Council here has learned it will receive $38,680 from the provincial government’s Creative Communities Prosperity Fund (CCPF).
Economic and business manager Belinda Wick-Graham advised council of the grant at the Jan. 22 meeting.
Wick-Graham said the funds would be used for a three-phase Minto Rural Community Development Project, including further research into the establishment of a creative industries business incubator in Minto. Research into the project will continue through January and February, with further work on development of a business model to be completed by April. By June, the Minto Cultural Roundtable group, which is spearheading the project, plans to have a financial vitality study completed and provide recommendations on the type of building and other requirements necessary to establish an incubator.
A creative industry business incubator would involve providing a vacant commercial building as office space for a number of small businesses from the creative sector at an affordable rate. The businesses could share equipment, such as a photocopier, to keep costs down. Mentoring and other services would be provided through community partners.
The CCPF money will also fund a series of six videos on creative workers from the community, as well as a short video on “why creative workers should come here,” said Wick-Graham. An implementation plan to get the videos in circulation is also part of the project, which will involve a local video company, Palmerston-based Memory Tree Productions.
The funding will also be used by Minto to host a Rural Creative Economic Summit, Wick-Graham said. The event will be held at Pike Lake from Oct. 22-24.
“We’re going to be bringing all the rural communities who are getting into this together, and Minto is seen as a leader on this so it kind of makes sense for us to be pulling this conference together.”
In 2009, the town received a CCPF grant of $55,000 from the fund for development of a municipal cultural plan, including a cultural mapping component.
