Culture & Arts Advisory Board

apex board. Welcome. Um, and before we get into the first item, which is the meeting, I do want to welcome new member Daryl Harry. Daryl is joining us today for the first time. So, welcome to the board.

Thank you guys. Thanks for having me. Uh the first order of business today is to approve the Google minutes from February 14th, 2026. First, is there any questions? Then a motion to approve.

Make a motion to approve.

Motion second.

Second.

Second. All in favor say I.

I meeting minutes pass. Uh and then there is a cancellation of a meeting from the 2020 uh March 16th 2026. So move to approve cancellation. So motion motion to approve a motion. Second

second. All in favor motion. Okay. Um and then next up is

All right. Thank you so much. Hi Reggie.

Okay, so as you know this is a special meeting. So the special meeting notice is this special meeting notice was issued you know a lot of special meetings was issued as a result of a location change to allow for a remote presenter to participate from out of state. The purpose for this meeting is listed on your agenda. Due to the nature of this special meeting, this meeting does not include public comment or new business. So, we will stick to the agenda. We will go from there. Um, so moving on to the rest of Miley's report. Um, welcome Barl. Thank you so much for being a part of CAB moving forward.

We're very excited to have you. Um, marketing plan on socials. Since Aaron has moved on to another board, we do have some really good infrastructure moving to our um, marketing systems. I will be taking over all of that. So, we can talk more in the coming weeks about what that will look like. Um, but I am building a full marketing schedule to go out on all of our Facebook and Instagram to start with the amazing sculpture walk that we just installed last week. So, that's the marketing. You'll see some paperwork in front of you. One says Junth that you can review on your own time. We had a request to get some um artist ideas over to them. The contact information is on there. I'll leave that to you. If you have any questions, you're always welcome to ask me. And then just so you know, I'll be out of the office from April 23rd through May 6th. Um but in the meantime, you can always reach out to Jamila or my team if you have anything urgent. And Marie is going to be helping with the closure of the um mural applications. That's what I have.

Thank you very much. Uh, and next up is the chairperson's report. I have some updates that I'll do when we get into the old business. So, nothing additional on top of that. Move forward to the presentation. First presentation of our master plan.

Thank you so much. All right. I'm getting your sounded up here. Hi, Linda and Sel. Can you guys hear me? All right.

Yes, we can. Can you hear us?

Yes. Let me get on here.

I think you're on mute,

which maybe intentionally.

Of course I am.

Hi everyone.

No problem at all. Well, welcome. Thank you so much for making time for us. This is cultural planning group with Linda Flynn and Sel Phillips. They're going to be presenting on the public art master plan that we are working with them on um this year. So ladies, if you'd like to utilize the share button to share your presentation, we can go from there.

Oh, okay. Taylor, I thought you were sharing it. You had made a couple of changes to it. If

if not, might as well.

That would that would be awesome. Plus, we're on Mac, so teams sometimes is not as friendly to us. Mac.

No problem at all. I'm happy to do so.

As soon as they present that we have

Yes.

All right.

Great. Can you see? Okay.

Yes. Yeah, we can. We can see it.

So, thank

Yep.

Just give me the signal when you want me to switch slides.

Okay. Um, so thank you everyone, you know, for having us today. Uh, we are cultural planning group. Again, my name is Linda Flynn. I'm a partner with CPG with, um, my alliance, Surell Phillips, and we really just want to take time today to walk you through our process of developing uh, Apex's first public art master plan. So, our goal for this meeting is really just to give you a clear picture of what we're going to be doing, how we're going to do it, and um how CAB fits into the process. So, next slide. So we will start with kind of a little bit about CPG uh why this plan matters and to the work that we'll do together and the timeline ahead. So at the end um we'll take questions and depending on

how much time we have uh to have a little discussion as well. Next slide. So CPG we've serve uh the field of arts and culture pretty much exclusively. Uh we do cultural arts master planning, public art planning and policy development, uh arts and creative district planning um and anything else that has to do with the arts. We actually uh finished last year the Wake County uh cultural plan and we've done a lot of work in your area. uh both of us have done a lot of work with the city of Raleigh as well. So our team on this project you see and you know our approach is always community centered. We always ground it in industry best practices and we always align it um to plans that exist. So we will align it to the town of Apex's existing plans that are already in place. Next slide. So why this plan? Why now? Apex is a growing community. When we did the Wake County cultural plan, you know, a lot of that was addressing the growth that's happening in your area and the 150th anniversary we see as a real opportunity to establish a lasting civic identity through public art. So the town already, you all have built a strong foundation with the art and apex policy, you know, built around the energize, attract, integrate and encourage. Um, town council has explicitly connected public art to economic development and to the community character and celebrating that. And what's been missing is a comprehensive plan. you know having a clear vision having sighting priorities

having recommended funding structures and guidelines to got to manage the plan. So that's what we're building. It will be a roadmap for commissioning for managing and sustaining public art uh for years to come for the town. So next slide. So before we talk to anyone, we want to do our homework. We are fasttracking this plan. Uh we'll talk about the timeline, but typically we do take longer, but because we know the area, we have a running start, um the town and UAC, United Arts, um is going to be helping us as well. So we will make the timeline work. Um so we'll review what Apex has created already. parks and recreation plans, comprehensive plans, budgets, uh, town council, uh, strategic priorities, and we also look at the broader regional picture. So, again, making sure that it's aligning with the county, um, anything that the that can connect with the county and Apex, we will. um looking at United Arts uh council programs and also what comparable uh communities to Apex are doing and we want to take stock of what's existing now. So what's here uh what's what public art is is here what procedures exist and how the art has been funded and maintained to date. So I'm going to hand it over to Sel to talk a little bit about engagement and site visits. So next slide.

Great. So um engagement is at the heart of every public art plan and every cultural plan that we do and we kind of divide it into buckets of what we call stakeholder engagement and community

engagement. um stakeholders are a little bit closer to the center, you know, of the of the core and community engagement, it is much more public facing. Um so for stakeholder engagement, we're going to be talking with town staff, elected officials, y'all at CAB for sure, um and the UAC, local artists, arts organizations, people with a business interest and that connect to public art. Um we do um one-on-one interviews with folks and both our stakeholder and our community engagement is split up between virtual interactions as well as on-site visits and I'll talk a little bit about the on-site work. Um so we coordinate interviews and meetings. We ask what we believe are the right questions which are essentially what exists in the public art realm um and what's missing. um where are the priority sites uh currently and potentially in the future? What kind of funding is realistic and how does art connect to um Apex's identity? Next slide. So for community engagement, um we do what's called creative engagement and reaching beyond the stakeholders. We want to hear from people who live who who live in Apex. um and that um extra area which I can never remember the acronym for it but the designated area that's beyond the the core um and the core questions that guide our community engagement are generally about what residents want um out of their public art as far as its impact on their community, what their what their goals are for it. um what stories they want the public art to tell about Apex and its history and its future. Um and how do they want to engage with it? Um not just where do they want it, but how do

they want it to be a part of their everyday lives? Um and what residents tell us through um surveys generally help to shape the curatorial themes and the sighting priorities for the plan. Next slide. So, our site visits, we're scoped to do two site visit visits um along with a with a lot of different virtual meetings. The first site visit's really going to be assessment focused, which is um we're going to walk the walk there. We're going to see what's out there, where it is, document the existing art, identify future locations, um, and do our our in-person one-on-one interviews while we're there, as well as, um, a couple of, um, focused group discussions, probably with uh, with you um, the CAB group, unless we piggyback on one of your existing meetings. We'll also convene um artists um and some other stakeholder groups while we're there on site. And the second visit is really sort of towards the end of it when the draft plan is in place to review the plan, present it to to you at CAB and the town staff incorporate your feedback um cons confirm the site priorities and finalize any of the administrative framework um for for the plan to move forward. Next slide and I'm handing it back to Linda.

Sure. So plan development. So we're looking at six core um sections obviously executive summary talk summarizing vision and key recommendations. Uh engagement findings. We really like to put those in the plan itself so people can refer to those and what the community was saying. and we'll do a public art framework that helps define

curatorial themes. And what we mean by curatorial themes is what do you want public art to represent to celebrate to say about Apex? And these curatoral themes will come out of the uh stakeholder and community engagement um priority sites, geographic maps, administrative framework which will um cover ordinance uh development recommendations for funding and management structure because this is a long-term plan. So what um is happening now in the town with public art we're hoping to evolve because the program and the collection uh will grow uh with this plan development and finally providing guidelines and procedures. So, best practices for artist selection, for conservation and maintenance, um mural guidelines, uh diversity, and what we mean by diversity is we believe any public art program is going to be at its best with the a diversity of thought, diversity of art, and diversity of artists. So we put some kind of guard rails in place as you build the program to look at the collection uh through those areas. So next slide, timeline and deliverables. So as we said, we're on a very tight timeline. We kicked off in March. We're going to do the internal stakeholder engagement through spring. Uh site visit one, we're looking at June or early July. and the community survey work will continue through June when we're on site. It's a really great time to promote the survey and that's going to be one of our asks for you to help us with that because that really is a great way um to reach residents that are not

going to be at a meeting or be at an event that we're piggybacking on. And then we will develop the plan, draft plan, review with you all and and town leadership uh July and August. And then we'll have the site visit too presenting the plan and wrapped up by August 31st. And the when we say wrapped up, the plan itself will be developed, but then it will the town will be doing some design of uh the public art plan possibly after that unless we beat our own timeline, but we'll see how that goes. So, uh, you know, we just want to say that this plan is going to succeed because of a strong partnership. Um, we knew when we met with Taylor that this was going, you know, we were going to be able to do this because of um the staff that uh you have as your liaison because we will have UAC on the ground helping us with engagement and town leadership and also you all you all are going to provide review of the engagement findings, help with the, you know, getting the word out and guiding and local expertise uh for us. So each of you in this room is going to play a real role in this planning process and we really appreciate um we will you know appreciate your partnership and also your time today. So, if we can take down the presentation and then we can see if you have any questions about the planning process. So, I'll I'll start out just um we have a peak fest coming up in a couple of weeks. My understanding was you're going to put some information together for us to use at peakfest that that's a big opportunity to engage with thousands of people.

Yeah,

absolutely right. Um, Serell, we have

drafted the community survey and she's going to be sending that to Taylor tonight and what we'll do is um have a QR code that can be used and and we just want to drive as many people um to that survey and obviously to the town social media as possible.

Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other

I have another question. So you mentioned about engaging artists. Um is that something that we can or do you want our input work together on who that would reach? You need you already have a list of artists that you can get.

Yes, we would want your input on the artists that would be part of the groups. We want to reach artists that have had interactions um either with the town or, you know, a surrounding city or the county program. Uh they don't necessarily have to be public artists because, you know, a professional public artist and emerging public artists are two very different people. Um, so we really want artists that um are interested in public art but also are h have a civic hat on and really want to, you know, give us their vision for what the town of Apex arts and cultural community should look like.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Is it is this art like structures or murals around the board? Is the art just structures or is it murals like

Yeah, it could be all of those things.

It could be all of those.

Yeah.

Yeah. The definition of public art is broad. So, it will include sculptures, murals, temporary installations, functional items, playground

installations, benches, um bike racks. It can it could also include programs. It is a very broad tense.

Yep. So for example, some communities may have a program that centers around part of an identity. So we did a cultural plan for Greensboro, North Carolina. We didn't do a public art plan. did a full cultural plan, but they had a program where they had public art sculptures throughout the city uh with different types of jeans on, you know, denim because that was part of their identity. So, they would hire local artists and each one of those installations was done by a different artist. Uh we're in South Florida in Miami. They do. They have an amazing temporary public art installation around international cats. So they had international artists that um live in Miami do an amazing sculpture, paint the sculpture um based on cats that they found in their own country because that was part of um you know the celebration of the city. So for you know here in Pmpo Beach it's about fish. What is it going to be for for Apex? So that's one of our questions. So that's an example of a program that can be ongoing. And those types of programs are really great for supporting local artists. And we will also as part of our meeting with you um do a presentation and for for other groups kind of a short presentation on what the possibilities are for public art because a lot of people do see public art in a more narrow frame of sculpture and murals. uh

and there's so much opportunity when it comes to the interpretation of uh of the town of Apex through public art program. So, we'll give you ideas and examples nationwide of small communities, you know, compared to the town of Apex to large ones that could be adapted.

Yeah. I was wondering if something like a skating rink could be some type of art form.

We've seen basketball courts actually in Raleigh, I think, is where they had some public art um treatment of the basketball courts.

Yep. Skateboard parks,

any any of that. I was saying inside roller skating ring

you know programs for children.

Yeah. And you know a lot of um the public art programs especially the temporary and even mural partnership projects are great for youth engagement. Mosaics. We're doing um a project here in Florida man. We manage a public art program and they're redoing a large fountain um near city hall and we've hired an amazing mosaic artist that her specialty is working with the community. So she has youth and community meetings where they all come and they create their own part of that mosaic that will go onto the fountain. We did another one with a splash pad and that becomes a gathering place. the the one place with the splash pad, the family, you know, the kids take their family and their friends and say, "Hey, I did this. I did this part of this very large mosaic." So, they do parties there. Um, the city, it's a city of Deerfield Beach. Uh, they do all

kinds of events there because that's become a gathering place just because of that piece of public art

is. Go ahead. uh are performing arts part of plan the plan as well or is this strictly visual art? So, cultural planning usually um is, you know, addresses all of of the arts disciplines in including performing arts. But that's not to say that performing arts can't necessarily be part of a public art program, but we won't be facing or we won't be um working on really kind of those gaps and opportunities specifically for the performing arts. Does that make sense?

It does. Thank you. Yeah.

Any other questions? And we'll have another time. I mean, like I said, they'll be engaging with each of us throughout the process.

Terrific. Thank you so much. Really helpful.

Thank you. We will see you soon.

Thanks.

Bye.

Bye. Talk to you soon, Taylor.

All right. Next one up, overview of the culture. But

that is me.

Just a little context for everyone. We asked talked to Taylor a while ago. We wanted to have the team share with us everything they already do because as we changed transformed from a public art board to a culture and arts board uh you know we just started coming up with other ideas outside of public art and a lot of which the town already does. Okay. So, so we want to be kind of complimentary to what they do to add to it and that way

is repetitive I suppose. So that's why we wanted to share all the great things here.

Yes. Hello everybody. Thank you Tom for that introduction. And yes, some of the information might be a little bit repetitive and so we we thank you. We thank you for being here listening to us. Uh my name is Marie. I work at the Hley Cultural Arts Center. I am the programmer there. My full title is cultural arts program specialist. Uh so I curate and oversee all of the programming and events that we offer at the Cultural Arts Center. And I'm Lord. I've met several of you before, but uh I do the uh marketing and events. I'm the marketing and events coordinator over at the Cultural Arts Center. So, I'm in charge of our website, social media, email blast, um all kinds of things. I run some of these small events. So, you know, a lot going on over there. Lots of hats balancing on our heads. Uh if I could just get a quick show of hands. I'm curious, how many of how many of you all have been to the Hel Cultural Arts Center? That's almost everybody. And how many of y'all have participated in one of our programs or events?

Yeah, all hands. So again, this this might not be new information. Uh but we're we're glad to have her participation with an alley in many ways. Um so we're going to start off by first going to the next slide.

Oh yeah. Right click on the mouse.

Taylor had to figure that one out, too. There we go. Sorry. Thanks y'all. Okay. So, in this presentation, we're going to talk a little bit about what is happening at the Halley right now. That's the who we are, what we do, why we do what we do. We're going to talk about our community impact and then also

future collaboration opportunities between the Howie staff have and uh you know integrating ourselves into how we might best assist you all with this uh with this master for arts. So I'm going to pass it off Dr. Baron to talk about our staff. Yay. So this is who we are. The right side over here is our dayto-day staff. everyone who's there every single day. And our left side is our um like nighttime weekend staff. So our day-to-day staff, as you know, we have Taylor Ray, our cultural arts manager. Marie as our program specialist. I'm the marketing and events coordinator. Uh Lisa Fleming is our uh 30hour customer service specialist. She is at the front desk from 9 to 3. And then Cindy Corbett, she's our LSC plus. She's technically in LSC, but she's there every day from 3:00 to 6 and she does some extra stuff for us, including taking the notes for this meeting. So, shout out Cindy. Um, and then we have, like I said, our staff that's there weekends and nights. So, that includes our front desk staff, our LSE's, but also our techs. So, our techs are the ones who make sure all of our events run properly with sound, lights, all those fun things for our big productions like concerts, plays, musicals, things like that. Um, so a little history about the Halley. Uh, it was built in 1912 and it was the original town hall for the town of Apex. Um, it had everything in there. The downstairs range from a farmers market to the parks and recck department to a fire station to even a police station where the jail cell was where my marine's offices are. And then our upstairs was actually the mayor's old office. Um, and then of course our theater. And it was renovated in 2008 to kind of be more of what you

know it as today. So today the Halley Cultural Arts Center we have three rooms for programming our events that also function as rental spaces for the community. We have a studio gallery pictured here, 40 person max capacity. This is where we host the receptions for our rotating gallery exhibitions. This space is used primarily for small group rentals, meetings, classes. Um, we have studio A, uh, which you can see this is a tiled floor. What you cannot see in the photo is behind you there is a sink and a craft storage area. This room is primarily used for our wet media classes and camps. Anything that is sticky, anything that has paints, watercolors, hot glue, this is a great space for it. Um we and last but not least have our auditorium upstairs. So we have 150 person seated max capacity in our theater. Uh state-of-the-art stage, lighting and sound system. Our stage has an apron wings and bats. Uh this space including the stage is used again for rentals. This is where we have our dance performances, theaters, musicals um and and more. Um again, so like I said, all all three of these spaces, the auditorium, studio A and studio gallery function as rental and programming spaces. We try to keep those programs sitting very comfortably underneath the umbrella of the cultural arts. So that is visual arts, performing arts, dance, music, and literary arts. Uh let's see. Here we go. So, a little bit about our community impact and our services. This is what we do. Um, on the slide, you'll see some of the names of the types of programs that we have. Uh,

we offer yearround youth in adult and senior programming. Um, on average, we serve or excuse me, on average, we offer about 180 to 200 different programs over a fiscal year. Uh those programs can range from weekl long summer camps start at 9:00 a.m. and at 4 pm to six week to 8week programs that we host on Tuesdays. So again you'll see some uh some names of different camps we have and classes some photos um and I will kind of pivot to our events side. Um, we have, as I said, the the auditorium upstairs and then the downstairs space where we do host some events. Uh, here you'll see a couple of those listed, community plays, dances of the Nutcrackers, line dancing. Downstairs is where we also hold our rotating um, gallery exhibition. So, our open call exhibitions are part of that event umbrella. Uh, I would say some of our most popular events include uh, Fad Moms of Comedy, Rhythm and Rails, which is Apex's outdoor summer concert and movie series, uh, and our newly reintroduced uh, community dances where we have live band, a caller, very low ticket price. So, that's very family, fun, and accessible event. Uh we've sold out all three of those uh events that we hosted thus far and we always watch. Um I'm going to pass this over to Marin to talk a little bit about our rentality. Yeah. So on top of having our spaces for our own events, we also rent them out. So you can hold any type of event you

want upstairs, downstairs. Um, we've had all types of different events from, you know, weddings to schools putting on their own plays to graduation parties to a whole graduation ceremony going across the stage for some instances. So, we can do a lot of different things there. Um, in 2025, we actually had over 88,000 visitors and a lot of that was due to our rentals. a big portion is our events, but there's a significant portion that is because of our rentals and all the people that they bring in to kind of share the hi with. Um, and then in our current fiscal year, we have made um around a little over $42,000. Um, and we're expected to get around 56,000 total in rentals this year. So, we do good amount for that. And it's fun because you'll see it's like I said, it's anything that ranges. We had um the mayor came in a few weeks ago and did a mother son event with one of his his uh projects going on. So we do all kinds of stuff. One of the things that we really try to balance at the Halley is um you know how much of our space do we program and how much of our space do we leave open for the public to rent. I think if our community had it their way, they would be renting the alley 24/7 365 for all of their events. Um, and and that's that's exciting. That's incredible. So, we know that there is the desire to utilize that space, especially this kind of space uh with like the auditorium and stage.

How far do you have to book up?

You can rent as far as a year in advance.

And you can

How far you have to I mean like if you want to do something Usually we just need a couple days as long as we can find staffing. That's our biggest thing is we just have to make sure we have staff available. But

that's everybody.

But we've done rentals in as little as

36 hours. So

yeah, but

that is the main goal.

Yeah. But if you're looking at our May and October of 2026, we're all booked out. So it really depends on the season.

Okay. So to look I guess look towards the future and I'm really glad we were here uh to listen to a wonderful presentation about the arts plan because a lot of the ways that we are envisioning the Halley staff supporting CAB is very applicable to the presentation you just saw. Um so some of the ways that you know we we feel as we could we feel we could be a resource to you all is um with these organizations that we partner with. Um you'll see a couple listed here and with all of these you know we we work with these orgs for um you know for getting supportive grants for our programming or for the arts community. Um we have a d we have a database of our own of artists and vendors whom we partner with regularly. Um we also contribute to a database of you know performing artists of all mediums with United Arts Wake. Um we also have a really robust uh volunteer network. Uh, another ways another way we can partner and support CAD is with some our marketing and outreach. I'll let Marin talk a little bit about her.

Yeah, like I said, um, I do a lot of online stuff, email, social media. So, we have a strong online presence being a part of different um, online calendars like the United Arts calendar, W things like that as long as well as the town's calendar. Um, then we have our social media presence. We're also part of different advocacy groups and um we do a lot of co-attending community events

like the Smash Arts Council that's put on by the Triangle Artworks. Um at least one of us, if not all of us attend that every year to kind of get our stuff out there as well as see what other people have going on. Um and then different marketing campaigns. we've gotten a little more involved in getting um stuff going with social media boost, but also radio, magazine, all kinds of outreach. So, we're out there. Um, and I would say one of one of our largest goals, and it sounds like CAB shares this goal of uh really canvasing the community for their input and their direction to see what what it is they want out of the arts, out of the cultural arts. Um, so, you know, one of the ways that we're we're prepared to collaborate is uh, you know, canvasing the community, share in any way we can. Um, I believe that brings us to to the end of our brief presentation. I'll let Mary close us out.

Yeah, obviously we love working with you guys. you know, we share anything we can with you, including, you know, we'll post on social medias after murals and sculpture artists and try and get the word out and we're looking forward to all of our future opportunities with you. Also, let us know when we can help. Does anyone have any questions for us

about what we offer at the Halley? What we're hoping to offer?

Um, well, I know we're a town of festivals. We have a lot of those, but um one in particular is the Hispanic Heritage Festival that you guys do every year. But can you sort of touch on some of the the events that you have that sort of promote diversity within the community?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so the larger festivals, I'm I'm sure you all are aware of something that sits underneath our special events team, but what we really like to do is curate curate our limited our limited space to work in. Um, one example is if if we're going with Hispanic heritage month.

Um, so something I will do is look uh look specifically for Latin or Latin X performing artists. Again, anything that sits under that.

Um,

we have the Pedo in the trash can last year.

Yeah, the Pedo in the trash can. So that is an an artist that we we've worked with at a couple of our Town of Apex events, not just the family events, but that is a um kind of a an audio storytelling mixed with props and song experience that is free to the public and done in multiple languages. Uh that's something that happened midepptember uh again with like Hispanic Heritage Hispanic Heritage Month. Um during the month of September and October, we typically curate an exhibition downstairs, a visual arts exhibition downstairs uh that's managed by Monica. So she is an apex resident um of South of South American heritage. Uh so when we don't always observe the cultural

awareness months exclusively with the programming that we do in the county for that month, but there's always something something going on. Uh whether it's a paid program or a free program. One of the easiest, I think one of the easiest and most accessible ways we do that is with our free movie series that we do on Wednesdays, select Wednesdays and Thursdays. Um, and Marin actually curates those films. So, you want to just talk a little bit? Yeah, we typically try to if there's like a you know pride month or state heritage month, we try and choose a movie that either has a writer, director or you know theme to that month. And so like for Earth month uh last year we showed what's it called? Strange World where it's like a new Disney kids movie where they like have to figure out how to kind of save the world from all these just like a whole different uh source of problems and things like that. So

yeah,

and uh upcoming in the next couple weeks, we'll be installing our uh the only open call exhibition that we have annually at the Halley right now for visual arts or uh pride exhibition. some new, you know, this is our third year doing an open call exhibition. Um, and I yeah, I'd say with with the movies and with our gallery spaces and some of our smaller performances, that's where we have a lot of that's where I I have a lot of flexibility to make sure that we are offering, you know, the the diverse range of performances. And that's also where rentals come in with leaving space because I know like we get a crazy amount of DeWali rentals when time comes and we had a half sant tea rental that happened this past weekend. So there's all kinds of different cultural events that go on. They might not be run by us but that's where our rentals are

important because we offer the space and make it available so other people can have those events.

That's great.

Good. Does to for cultural events and other places like senior center, community center, does the Howie participate in those and make use of that space or is the Howie is everything kind of location based? The Howie team works I mentioned the Howie senior center then s classes in senior center.

I would say more often than not that's that is the case. Um so we for well I program the underneath the roof of the howley but then also our outdoor summer concert series. Um we have you know some cultural learning lunches that happen at the senior center but those are programmed by um

special events

by

by our special events team. I yeah I'd say more often than not you're we're kind of siloed. our programmers are siloed into the locations.

Okay.

Yeah. Thank you.

Like what tools and how often do you like get feedback from people in the community on what programming you're going to offer? I've been to like a bunch of these um but I've never seen any like feedback kind of things, but maybe I'm just looking the right places.

Yeah. Well, um it it is certainly somewhere where we would welcome like support and guidance to do more of um but what we have in place right now I think is very very effective for our ticketed events. So, if somebody buys a ticket to to a play, um at the end of that performance, they're sent an online survey or they're sent a link to do an online survey. Um and we see we receive lots of feedback that way. And that data

is it's pretty basic when it comes to a customer satisfaction survey. You know, are you satisfied with the facility? Are you

Yeah. Are you satisfied with the performance? Have you been to the heli before? Will you come back to the heli? And then there's some areas for like specialations. Um so we have that set up for our ticketed performances and for our program sort of classes. If it's anything like summer the summer camps for example, if it's anything where a community member registers uh via connect online, they receive a very similar satisfaction survey after the program has has wrapped up. Um so that's where I get a lot I mean that's where that's where I get my feedback from. Um, and very regularly, uh, if if we receive some overwhelming feedback and there's a there's a big trend, uh, it informs my decision making, um, whether whether we change, adjust, or cut programming. When it comes to looking forward, canvasing the community that hasn't already engaged with us by purchasing a ticket or buying a class, that's where I would love to have a little more,

you know, reaching those people who have not already for a ticket come from a resort. And I would say one of our only issues with that is when sometimes for some of our shows, one person will buy 10 tickets to a show. So even though 10 separate people came, we have one email address to send that survey to. So we're trying to get out there, but you know, we could only do so much. You can only do what you give us. So same with people registering for classes. If they use an email address that they don't check very often, they don't respond with the Thursday. So

that being said, we do have um if we're if we're talking location based has the highest survey response rate and positive survey response rate, I can brag about that. for our registered programs. Uh and so what that tells us is not only do the do the people love our programs, but people who are taking our programs over and over again are interested in giving us that feedback. So um I hope that answers your question.

Question. Um so thanks for sharing all of this in what we're not duplicating. Is there anything that we do that can help you? Anything that you want or need from us or anything? I wonder if these guys can handle XY and Z will be able to answer it for you.

Um, you know, I I don't really know. I yeah, I don't really know if I could answer if I could answer that question right now because I I know a little bit about what CAD does, but I also know that you all are in a moment of like change and pivot, especially coming with this new plan. Um, you know, I think one of the things that would that that we would just love is probably to have more facetime, you know, h have more facetime with CAB, have more conversations, and that way we really really know that what we're trying to do with the arts and Apex is like tightening it together. We're working together versus working against each other. I think that anything that could facilitate those conversations would be what I would you know I I personally would love for you all and welcome you.

I was just saying sharing of any of our

events or call for artists things like that because obviously you guys are the arts board you know all the artists and know things that are going on. So, if we have an open call, it's easy enough for you guys to help us kind of spread that word out there and get things going. Or if we're trying to promote a specific like workshop with Monica Lares or anything, that's just kind of a big thing trying to help get the word out there. It's like we're going to help you get like, follow, and subscribe if you don't already. sign up for our email newsletter. So you you know so we all stay informed with

and you send that out to us just to make sure everybody proactively send it out and we can sign up.

Yeah. So do you have the link sign up?

Right now I think we have about 9,000 subscribers to that email. So we get a good word out. I think last time I checked it was 9,000 subscribers and I think we're sitting at like a 46% open rate and a 30 plus% clickthrough rate. So

the people who are getting our emails are rew at a very high rate compared to what is standard for a weekly newsletter.

Yeah. Last week I think we had a 52%.

And she sends out the email every Monday. every Monday at four o'clock.

Okay.

Anything else?

That's terrific. Thank you so much. Really appreciate his support.

Thank you.

On with our business. Um, I meant to mention it before, the public piece, the mastermind piece. And I know there's a couple of folks who've been here quite a long time and you have been scratching this, and wait a minute, we

we have a vision. We have a community. We have guidelines. We have governance. We have a map. We have community projects together. Actually, in our guidelines, we got Yes, that's all true. What we wanted to do is refresh that and just keep going back at it and also to get outside in as well. Right. Just as I said, you know, public art is something that uh it can take a lot of different forms. We run a lot of other we've had a tremendous run and we're going to make the next you know whatever x amount of years that much better. So that's the idea behind it. Okay. So I didn't want anybody to leave with oh start they've got quite a developed program to build on that why it's not including the performing arts and culture arts we started this prior to convenient culture board and so I did bring that up and said hey wait a minute we're now this CAD you know why don't we kind of re reshape it and the feedback back was we do that we kind of have to maybe have to go back start because that was what was approved so it was a long stay until I start over how things go all right let's keep going this maybe the next version we'll have a brother okay we'll get a good question all right uh next one up so old business peakfest so yeah Juliana if you want to share a little and I know it's been a kind of a group things. So maybe others would love to share too, but if you have anything you'd like to share specifically.

Yeah. So um we've I've been focusing on getting involved with the Apex Youth Council. So um as a member of the Apex

Youth Council, um it is confirmed that they are going to be volunteering at this year's Peakfest.

So we can definitely um reach out for help needed in those areas. I know they'd definitely be willing to do so. Um, from my experience, whenever they attend a festival, they sort of have plans needed like anywhere. They just sort of reach out and are able to help out wherever needed. So, that is something to consider um when getting ready for the festival. Um, and that's all I have.

Okay,

great. Thank you. Um, and I know Susan, you put together a trying Yeah. trying to engage the little kiddos. And so we're going to have a a tent. I guess it's an actual tent, correct?

For Apex Public Art. So my daughter-in-law helped me with this. If you can see it, but it's like a coloring sheet, word search with a QR code for the cab. Um, color your community. So I think we're going to run off. Taylor, what do you think? How many of those thousand?

Yeah, we can start there. Yeah, start there. And um it might also be cute just to maybe have in the depot or just have around so that um I think it's a good sort of um you know this this is the cab. This is sort of what we do. And um just to get get it out there and then I think Tom mentioned that the master plan folks might be there or

they're not going to be there but they're going to provide us content. Yes,

we can start.

Yeah,

that's the type of festival.

Not all apex res. That's okay. So, so that'll be one of the things we did in the tent. I know Tyler, you and

your team are putting together a couple big posters and things like that about where art is around town. And so, we'll have kind of visuals like that that'll be interesting for people. We also have some other little handouts um that will be almost like trading cards of pieces and parts of the public archa idea. So I know the team is putting that together too. So we should have uh you know a couple of ways to engage community but we'll also be part of like tent city of town too. Uh, so I know Rit and myself, Susan, Juliana will be spending some time out there, but if anyone else has a little time to spend and can come by and keep us company or give us a break or relief if it's 100 degrees sound special, um, that would be appreciated. But yeah, should be should be any questions on that question about the color. We keep

Yeah. Anyway, and I think Yeah, it would be

maybe even the senior center. I mean, everyone loves a word search, right?

Yeah.

They have a lot of the

All the ones we've been to.

Oh, good. Good. Okay. Sure.

All right. Uh, let's see. Next one. Sculpture walk. So, their sculptures are all in. Hopefully, you seem to pop up around town. not taken the entire walk. Autocast is up to date. So if you don't have AutoCast, O T O C A S D. Go ahead and download it. And it has um just like we've had in the past, the voiceover voiceovers from the artists images are still the stock images, but those will be changed out in the next couple of days. Have the marketing team want to take photographs, so those will be up pretty soon. And uh yeah, it's all it's all out there. So pretty pretty good stuff. And

thank you to Susan Luc.

Yeah. So T O

uh and then a couple of other things. So, the sculpture log is uh rebranded and uh some some new naming on that. So, we wanted to get everyone's input on a couple of the visual options. The one on the one that says existing is the existing one here. So, it have a top in the past apex and um that would Yeah. So that would be that kind of change and then there's a more a different change to a different type of logo on the right side. So we just wanted everyone's input just your thoughts on what you prefer. Um and yeah just when you get a chance here before you leave just circle one and we'll get back.

Okay. Who is Brett Camp? Uh so Brent is a former town council member and he um as he was leaving his tenure they uh decided to name something and he's not but just full disclosure full transparency he's never actually been involved in the sculptural um not any but we someone who has supported Is is the one on the right is it a tree that's supposed to look like the a shoe like the imprint of a shoe? Is am I saying that right?

Sculpture of a shoe.

Okay.

He did help us get our very first sculpture in for the for the town. He was like a big advocate for that. first.

All right. Um, and anything else on structure locked in? There'll be a guided tour for the seniors in a couple of weeks do every year and then we'll ultimately um pick a best show and we'll get public input on the votes uh everyone can vote on your pieces. You can vote on your pieces as part of the public and we'll do a sub committee or something like that in order to pick the best show. But we can do that maybe next summer. We usually get decent do we usually get like decent response rate for that or

uh it's pretty low actually the response rate to be honest on the on the from the public

I had no idea we did that so I mean I know we did before you just said we

yeah yeah so however whatever support you can have in getting out the word

put in the newslet and I know like this week Um, we put the call for a mural artist in the email blast and I'm planning a post for it. So, we can always do a post, too.

Thank you.

Great.

Uh, they do need to go out and see sculptures in order to to vote. So, that is something that we put in place that was a little different in the past. The past could actually work for all you need to go out.

How does it know? Uh there's QR codes for each of the pieces.

So it right at the sculpture.

What's that?

The QR codes right at the sculpture.

Temporary signage for the sculpt for the voting period and then it goes away.

Yeah. So the temporary signage goes out by the end of next week. The guys are out installing all the solar lights, the actual plaques in front of each one, and the temporary lights. Um, and then the voting is through um I think it's June 15th, like right in the middle of June. Yeah. Then we'll be able to talk about it afterwards. Sure. And Tom, isn't it that generally the people's choice is the one that the town will purchase or

Well, we we bring forward one for purchase every year. Yeah. And we have historically

brought forward the people's choice award.

Yeah. Now it's not always that because we also might have personally there has been like the same artist on people's choice another time. So we went to like an alter. So there are some circumstances that might drive it a different way but that is typically what we do and part of that's like by design. So that

hey why did you pick that one? All the people chos the tally on the number of sculptures the town top your head

any question

the next one again. So, Call for Artists has been open for a while. Closes in uh excuse me,

next Monday.

When is this closed? Next

next Monday. Next month.

Okay. Next Monday.

So, uh what we'll do then is we'll kind

of uh get all the input pulled together and we'll have a a smaller group review. So, what we'll need to do there, Taylor, I know we were looking to have some folks come from uh kind of the community as well

and then maybe, you know, some town staff, people from the community, representatives from this team here

uh to come together for that. So, maybe that's something offline that we need to talk about and see how we assemble that group.

Okay.

But we'll do that in early May. Mhm.

Sorry.

And what we'll have is two groups because there's two murals that we have posted. One is for the mural in in town that's on the retaining wall behind the big park. And so that's a big long section. And then the other is out of the nature park where there's an amphitheater in the nature park. So we kind of two different groups when we do that but first we have to identify the artist and then we'll have those groups focus on the design.

Do you know how many people have submitted so far or about?

We have I think it's under 10.

Yeah. Um but we do have some really good submissions

and historically the wave comes at the end.

Yes.

Yeah. the last day

right before it closes.

That number can

especially with the post going out in another email blast makes me a little nervous. Anything else on murals?

Okay. And then augmented reality.

Yeah. So I have several models made but I ran into a bit of an issue where the platform I used to use to build augmented realities a sunset about two months ago and so keeps happening the metaverse kind of collapsing. It's not super helpful. But what I am going to do if I can't find a new platform is what I usually do. I'll be for the June meeting. That'll give me time to go around and I'll have models made of every sculpture that I'm able to model using the technology that I have and I will I'll share that over an email as kind of a base an example of what we can do to project uh sculptures in places like schools, libraries, people's homes as just to kind of give idea of what we could be doing. But I still think maybe a future mural uh just including language that we are open and encouraging of people who might be able to submit with a digital component.

All right. Thank you for that. Uh and I know we didn't There wasn't any new business. So there's a motion. There's a second. All in favor say

I. Thank you all.