January 18, 2023
On December 8th, we held our 2022 Annual Meeting where we shared updates on our Portal of transformation, strategic planning, and plans for the next year. You can watch the full recording here.
One highlight of the meeting was when Executive Director Quanice G. Floyd, with the help of special guest vocalist (and co-founder and Executive Director of Hear Us, Hear Them Ensemble) Jamie Sharp, demonstrated the power of channeling the intense challenges, trauma, and grief of the past few years into song. Quanice spoke passionately about how community arts educators became first responders in their communities during the pandemic, and the essential role that they continue to play.
"In the midst of one of the most trying times in human history, people turned to the arts and arts education to convey their feelings, their hopes, their prayers, their emotions, their wishes.
And your work kept our communities together."
—Guild Executive Director Quanice G. Floyd
The performance served as a representation of why the Guild has entered a transformative period that we are calling the "Portal"—in the context of the new world that we're all living in, we see an urgent need to think critically about how we work, in order to adapt, evolve, and better serve community arts educators as they face today's challenges.
Quanice then shared some of our accomplishments and learnings so far in the Portal, what we've been hearing from the field, and our priorities for 2023. We concluded with our strategic planning consultants, Heather Heslup and Allegra Mercedes Brown, sharing information about the strategic planning process and how community input will be incorporated into the plan. Keep an eye out for more info about an upcoming feedback session for members!
Watch the recording here.
Published: January 18, 2023