The President of the Bayfield Centre for the Arts says they're finally ready to start working on some of their plans.
Leslee Squirrell says the concept has been in the works for about a year and they had big plans for fund raising early in the spring of this year to acquire a building at the corner of Cameron Street and highway 21 at the south end of Bayfield. But COVID-19 put those plans on hold.
She says the warm summer weather allowed to have board meetings and other meetings outside.
“It was through those outreach meetings that I came to connect with Mac Voisin and, in sharing the concept with him and the documents and the amount of research and planning that we had done, he became impressed with the idea and got involved very quickly," said Squirrell.
Squirrell says they still have some fund-raising to do over the winter and they're going to get some professional help with that. She adds, they also have renovating to do in the building. They're hoping to be able to work with whatever pandemic restrictions that are in place and start running some educational programs this spring and summer.
“With a plan to have a significant event next summer called the Southwestern Ontario Outdoor Film Series over a four-day period in July, which we're hoping will actually become the precursor to an annual film festival that the Bayfield Centre for the Arts would host," added Squirrell.
Squirrell says they do have big plans but they're ability to implement those plans will depend, to a large degree, on what COVID restrictions are in place next spring and summer.
