scope organization. As for convenience, why not refer to the individual arts when discussing them rather than lumping them all together as if they are unable to stand alone? No need to avoid their connections but better to give each their individual attention as well.
OK, lets pay attention to the huge genre of conceptual arts and its spinoff genres. What should Cobourg do to enhance/enrich itself with the conceptual arts, and let’s specify the post-modernist arts. .
You claimed that “writing” is a heavy weight to be treated as an individual art from the other heavy weights, rather than under the umbrella, The Arts. In a single word, writing, you have mixed fiction from non-fiction, children’s books to mysteries to historical novels or short stories or playwriting, etc etc etc, and all of these atomize into further sub groups. By your definition, that should be more convenient; identify the individual arts from “The Arts.”
The Canada Council for the Arts. We know what that is. It is a fed org that supports The Arts, says so in its name. It is not the Canada Council for Dance, nor the Canada Council for Acting, nor the Canada Council for Music, Played and Sung. That would be inconvenient, not to say cumbersome and unnecessarily complicated.
notwithstanding all this banter about putting too fine a point on the aspect of the ‘Arts’, I’m coming back to the jyst of my original point, the “Theme” of this year’s awards being “Arts and Culture”. My thinking is that by having a theme like “Culture” OR “Arts” it might be more beneficial for the Arts to be standalone rather than perhaps be seen more as a tag along riding the coattails of Culture. Of course, a theme of “Culture” would pretty much encompass all aspects of community life and consequently not highlight any one area of interest as a ‘theme’ is meant to do. So perhaps a theme of “the Arts” would be more in keeping with the purpose of having a theme in the first place, if that’s what was intended all along.
Arts and Culture are siblings. Your jyst is flaccid.