A new Great Expectations initiative:

The Big Canvas
A regional dialogue on arts and culture

Dear Citizen,

Nearly everyone who's attended a Great Expectations forum in the last 18 months agreed on one point: One of the best things about living in the Philadelphia region is the wealth of things to do.

There are concerts, festivals, plays, performances, museums, historic sites, parks, libraries and much more.

It is a rich array of assets. But here's a problem: Many of the institutions that preserve and present the region's arts and culture are cash-poor. They struggle to survive from year to year.

For 20 years, the region has talked about creating a strategy to preserve and enhance its arts and culture. Many American cities have one. But none has emerged here.

The Big Canvas will take a new approach: Ask the region's citizens how they use its arts and culture assets, how they value them, what steps they'd favor to preserve and enhance them, and how they'd be willing to pay for all this.

The goal: A regional cultural strategy that citizens will support because they helped craft it, a strategy that reflects their values. The yield from this initiative will be presented to political leaders at a Big Canvas Confab in the fall.

Help us paint the Big Canvas well. The project begins in July, with a round of five citizen forums around the region. We invite and urge you to help us get the project off to a rousing start. The more voices and viewpoints that are heard, the stronger the end result will be.

Here are the sites, dates and times of the July forums. Each begins with
registration and refreshments at 6:30pm and will run until 9:30pm. We very
much hope to see you there.

Register by going to www,greatexpectationsnow.com and clicking on 'The Big Canvas' link or by calling 215-854-5956.

Tuesday, July 8: The James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown