Brush with Art - Press/Media

By Martin De Groot

Even though we are now about a quarter of the way through 2000, it is still not too late to get involved in some kind of celebration to mark the new millennium.

The basic purpose of Our Millennium, an initiative from Community Foundations of Canada, has been to encourage Canadians to come together to do something special for our communities this year, to make a gift of some kind -- a gift that signifies, in some way, "our hopes, values and priorities for the future well-being of our communities." The scope is national as well as local, a rare combination nowadays. The original idea came from Peter Aykroyd, who was one of the prime movers behind Canada's centennial celebrations in 1967. The hope is that some of the community spirit that manifested itself so positively and so spontaneously back then can be captured once more. Part of the plan is creating a national registry of projects to keep people informed about what is happening as the year unfolds.

I thought it might be interesting to see how the tally (which is available on-line at www.ourmillennium.ca) has been shaping up so far, particularly with regard to projects in the arts, culture and heritage categories. I first looked for listings under the name Kitchener-Waterloo.

Brush with Art, the K-W visual arts fund-raising campaign, stands at the top of the list. It was one of the first projects reported when the registry first opened last May. Registrations from other groups have been trickling in since that time.

There are now nine K-W items, including:

A special Homer Watson exhibit at Homer Watsom House and Gallery, the largest showing of his paintings ever, including a long overdue historical reference catalogue.
A history book, Women of Waterloo County, which is being compiled by the Kitchener-Waterloo branch of the Canadian Federation of University Women.
A special Schneider Male Chorus benefit concert for Big Brothers (Sunday, April 9 at 2:30 p.m. at St Matthew's Church).
A search under Kitchener without the Waterloo yielded 12 items, including a few that are not on the K-W list, such as:
- The donation of an "exquisite" scenic photograph to the Grand River Conservation Authority to be used as a billboard to advertise K-W as Grand River country.
- Millennium Mondays, a series of 10 special evenings in Weber Park organized by the Central Frederick Neighbourhood Association.

There are 11 items included for Waterloo, including at least one arts-related project that I didn't see listed anywhere else: an event called 2000 Drums, which will be held in Waterloo Park on June 24.

Sponsored by the Waterloo Community Arts Centre, this event features 2,000 large coffee tins that are being painted especially for the occasion by local arts groups.

The Cambridge tally is very impressive with some 26 entries, including:

A grandfather clock made of locally grown walnut, a gift to the community from the Cambridge Senior Woodworkers.
A bus trip to Pennsylvania to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Mennonite settlement in Cambridge;
An exhibition of antique sewing machines.
A showcase of ballroom dancing.
Several community quilting projects.
Commissioning a composer to write a signature song for the Addison Consort Singers.
And more books: A book of poetry from the Ancient Mariners Canoe Club, and an anthology called A Grand Gift of Laughter from the Cambridge Writers Collective.

These are some great projects here. Obviously, however, the registry is far from complete. Where are Kitchener's Millennial Thumbprints? Where's the Children's Museum? And Waterloo's mural? The trails? The sports complex? What about the big Cherish the Past -- Celebrate the Future extravaganza from K-W Tourism -- Oktoberfest in June, the Conestoga Wagon Train and all that?

Our Millennium has been widely publicized. Why has participation been so sporadic? And how is it that Cambridge, with not much more than a third the population of Kitchener and Waterloo, is able to register double the number of projects happening in the Twin Cities? Comparable figures for other communities across the country are similarly baffling. Guelph, for instance, has only eight listings so far. Kingston, Peter Aykroyd's home town, has registered 24 gifts. Ottawa, the nation's capital, can do no better than 18.

Windsor has only three and Niagara Falls just one entry. The figure for London is more striking: 41. Toronto: 60; Vancouver: about the same -- 65. Winnipeg does better: 83 and Victoria better still at 105. Calgary has 61 but Edmonton has only three. A similar discrepancy appears in the figures for Saskatoon over Regina: 50 as opposed to only one. What's the story here? I couldn't find any listings for Montreal, but Quebec as a whole is very well-represented. The most generous by far of all the major population centres in the country is our sister city to the south, Hamilton, which has, to date, registered 224 millennial projects in total.

Other than a few bright spots like this, though, the overall results must be disappointing for the organizers. There has been no 1967-style groundswell of enthusiasm. Not yet, anyway -- there's still time. It's always hard to get something going before the flowers start to bloom in spring. June looks like it's going to be a very busy month. And the national gift registry stays open until Dec. 31, 2000.

For more information about Our Millennium, call toll-free at 1-887-880-6455; fax 1-416-367-4660; or e-mail info@ourmillennium.ca.

The easiest way to get a project listed in the national registry is through the Our Millennium Web site at www.ourmillennium.ca

The Cambridge Community Foundation (624-8972) and The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation (725-1806) are both members of Community Foundations of Canada.

Martin DeGroot is co-host of Monday Night With the Arts on CKWR-FM 98.5 (Mondays at 7:30 p.m.) and arts correspondent for Daytime on Rogers Cable 20. He comments on arts and culture Saturdays in The Record.

Correction(s): A POSTSCRIPT AND A CORRECTION REGARDING LAST WEEK'S COLUMN - I INCORRECTLY REPORTED THE TOLL -FREE NUMBER FOR OUR MILLENNIUM CANADA HEADQUARTERS IN TORONTO: THE NUMBER TO CALL IS 1-877-880-6455. BUT THE BEST SOURCE OF INFORMATION ABOUT HOW TO REGISTER GIFTS TO OUR COMMUNITIES IS LOCAL: THE CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION AT 624-8972 AND THE KITCHENER AND WATERLOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION AT 725-1806. OUR MILLENNIUM CANADA REPORTS THAT THE ORGANIZERS ARE NOT DISAPPOINTED WITH THE RESULTS SO FAR. MORE THAN 2,000 GIFTS HAVE NOW BEEN REGISTERED ACROSS CANADA, PROJECTS THAT INVOLVE MORE THAN THREE MILLION CANADIANS.

Our Millennium project is off to a sluggish start