In this newsletter:

Achieving Sustainability through a Greener Economy – Slides and video coverage NOW AVAILABLE!
New Ways to Finance the Housing Affordability Gap – Slides and video coverage NOW AVAILABLE!
Ann Clifford Sculpture Exhibition at The Press Room Gallery
Recognizing our 2023 Program Supporters, Partners & Sponsors

A highly Collaborative and Engaging Event

By Jen Armstrong, Institute Design Team member, Southern Georgian Bay Affordable Housing Toolkit

On November 17th, The Institute of Southern Georgian Bay hosted New Ways to Finance the Housing Affordability Gap: Ensuring the Sustainability of our Towns at Meaford Hall. This highly collaborative event brought together leaders in affordable housing from communities all across Canada. The engagement of the audience and panelist members was truly inspiring and the storytelling that was shared of successes in financing affordable housing showed us that this can be done in our community. This event was a true example of the commitment we all have in the collective work of creating a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable future. I cannot wait to see what we accomplish together in 2024.

To view all Speaker slides and video coverage of this full-day event, please visit our November 17th Event page here.

Video Footage now LIVE from Achieving Sustainability through a Greener Economy

By Eric Ennis, TISGB Board Member

Achieving Sustainability through a Greener Economy was a huge success, and videos of our panel discussions are now available at the Achieving Sustainability through a Greener Economy event page.

Over 70 attendees from local government, private industry, and not-for-profits came together to figure out how to do things better in Southern Georgian Bay. Thank you again to our Design Team, Partners, and Sponsors for making this possible.

Together, we uncovered a widespread interest in creating a Sustainability/Green Economy Hub, and our volunteers are exploring what this could look like, what the task list includes, and collaborative partnerships to help make it happen! If you are interested in being a part of this exploratory team, please reach out to [email protected].

October 27 Attendees have now received our post-event survey. Please check your inbox and share your important feedback.

Visit the Simcoe Street Galleries this December

About the Artist: Ann Clifford, CYW / OCAD

A practicing professional artist, Ann Clifford’s accomplishments in the world of sculpture are impressive – she has created sculptures and paintings for the corporate world, equine organizations, government and tourism. She has a lengthy list of commissions, including traditional sculptures in bronze and clay, as well as large-scale Woven Metal sculptures which are one of her specialties. See instagram @anncliffordart for her current body of work. Ann’s work is in art collections internationally.

Clifford is a veteran Child and Youth Worker with extensive involvement in social service agencies, elementary and secondary schools and Children’s Mental Health. She is currently an Arts Educator/Art Therapist at Pine River Institute, a residential treatment program for teenagers struggling with addiction and high-risk behavior. Her Experiential Arts sessions provide relationship building and empowerment through visual art making experiences for individuals and groups. Collaborative projects and workshops are offered to young people, parents, teachers, police and front line workers in the health and human services sector. The Mask Project, themaskprojectannclifford.com, is an travelling exhibition and ongoing community art project incorporating art created by workshop participants.

You can see Ann’s Sculpture Exhibition at The Press Room Gallery, 65 Simcoe Street, Collingwood, until the end of December.

With Gratitude for your Program Support!

By Rosalyn Morrison, Volunteer Chair, The Institute of Southern Georgian Bay

And, a deep heartfelt thank you to the very special people, partners, and sponsors listed below, who have enabled our programming to happen in 2023 and to keep it free for all!

Two big ideas have surfaced through our knowledge-sharing, learning, convening, and discussion at our virtual and in-person events:

we are exploring the collaborative possibilities of creating a Sustainability/Green Economy Hub for our region, and
we’re having a retreat in January to map-out important elements for a collaborative non-market housing ecosystem to help finance the kind of affordable housing we need.

We’re also continuing to share, through our newsletters, new ways of doing business with triple bottom lines, how our communities can invest here in Southern Georgian Bay, and the value of the arts to our well-being, our creativity, and our economy.

Your Program Support is helping us to support our local, sustainable economy by hiring local services and venues, and talent for communications, virtual and live events, newsletters, web site, and social media. Thank you!

With a growing number of residents, municipalities, businesses, and philanthropists – we can do so much more – https://tisgb.com/joinus/

Thank you everyone – wishing you a wonderful holiday season!

With gratitude,

Roz