The Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance (CKCA) administers and manages the Arts, Culture and Heritage funding sector of the Columbia Basin Trust. The CKCA has a Steering Committee of 14 members from around the Basin elected for two year terms.

Nominations are put forward by the 18 local arts councils in the Basin as well as the Heritage Federation of South Eastern BC. Nominees can be any member of a community with a background in arts, culture or heritage, are involved in the cultural work of their region and have a background in working on committees and program development.

Funding from the CKCA is for all arts disciplines (visual art, theatre, music, dance, media, literary and inter-arts), includes grants to individuals as well as arts, culture and heritage organizations.

Funding applications are adjudicated once a year by local arts councils and the CKCA Steering Committee.

The Columbia Basin includes all communities within the area roughly bounded by Valemount, Revelstoke, Rossland, Creston, Sparwood, and Golden.

Working with community arts councils, individual artists, performers, heritage workers and cultural organizations, the goal of the CKCA is to build long-term sustainability for artists and to strengthen and support arts, cultural and heritage organizations.
 

Directions of the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance

The Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance has set the following future directions as an organization:

1) Build long-term sustainability for artists, thereby increasing the number of artists who can create an economic living through their art.
  
2) Create a positive image for artists, the arts, culture and heritage organizations as community assets.
  
3) Support art, culture and heritage that increases public and community awareness of social, ecological and economic issues, seeing art, culture and heritage as part of the connection between and within communities.
  
4) Create increased opportunities for all segments of local communities including seniors, youth, ethnic groups, first nations to participate in arts, culture and heritage.
  
5) Create an increased audience and market for artists and performers, both within and beyond the Basin.
  
6) Assist the on-going viability and availability of community facilities for use by artists, arts, cultural and heritage organizations and residents.
  
7) Support development of skills, and structures for marketing, artists, arts and heritage organizations and the arts, culture and heritage.
  
8) Encourage and support mentoring relationships.
  
9) Strengthen arts, cultural and heritage organizations, both locally and Basin wide.
  
10) Build a common voice within and for the arts, cultural and heritage community.
 

Definition of Heritage

Heritage is what we value from the past. Heritage is those places, objects, records, indigenous languages, and other things that have aesthetic, historic, scientific, social significance, or other special value for future generations as well as for the community today.

Heritage includes the intangible records of our past such as memories, stories and songs, ways of life, customs, attitudes, and interactions between individuals and communities. Heritage is the record of culture as it was.
 

Goals of the Heritage Community

• Promoting the collection, preservation, and protection of, and public access to, cultural heritage resources;
   
• Promoting respect for the historical diversity of communities;
   
• Cooperating with, and sharing information and knowledge with others to promote heritage;
   
• Raising awareness of heritage, heritage issues, and their importance;
   
• Identifying and securing funding for the support of heritage;
   
• Promoting opportunities for heritage research; and education.
   

CKCA Steering Committee Members

Following is a list of our current steering committee members, click the name to read their bio below.

Pamela Cinnamon - Valemount
Janice Edwards - Fernie
Stephanie Fischer, Vice Chair - Nelson
Penny A.P Anderson - Yahk
Anne Jardine - Edgewater
Jacquie Hamilton, Chair - Castlegar
Deborah Loxam-Kohl - Winlaw
Laurie Charlton - Rossland
Margaret Pacaud - Revelstoke
Ann Damude - Rossland
Thelma Brown - Golden
Judy Wray - Trail
Dorothy Blunden - Invermere