Networking the Networks: National Arts Service Organization (NASO) meeting 2012

Louise Camp­bell

I rep­re­sent­ed the CNMN at the annu­al meet­ing of the Nation­al Arts Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tion meet­ing held in Octo­ber 2012. This meet­ing acts as a ‘meta-net­work’: arts net­works from across the coun­try gath­er to bet­ter under­stand each other’s man­dates, share com­pe­ten­cies, iden­ti­fy issues, team up on projects, and brain­storm direc­tions and solu­tions for the future. The meet­ing was full of peo­ple rep­re­sent­ing orga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing artists and orga­ni­za­tions do what they do, giv­ing an extra­or­di­nary rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the live­ly diver­si­ty of the Cana­di­an arts milieu. Hav­ing attend­ed the NASO meet­ing in 2010, the evo­lu­tion of the meta-net­work was clear: the buzz in the room was that of peo­ple not just meet­ing for the first time, but of on-going dis­cus­sions between peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions with things to talk about and projects under­way. One small exam­ple of the meta-net­work in action: CNMN is now in dis­cus­sion with the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­di­an Choral Com­mu­ni­ties to dis­trib­ute CNMN’s Cre­ative Music Resource list­ing to choirs across the coun­try, pro­vid­ing access to choir direc­tors and singers with lots of ideas for cre­ative music making.

The major com­mon­al­i­ty between the NASOs is that each engages in lob­by­ing gov­ern­ment and indus­try agen­cies in the inter­est of their mem­bers, and com­mu­ni­cates changes as they occur with­in these agen­cies to their mem­ber­ship. Coop­er­a­tion between NASOs lends far greater weight to lob­by­ing efforts, since the more cit­i­zens we rep­re­sent, the more elect­ed offi­cials take notice. The main top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion of the meet­ing was the Cana­da Coun­cil change agen­da and what this means for artists: more on that in the next arti­cle. At the end of the day, it was clear that we’re all nav­i­gat­ing the same waters, and work­ing togeth­er will help us all bet­ter weath­er some­times unpre­dictable seas.

 

Direct arti­cle link: Net­work­ing the Net­works: Nation­al Arts Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tion (NASO) Meet­ing 2012
15th edi­tion CNMN Bul­letin — Win­ter 2013