Members of Vancouver’s arts community spent the afternoon of May 12 at the Vancouver Playhouse, taking part in the City of Vancouver’s Creative City Conversation 2008, a forum on arts and culture strategies.

Participants were asked to respond to the office of cultural affairs’ action plans for its cultural grants and support programs, cultural-tourism strategy, public-art program and review, and facilities priorities plan. The strategies in these plans included, among others, creating artist residencies in city departments; setting up a not-for-profit, independent "arts and cultural space development organization"; and the folding of existing cultural-grant programs into one program. For more information, visit www.vancouver.ca/creativecity/.