The Northwest Connecticut Arts Council serves both the general public and the cultural community in its 23-town service area and surroundings by acting as a hub for all aspects of cultural information and resources to ensure that culture thrives in and around our region.  Through the Cultural Events Calendar, the Cultural Directory, the Culture Beat newsletter, the Take Part Culture Card program, advocacy efforts, and more, the Arts Council encourages all segments of our society to become involved in and to benefit from the wide variety of cultural offerings available.  The arts and related cultural focuses are integral contributors to the quality of life in the region, impacting social, educational, and economic elements throughout.  The Northwest Connecticut Arts Council aims to help everyone become much more aware of our many cultural assets and the valuable role that they play.

 

MISSION: The mission of the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council is to promote the arts and cultural resources of Northwestern Connecticut as integral contributors to the quality of life in the region, to assist all artists and cultural organizations in their efforts to thrive, and to inform the general public about, and give access to the arts and culture of the region.

The region served by the Arts Council includes Barkhamsted, Bethlehem, Colebrook, Cornwall, Falls Village/Canaan, Goshen, Hartland, Harwinton, Kent, Litchfield, Morris, New Hartford, New Milford, Norfolk, North Canaan, Plymouth, Salisbury/Lakeville, Sharon, Thomaston, Torrington, Warren, Washington, and Winchester/Winsted.

During its first year of operation, the Arts Council conducted and obtained funding for an in-depth Regional Cultural Assessment, the results of which are now being used to guide the Council as it moves forward in serving the 23-town region.  The Arts Council is grateful to the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism and the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation for funding the Cultural Assessment, and greatly appreciates the support it received from the Community Foundation of Northwest Connecticut (formally the Torrington Area Foundation for Public Giving) and the Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce for their commitment and support during the very important first years.

The Arts Council is pleased to say that the goals that were set for 2005 have been achieved.  They included launching a contributing membership program, a newsletter, a regional calendar of events in online-searchable form, promoting the Events Clearinghouse Calendar as a planning tool, introducing incentive programs to encourage greater participation in the region's cultural offerings, hosting gatherings of the cultural community, and establishing the Cultural Resource Directory database on line. 

The goals for 2006 are to publish and distribute region-wide a print version of the Cultural Events calendar each month, to host workshops for artists and cultural organizations, to host a major region-wide arts event, to successfully encourage the cultural community and those serving it to submit their listings to the Cultural Resource Directory, to continue to promote cultural offerings through the Take Part culture card program, to increase the number of contributing memberships, and to assertively promote the Council's services to the general public.  Support from the public and the funding community will help make all these goals a reality.