On April 9, 2024, City Council unanimously adopted the You Are Here Cultural Strategic Plan 2024-2034. Now that the plan has been adopted, City staff will begin engaging with internal and external stakeholders to develop the plans that will take the plan’s actions from the page into reality.

Highlights of the planning process included the following:

• The memorandum of understanding between the City and Thompson Rivers University was signed in 2020 and identified the review and update of the Cultural Strategic Plan as a priority.
• Working with support from Dr. Will Garrett-Petts, Thompson Rivers University’s Vice President of Research, Dr. Cheryl Gladu, the newly hired Researcher in Residence; a tremendous team of faculty and student researchers; and City staff developed You Are Here, an exhibition and cultural mapping experience hosted at the Kamloops Museum and Archives that provided critical insight and data to inform the planning process and outcomes.
• On June 24, 2022, the You Are Here exhibition and cultural mapping research lab opens free of charge to all visitors. In the three months the lab was open, an unprecedented number of citizens (1,900) shared what culture means to them, where they experience culture, and what opportunities or barriers they experience.
• During the time the You Are Here exhibition was open, Thompson Rivers University and City staff made presentations on the cultural strategic planning process and extended invitations to Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc and numerous stakeholder groups to participate in the cultural mapping research or future community conversations. At the same time, a survey was hosted on LetsTalk.Kamloops.ca and received 487 responses, providing more valuable data.
• In November 2022, the City retained cultural planning consultant Patricia Huntsman to facilitate the process moving forward and to write a 10-year cultural strategic plan that identifies the major themes to align ideas, people, and resources to a shared vision of cultural development.
• In October 2023, City staff and the cultural planning consultant presented at the Creative Cities Network of Canada conference on the Kamloops Museum and Archives’ unique role as a forum for the community conversations that came out of the You Are Here exhibition and cultural mapping.

View the final plan.

Read the full April 9, 2024, Council Report.

Thank you to the participants who contributed feedback throughout the project. Your vision and sharing what culture means to you helped to shape the final plan, which will be the guide to culture over the next 10 years.