IN SYNC

IN SYNC:  THE LIMA ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT PARTNERSHIP

Last summer, four Lima organizations began a series of informal talks designed to investigate whether they might mutually profit from cooperative efforts in publicizing their offerings to the community.

Representatives from the Lima Symphony Orchestra, Encore Theatre, ArtSpace/Lima, and the Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center knew up-front that they had similar interests in providing programming to the community.    Each in its own way was dedicated to keeping the arts alive and prospering in the area.  And, although each pursued different media and methods in that pursuit, it seemed clear that there were areas where collaboration would benefit all of them as well as the community itself.

Out of those early conversations, The Lima Arts and Entertainment Partnership was born--a loose federation whose initial goals were to synchronize calendars and publicize the programs that were available in the community.  As in any federation, each organization kept its own identity while as the same time linking up for common purposes.  Letting the community know what arts programming was available, when, and at what venues became a primary goal.

Then, last fall, the first Bulletin of the Partnership was issued.  It was called, fittingly, In Sync, a four-page full-color brochure which was mailed to approximately 12,000 addresses in Allen and eleven surrounding counties.

The response was immediate and nearly universal:  everyone who commented on the publication valued it for precisely those reasons that had motivated its organizers in the first place:  it was seen as a useful time-organizing tool, a way for interested parties to plan ahead for their arts participation.  And not incidentally, a focused way of knowing what was available.

In January 2012, In Sync Bulletin #2 will be mailed to nearly 14,000 households.  Its format follows that of Bulletin #1: a layout which encourages a compact and comprehensive look at the multitude of arts opportunities available to the community over a four-month period.  And in fact, documenting the sheer variety and number of arts opportunities in the area quietly became a third goal of the publication.  Anecdotally, we all knew there were lots of such opportunities.  In Sync offered a way of making that fact concrete to any who would notice.

Like any such federation, The Lima Arts and Entertainment Partnership benefits from having been built bottom-up.  No one superimposed a structure on the cooperating partners.  Rather, they built their own structure out of perceived needs and agree-upon goals.  To date, those goals have been limited to the publication of In Sync, with the many perceived benefits that entails.  But other possibilities for cooperation are out there.  If and when they materialize, the members of the Partnership know that they and their organizations will be the motivating forces as well as the beneficiaries. 

Printable copies of In Sync Bulletin #2 are available in pdf format on the ArtSpace/Lima website:  http://www.artspacelima.com/index.html