Future Canvas Thread

Greetings !

Welcome to the Thread, a weekly heads-up on the mysterious goings on at Shed 4 in the Docklands.

Hot off the Press: See Tuesday's Age (Epicure Section, 14 April) for an article on the Reforestation Project. Also check out Steve McKinnon's update of the Future Canvas website.

Upcoming events

Reforestation Meeting: Thursday April 16, 6:30 at the Shed.

Future Canvas Meeting: Friday April 17, 5:30-7:30 at the Shed to discuss key outcomes of Michael and Mel's review of Future Canvas, gain views/consensus on these changes and start developing the art space proposal. There will also be an update on the FC Space Launch.

Future Canvas presence at the Melbourne Social Forum: April 17, 18 and 19. The Melbourne Social Forum is "a movement, a process, an event and an organization that helps to facilitate social change and the exploration of social alternatives that are socially just and ecologically sustainable." (http://www.melbournesocialforum.org)


Future Canvas Space Launch May 8th Join us for a night of celebration as we toast the opening of the FC space at the Docklands. Check out Ellie Schroeder's chic invitation on the FC homepage.

Future Canvas Space Blitz Sunday May 17th: Join us for an adventurous day fusing art, fashion, gardening, composting and sculpture creation at Shed 4.

How you can help out?

We have a superb Reforestation sponsorship proposal which we are keen to circulate. If you have any contacts who may be interested in supporting Reforestation through financial or in-kind donation please contact Ash at Ashley.Chaleyer@futurecanvas.org.

Future Canvas Space Launch: May 8th:

We need door people, bar people, people interested in co-ordinating a fashion show/art show, catering people, sound technicians, artists, event organisers, publicity/promotions helpers, muscle power for set up and pack up...and of course we welcome any form of sponsorship for the event! Contact joel.carnegie@futurecanvas.org

FC Space Blitz: 17th May 2009:

We need marketing people, events management people, promotion people, postering people, letter drop, furniture makers, carpenters, artists, gardeners, Bolsheviks or just about anyone, Contact emily.b.brodie@futurecanvas.org

Future Canvas: If you are a grant-writing guru, finance person, film person, artist, it or web person, marketing person or just about anyone contact melissa.schellekens@futurecanvas.org

Future Canvas

The last week has been bustling for Future Canvas. Some of the highlights include:

Future Canvas is developing a range of sub-Google Groups to streamline project management and target action and e-mail traffic.The groups will come on-line early next week.These sub-groups will be the nucleus for certain activities/projects and each group will have a moderators/leaders as set out below:

Future Canvas: (the main group that we already have)
Future Canvas Reforestation: (the garden, cafe, etc)
Future Canvas Media: (inc. video production, the website, 3D media)
Future Canvas Enterprise: (the Showcase can be a project of that group)
Future Canvas Arts: (the Shed 4 art space)
Future Canvas Events: (inc. the launch party, markets, fora)
Future Canvas Partners: (aka, the committee)
Stay tuned for these groups!

Melissa Shellkens and Michael Chew have been working with Ash, Em and Steve to further develop Future Canvas' processes, strategy and general workings. Michael and Mellissa spent most of last Friday developing a governance model and review of FC's development since 2007.

Joel Carnegie has been working extremely hard to organise the Future Canvas Space Launch in May. Stay tuned for this event, it promises to be golden.

Steve McGrail and Dan Mullerworth, two key pillars of the Futurelab event visited the Shed and have shown an interest in working with FC in the coming weeks. We are delighted at the prospect of working with Dan and Steve again.

Over the next month Steve is running a review of FC's accounting processes to ensure this aspect of FC is being run using best practice.

Future Canvas is now on Twitter...keep an eye on our 'tweets'


Till next time,
FutureCanvas