/ Arts and Culture
Special Interest Group

MINUTES

DATE: / 14 June 2013
TIME: / 1000 – 1400
VENUE: / Cardinia Room, Level 8, CH2, 240 Little Collins Street
CONVENOR: / Michelle Ely, City of Melbourne (03 9658 8889)
CHAIR: / Michelle Ely, City of Melbourne
MINUTES: / Gurjit Singh, City of Melbourne
ATTENDEES: / Michelle Ely – City of Melbourne
Gurjit Singh – City Of Melbourne
Mahony Kiely – Whittlesea City Council
Robyn Till - Macedon Ranges Shire Council
Maree Tonkin - Greater Bendigo City Council
Kristy Witmitz - Boroondara City Council
Suzanne Snooks - Kingston City Council
Melissa Hayes - Port Phillip City Council
Sandra Margulius - Yarra City Council
Dean Micheal - Brimbank City Council
Greg Box - Yarra Ranges Shire Council
Rosalie Hastwell - Maroondah City Council
Patricia Keenan - Moonee Valley City Council
Jo Herbig - Knox City Council
Ella Doonan - Stonnington City Council
Simone Hogg - Wodonga City Council (via Skype)
John Smithies –CDN
Martin Paten- Artistic Director Castlemaine Festival
Andrew Walsh- Director White Nite Festival
Lisa Daniel – Artistic Director Queer Film
Fran Kerlin- City of Melbourne 2014 AIDS Conference
APOLOGIES / Jennifer Gazeas - Boroondara City Council
Jillian McKeague -Moreland City Council
Tegan Lang - Mount Alexander Shire Council
Megan Pascoe - Mornington Peninsula Shire Council

Michelle Ely welcomed members to the SIG meeting.

Item / Notes
1)National Local Government Cultural Forum / John Smithies discussed the National Local Government Cultural Forum:
·  The next meeting will be in Canberra on 19 June. One of the speakers will be Rupert Myer.
·  This is a national role for local governments to participate in relation to cultural forums.
·  CEO’s and Arts & Culture Managers from several local government authorities will be attending allowing for stronger connection between authorities in all states.
2) Castlemaine Festival / Martin Paten, the Director of the Castlemaine Festival discussed the festival.
Martin discussed the strengths and challenges of developing and running a Regional arts festival. The festival will celebrate the 20th anniversary in 2015.
Some of recent achievements include:
·  A stronger program delivered by the creative team
·  Commissioned new works across all disciplines
·  Programs that were sold out
·  Building strong regional audiences and commitment to the festival-along with attracting metropolitan and inner city visitation
·  Building a strong return on investment for the town and surroundings areas
3) Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) / Lisa Daniel, the artistic director of MQFF gave an overview of the history of the festival and its positioning within the film arena.
The 2013 MQFF attracted an audience of over 20,000. 650 films were submitted to participate and 150 were selected for inclusion in the festival. The festival ran for 12 days and most films were shown at ACMI. Overall 120 volunteers participated and only 3 part-time staff run the event.
Lisa’s 16 years with MQFF has allowed for good networking opportunities. Currently MQFF has received a long term support from the City of Melbourne and great support from the local media.
The challenges for MQFF include:
·  Engage a younger audience
·  MQFF aims to attract a 15-25 year old demographic
·  Lack of support from other funding bodies such as Screen Australia
·  Change in film technology from celluloid reels to USB sticks
·  Corporate sponsorship is getting harder as the gay and lesbian community
4) White Night Festival / Andrew Walsh, the creative Director of the White Night Festival discussed the festival.
The 12 hour dusk to dawn event was a first for Melbourne and was modeled on similar events around the world. The first was held in Paris about 20 years ago.
For the 2nd White Night Festival, the organisers will be working closely with other major Arts & Culture organisations to either have their own programs or work in partnership with the organisers. They hope to have 45 separate venues and 300 artists participating. The event is expecting an audience of up to 400,000. Social media was critical to the success of the first event and will play an even bigger role in 2014.
Challenges will include how to exceed the expectation from the 1st White night and also to expand the precinct to include Carlton and Southbank. Other challenges include expanding the content and reduce crowd pressure.
5) World AIDS conference / Fran Kerlin, from the Melbourne Events , City of Melbourne discussed the World AIDS conference.
The conference dates are 19 - 25 July 2014 costing about $65M to organise.
CoM will be investing $500K for this biennial conference which is going to be the largest conference to occur in Australia. It hopes to attract 25,000 attendees. There will be about 2000 media personnel and volunteers involved. It is also expecting activism around the conference venue.
City of Melbourne’s role will be:
·  To provide an arts, cultural and sporting experience to the participants.
·  To have partnerships with MTC, Arts Centre and the NGV to have exhibitions for the participants.
·  Creation of a “Red City” (red being the colour of the AIDS Conference) - to have the Arts Centre spire, fountains, streetlights and boulevards to have red lights or red light projections.
Next Meeting-
LGPro Conference Working Group Catch -Up / 10am on Friday 13 September 2013
Venue : City of Melbourne - TBC
Chair: Michelle Ely
RSVP to Dot Borland at the email below

For any further information, please contact LGPro:

Office: (03) 9268 6400

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