The Municipality of Tweed and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs are proud and excited to announce the Agenda for the 2018 Teeny Tiny Summit, Creating our Future: Finding the EXTRAORDINARY in the Ordinary, to be held on June 14 at Trudeau Park in Tweed!
Location: Trudeau Park Resort, 15 Trudeau Lane, Tweed, ON K0K 3J0
Lisa Marie Diliberto
Artiste Director
Charles Ketchabaw
Managing Director
Peter Smith
Project Director
Don DeGenova
Councillor in the Municipality of Tweed
Tweed & Co Theatre
Creator and producer of Original Canadian Musical Theatre
Wendy Merkley
Retired Information Technology Executive
Rachelle Hardesty
Manager of Community Development
Stephanie Sims
Community Connections Facilitator
Katherine Sedgwick
Journalist, writer and community worker
Jeff Mills
Coordinator Community Development
Sherryl Smith
Active volunteer in Pakenham Ontario
As evidenced in our daily lives, and highlighted at previous year’s summits, we all HAVE the capacity to create our own futures, and to find the extraordinary in the every day. This year we would like to take that message one step further, and provide you with some stirring examples, relevant tools, awesome success stories from our Teeny Tiny peers, great local food, and most of all, FUN, to inspire you and motivate you in the context of your own community.
We are pleased to announce that Charles and Lisa from FIXT POINT Arts and Media will be our keynote for the 2018 Teeny Tiny Summit!
Fresh off a whirlwind four-year tour across Canada that saw them visit close to 200 communities, Lisa Marie Diliberto and Charles Ketchabaw unpack their findings. Between 2014 and 2017 they travelled the country with their project, The Tale of a Town Canada, interviewing over 3000 Canadians about their local communities. This keynote presentation will take attendees on a journey to visit a few of the communities they encountered, highlighting how every town has something extraordinary hidden inside the ordinary memories of the people who call it home. Through theatre, audio installations, and digital media, The Tale of a Town has helped countless communities to look back at their history and inspire their future. FIXT POINT’s mandate, “Dream BIG, start small” is something that attendees can take to heart as they imagine the possibilities for celebrating and sharing their communities’ own stories.
As people strongly invested in our local communities, we are always asking what we need for ourselves, individually, as groups, and as a society as whole. These needs, “the what”, are often expected to be the answers to all our problems but identifying the “the why” – the values that underlie these needs – provide for much more productive discussion and planning for the future.
In this workshop we will highlight the importance of “the why,” and how Charles and Lisa worked to uncover it in communities across the country.
Their projects have used a simple recipe:
Local activation (engaging the community through storytelling) + Civic animation (public presentation and performance) = Community amplification (the collective community memory).
Through this process of collective community memory building, Charles and Lisa have helped communities to identify the values that underlie what they miss about the past, and what they hope for in the future. Engaging so many community members in storytelling is also the way to map community assets – its talents, thoughts, and aspirations, highlighting the EXTRAORDINARY in the ordinary. Participants in the workshop will be encouraged to brainstorm strategies for activation, animation, and amplification in their own communities.
Also in store for Teeny Tiny Summit 2018 is an exciting partnership with Tweed and Company, who will prepare a special and unique presentation as part of this amazing day!
A selection of Tweed & Company’s performing artists will join the participants of the Teeny Tiny Summit for the duration of the day. The artists will spend some time with the participants and collect information and ideas about what makes us EXTRAORDINARY, and at the end of the day, will be surprising us with a ‘presentation’, musical style, to end the day.
As for the rest of the day, we will be hearing about the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity and Blyth Arts and Cultural Initiative 14/19 from Peter Smith, Project Director, as well as highlighting some of our extraordinary Teeny Tiny stories, eating delicious local food prepared by Chef Andreas Applebaum from Gourmet Kitchens Catering, and spending time and learning from community champions from across Ontario.
Take a look at our 2017 Teeny Tiny Summit report.
On behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2018 Teeny Tiny Summit in the Municipality of Tweed.
The Regional Economic Development Branch began this initiative with a small pilot in Tay Valley, Lanark County, in 2015, recognizing that there were many “Teeny Tiny Places” that could benefit from a dedicated forum in which to discuss scale-appropriate economic development ideas.
Since that time, our regional team has delivered a number of “Teeny Tiny Summits”. They have done this across the province, in conjunction with local hosts who generously provide their time, to bring these relevant topics to a regional audience. The participants over the years, include community volunteers, councillors, municipal staff, and support organizations. The conversations we have are enriching, motivating and create a sense of empowerment and believe in the future.
We pursue this work because we have a shared belief in the critical role that small rural communities have in the overall well-being of the province. They provide safe communities, beautiful tourism offerings, deep cultural heritage, economic opportunity, and so much more. Our theme this year, “Creating our Future – Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary”, speaks to the desire that rural communities have to translate inspiration into rewarding economic development opportunities.
I wish to extend our sincere appreciation to our 2018 local hosts, the Municipality of Tweed, for partnering with us to make the Teeny Tiny Summit a reality this year. In addition, on behalf of our branch, I thank you, the participants, for taking the time to be a part of these sessions, sharing your knowledge and experience to contribute to the ongoing discussions we are having as a community about the power of “Teeny Tiny Places”.
Sincerely,
George Borovilos
Director
Regional Economic Development Branch
The Municipality of Tweed has a variety of accommodation choices suitable for all preferences. A list of accommodation options are outlined below.
275 Victoria St. S., P. O. Box 728
Tweed, Ontario K0K 3J0
613-478-5353 or 800-565-4027