GCAAE Annual Visioning Retreat

In August, the Greater Cincinnati Alliance for Arts Education (GCAAE or the Alliance) gathered at beautiful Green Acres for a full day planning retreat. We were excited to help these incredibly creative people do great work better!

The Alliance has spent the past year preparing for and launching a One Stop Arts Shop for the Greater Cincinnati Community. This One Stop Shop is a comprehensive and searchable online directory of arts education programming for children to adults alike.

At this year’s annual retreat, the Alliance spent time reflecting on and recording what it does well, as well as explore ways it can better serve the community. They “re-discovered” their strength as a network of people who bring together the arts organizations of Greater Cincinnati. Through this network, they experience both support and friendship:  they find by “working together we do things better than we can separately.” Participating members spoke about this need for and desire to advocate for the arts. One person even creatively stated a desire to turn “STEM” in to “STEAM” including arts in the core curriculum of schools.

The Alliance also explored what they want to see for arts education in Cincinnati over the next few years. They saw opportunities to bring the schools into the network, creating a conduit between arts and education while expanding the directory to include forums for art organizations to communicate and collaborate.

It was from these conversations that the Alliance created goals and began action planning for the next year. Be on the look out, you may see or hear about GCAAE as they continue to share and advocate for the arts here in Greater Cincinnati!

Click here for the GCAAE One Stop Arts Shop