Cultural Council Recaps Festival, Plans Grants, Revives Halloween Contest

Image

The Franklin Cultural Council held a meeting via Zoom on Tuesday evening starting at 7:30 pm under the guidance of chair Kaye Kelly.

Some of the early portions of the meeting dealt with the recent Cultural Festival on the common. Kelly acknowledged the “lessons learned” in terms of the need for more food trucks and “porta-potties” and also stressed that the high school students who helped should be given hours generously for their efforts to help them with their college applications.

Kelly also welcomed new FCC member, Jacob Junker, who is pastor of the United Methodist Church in Franklin. Kelly asked him to share his impressions and observations of the festival "as a participant."  Juncker said he and his wife a are not huge football fans and thought it would have been nice to go later in the evening. “But with a football game that night, I understand,” he said. “We also appreciated the diversity of arts vendors including high school kids selling their wares,” he said

"This year we got the parts and pieces, next hear it will be bigger and more organized,” Kelly promised.

She said scheduling around the Harvest Festival, Labor Day, and the Jewish holidays was tricky and operating later might require vendors for lights, “but it will be on a Saturday night in 2022 and I think people wouldn’t mind it running later into the evening,” she added.

Kelly also reviewed support from Allegra, a local company. Due to a snafu they did not order requested tents in time for the event and, therefore, offered to provide them to the FCC for free. “I ordered something fairly high end that would last for years,” Kelly explained. She said Allegra had been a great sponsor and expressed the hope they would be back again in the future.

Kelly noted that other groups have been “gushing” in their praise of the event and are now interested in getting involved. She said this was very positive but suggested the FCC may want to work to ensure that the identity of the event stays intact.

Regarding the Cultural Council grants, Kelly said 2019, the year before Covid, the FCC applications had peaked at about 60 but that dropped to 30 in 2020. She said the thinking is that 2021 may be in the neighborhood of 50 grants. And selecting the winners is satisfying for those involved. “It is enjoyable reading the applications because you can see what people are up to,” she said. Covid permitting, Kelly said she is hopeful there can be a grant reception in the new year to honor recipients.

She said the grant cycle attracts requests ranging from $150 to $10,000. She urged FCC members to get in touch with local schools to let them know they can apply as can some for-profit ventures that meet the grantee requirements. Grant applications must be post-marked by Oct. 15

“Funding Franklin residents is our first priority,” she stressed. She did note that although new grant prioritization criteria had been voted on over the summer “bumping up diversity to second place in the priorities,” she was not able to formally file the information with the state in time, meaning that the same priorities as last year will still be in place. “According to the Mass. Cultural Council, whatever is posted on your website when the grants are announced is what you have to use,” she added.

Also in the new year is Arts Advocacy, an event in Franklin that attracts people from all over Metrowest, according to Kelly.

Kelly also note that plans are afoot to repeat the Halloween house decoration contest this year. “Last year, there was talk about Halloween being cancelled by the town and people were upset so I thought this was a way to do something else that could be fun and where people could participate from their cars,” she said. However, she said this year scheduling will allow more time for judging. Preliminarily, the contest is expected to open Oct. 1, Oct. 17 is the tentative deadline, and winners will be announced on Oct. 24, leaving time for people to admire those winning entries.

She also said there will be two categories – those that are purely “in it to win” – some of whom spent thousands of dollars on decorations last year. Then there will be another category, perhaps called `Halloween Spirit,’ which can encompass creative but less expensive efforts.

(Below, Rev. Jacob Junker)

I'm interested
I disagree with this
This is unverified
Spam
Offensive