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REFRESH. REVIVE. RENEW .

A Letter from the President of the Board

Over the past year our leadership team has spent

considerable time discussing how we can improve

Huron Valley Council for the Arts. These

dedicated individuals – the board members, our

director and other key volunteers – all care deeply

about our organization and want to provide the

best possible arts programming and activities for

our community. To that end we want to share

with you three important topics.

OUR OFFERINGS

As the planners and promoters of HVCA’s many

offerings, we of course feel we’re bringing you just

the arts experiences you want! But sometimes we

observe lower attendance figures at our events

and performances. Sometimes we feel we should

be seeing stronger membership renewals.

So last March we developed a brief survey.

Through interviews with various residents and

visitors, we are continuing to collect data that will

help shape HVCA’s future offerings. If you

haven’t already participated in this endeavor, it

would help us greatly if you could take a few

minutes to respond to our questions. Simply

contact our director or any of our board members

and we’ll walk you through the survey.

In the meantime, we have decided to scale back a

few of the events and activities for 2018. So your

survey input might well cause us to add new

offerings in the future, or perhaps we’ll reinstate

some that you would like to see more of.

VOLUNTEERISM

Our HVCA volunteers are awesome, but we never

seem to have quite enough help. While we

generally do well covering our needs at events

such as our arts festivals, we are especially short

in filling positions that require a commitment over

time.

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Huron Valley Council for the Arts . December 2017

Our goal is to reinvest the revenue we receive from grants, Adopt a Class and

membership fees back into the community through our arts programming and arts

education. We achieve this in the following ways:

Provide access to arts education to local students annually through programs like

our Arts for Life and our collaborations with the Huron Valley School District and

their Emerging Artist Program.

Support and promote the depth and breadth of Michigan artists through our

Gallery Exhibits, Art Shop and Art Festivals.

Provide access to the arts to seniors in our region through collaborations with our

senior community centers.

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One example is being a member of our board of

directors. This involves participation at our

monthly board meetings, plus occasional review

and decision-making via email. A second example

is participation with one of our committees. Here

you might be involved in planning and putting on

some of our many offerings, such as gallery

exhibits or musical performances, or perhaps the

ever-important effort to secure sponsors.

FUNDING

Every single year our HVCA team has to re-earn

the nearly $100,000 it takes to fund all our

activities. Direct sales – such items as Art Shop

sales, booth fees, performance tickets and the like

– account for only about half of the needed income.

The rest must come from sources such as grants,

sponsorships, donations and membership fees.

HVCA has no endowments, so any time we fail to

win a grant or we miss a membership renewal, we

come up short on monies to cover our expenses.

While we closed the fiscal year 2016-17 with

another large funding deficit, there are still good

signals of the organization’s viability. Recently we

were awarded an operations grant of $12,500, and

our cash reserves are sufficient to cover

foreseeable expenses. Best of all, our cadre of

workers – our staff and volunteers – continues to

be HVCA’s greatest asset!

If you have been a past contributor to HVCA,

whether in dollars, time or both, we thank you! If

there is more you might be able to contribute in

helping us improve our fine organization, we look

forward to working with you!

Gaylord Gill, President

HVCA Board of Directors

2016-17 FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

We have closed the books on the fiscal year which

ran from Oct 1, 2016 through Sep 30, 2017. The

charts at right show HVCA’s income and expenses,

with a breakout of the major categories.

The board has voted to change our fiscal year to a

calendar year basis to better align with standard

accounting periods. Our next fiscal year will

commence January 1, 2018.

Our Leadership Team

Gaylord Gill President

Roscoe Smith Vice President

Sylvia Ashton Secretary

Lori Verbrugge Treasurer

Jill Bahm Board Trustee

Georgia Bingham Board Trustee

Denise Forrest Board Trustee

Erin Sabo Executive Director

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Here are the varied offerings of events, performances and activities that Huron Valley

Council for the Arts has presented throughout the 2016-17 year.

GALLERY The HVCA gallery hosts fresh exhibits each month, kicked off by a special artist

reception. In 2017 we held four specialized shows for groups: Emerging Masters,

All About the Horses, Show Me the Money and Children’s Authors Event.

ART SHOP The Art Shop is a cooperative gallery composed of and managed by 20+ artists

who are members of the HVCA. The Art Shop space provides ongoing and ever-

changing exhibits of their work. Artists set their own prices and help support

HVCA through their sales..

SCHOOL

PROGRAMS

Through grants and sponsors, HVCA provides in-school programs for the Huron

Valley district. Tunes for Tots provides outreach music/theater performances to

300 at-risk preschoolers. We also bus a total of 1500 students to programs at

the high school theater, one for 2nd graders and one for 8th graders.

KIDS CLUB Kids Club is an activity-based group that is free to join. They meet the second

Saturday of most months at the HVCA arts center or Highland Library.

SPECIAL

EVENTS

Author’s Luncheon is an annual fundraising event that brings together popular

Michigan authors with their fans. This year we hosted Devin Scillian, Steve

Hamilton and Tracy Brogan.

MUSIC The HVCA has become known for producing and presenting quality musical

performances by a variety of amazing artists, with a series for both Classic and

Contemporary/Jazz music. Friday Night Live brings performances to downtown

Milford on the fourth Friday of May – August.

VAN GO

TOURS

The HVCA is committed to art appreciation and education in our Van Go Tours,

featuring transportation in a comfortable van. Participants experience artistic

and cultural events and locations across Michigan, including Art Prize in Grand

Rapids.

FESTIVALS HVCA works with our local communities to provide a variety of artist

opportunities in a festival-like atmosphere. This year we hosted three: Huron

Valley Arts Festival in Commerce, Highland Fall Festival in Highland and Arts

& Greens in White Lake.

OUR 2016-17 PROGRAMS

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Special note to all

Highland Township, owner of the Highland Station House building which houses our

HVCA arts center, has plans to renovate the structure. Starting January 15, 2018 and

for a period of two weeks, the building will be closed to all activities. The project includes

repairs to our ceilings and other structural work, plus fresh paint in our gallery. We

apologize for the inconvenience but are excited that we are getting this work done. The

center will reopen February 1, 2018.