The RAWQ Report

Outaouais English Cultural E-Bulletin in Production

This Fall, West Quebecers is undertaking a new communication project, a cultural E-bulletin for its members and other interested parties. This E-bulletin will include cultural events taking place in the Outaouais region's Anglophone community. The benefit of such a project will be twofold: strengthening specific cultural ties and reflecting the state of lively communities dedicated to furthering and appreciating the cultural fare that has been developed by Anglophone groups. With the assistance of my husband, Noel Gates, I have undertaken to do the research and to edit the E-bulletin.

After the general aim of the project had been outlined, it was not easy to come to completely clear-cut decisions as to which events should be included in the Cultural E-bulletin and why. It was easy to gather the information about forthcoming English events like theatre plays, book readings etc. but what should be done with other art forms like music, dancing and the visual arts, where the medium is not linguistic? To look for English-sounding family names seemed to be a rather haphazard method. We soon realized that the cultural heritage of the artist, the performer and the producer plays its part in giving an event its particular flavour and elan. Language, heritage, education, ideas currently in circulation, an intuition of future artistic developments and fashions plus - as in the case of our West Quebec community - the setting in a specific landscape with its particular climate, all these factors will influence the way in which each local presentation will be handled and thereafter be best understood by its audience. As art is a concentrated form of life's aspects we wish to have contact with it in order to make sense of our experience. With this concept in mind, we hope that the electronic Cultural Bulletin will become a means of communicating thoughts and sensations that will be precious to all people involved in projecting them and best understood by those whose cultural background they reflect; further, that it will build bridges to those with different backgrounds.

We urge readers to inform us promptly of events they, or their friends and neighbours, are planning, so that the E-bulletin can be made as comprehensive as possible. Schools have already been contacted, and letters are being sent out to all Anglophone church congregations in the region. Also, if you would like to be put on the E-bulletin mail out list please contact us at the coordinates below.

It is hoped to produce the first issue by the end of September, and to bring out further issues at the beginning of every quarter. Eventually the E-bulletin will be incorporated into the Association's website. (Contacts: e-mail wq@magma.ca or fax 1-819-684-1368).

Mrs. Gates is a Board Director at RAWQ.

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