Saskatoon Folkfest 2021
Culture Connect
I am humbled to have had the opportunity to serve as Folkfest’s Board President and Chair. Board decisions were made with input and guidance from the membership, and based on three key values: safety, sustainability, and integrity. This led to the production of Culture Connect, a two-day virtual festival for 2021. During this pandemic era, we worked hard to keep the communications going with our membership, patrons, and community at large. Organizationally, we were able to secure funding and engage volunteers to ensure additional offerings, including a new online system to offer cultural food options, providing online workshops, and a panel session.
I am grateful to our membership, volunteers, our Executive Director, Staff Team, and my Board peers for your leadership, guidance, and support. As Chair, it has been profoundly challenging and rewarding to steward a festival during a pandemic era where instead of inspiring our mandate of celebrating multiculturalism directly – our priority first and foremost became, through the lens of ‘health protocols and directions.’
While we continue to live under changing times, adapting to a pandemic way of being, in the best way possible there is good news. We are deeply thankful that our generous supporters and patrons remain connected; financially, we remain strong; and, organizationally, with support from our stakeholders, we are on track to re-ignite our future planning processes and build on our work with our membership, patrons, and the community at large to envision an even stronger, better and vibrant festival.
Warm regards,
Lenore Swystun
Your 2022 Folkfest Board Of Directors:
- Lenore Swystun – President
- Kishore Gali – Vice President
- Winnie Mutswangwa – Treasurer
- Paula Irvine – Secretary
- Daysi Hernandez – Director
- Dr. Effie Kutsogiannis – Director
- Janine Lazaro – Director
- Anika Mysha – Director
