The Estevan Arts Council (EAC) held its annual general meeting on Oct. 4 at the Estevan Leisure Centre to discuss the past year’s events, and to begin planning for the upcoming year, according to Wilma Mantei, president of the organization.
Mantei noted that this will be her seventh year as president of the EAC, and said she is excited for the events in the coming year.
“We are a non-profit organization, and we work on zero budget,” said Mantei.
“We don’t consider that we need to make money, because we want to give the most that we can to our community. We’re not out here to make money at all but we do try to make our expenses and our income kind of flush,”
The EAC ended the year with a small surplus, according to Mantei. The organization receives a number of grants, donations, and sponsorships throughout the year, which allows for continued programs throughout the city.
“We have an Energy City Film Circuit, Koncerts for Kids, we have the Estevan Concert Series, we do visual arts and some other stuff, so we have five different books that have to be kept by our office administrator,” said Mantei.
“This year was a very full year for us, as it always is. I think this year was one of our busiest years when it came to providing art programs in the city for both adults and kids.”
Mantei noted that the importance of the EAC is to continue providing programs throughout the city and although they finished this year with a monetary surplus, making money has never been the aim of the organization.
“We knew that we would lose money on some of our programs, as we always do,” said Mantei.
“But we know how important it is to bring different events to the city, even if some of them don’t have the highest attendance like the Concert Series, but it doesn’t cost a lot of money to have these events in the city so we think its worth it.”
Mantei noted that in the coming year there will be four Koncerts for Kids events in the city as well as a number of other events throughout the year.
“We unfortunately only had two concerts this year for the Koncerts for Kids series, but we also had some school concerts that were held,” said Mantei.
“So we’re pretty excited to be able to offer a few more in the next year for everyone in Estevan. We’ve already got our four Koncerts for Kids performances booked, and we are hoping to possibly have some more. The Estevan Concert Series has six concerts booked, and we think it will be a great year with lots of opportunities.”
The EAC has also acquired the ability to do debit and credit card transactions, with Mantei noting the change was made as most people aren’t carrying cash on them.
“Otherwise things are going to be pretty much the same this year,” said Mantei.
“We’ve got some new board members joining us this year so that’s exciting, and we’re just really looking forward to another great year.”
