RACA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ACCEPTS POSITION WITH SOUTHERN ARTS FEDERATION
Rome Area Council for the Arts announces that their Executive Director, Allen Bell, has accepted the position of Program Director for Contemporary Arts and New Intitiatives with the Southern Arts Federation, a nine-state regional arts agency based in Atlanta. His last day at RACA will be Friday, December 7.
"While I am excited about working with the Southern Arts Federation," Bell said, "I will miss working with all of the artists, patrons, volunteers and audiences in Rome."
As Program Director for Contemporary Arts and New Initiatives at SAF, Bell will manage existing programs and develop new initiatives in media, film and contemporary visual arts, serve as a national leader in the field of media, film and contemporary arts, and serve as the agency liaison to the media arts, visual arts, performing arts and literary arts fields and the state arts agency coordinators in those disciplines.
"Allen Bell has been a terrific Executive Director for the Rome Area Council for the Arts for the past ten years," said Nancy Smith, RACA President from 2003-2004. "We were lucky to have him that long and have seen tremendous growth for our organization during that time. We have moved from a back street to the main street arts community. Allen's hard work and leadership have made that dynamic growth possible. He will be missed."
Working with Rome Area Council for the Arts since January 1998, Bell has served as the organization's Executive Director since January 1999. During his tenure, RACA has presented hundreds of programs including more than 100 gallery exhibitions, eighty performing arts events, seventy poetry and prose readings, fifty weeks of art camp, thirty school programs, thirty outreach events, twenty fund raising events, and dozens of special community arts events.
RACA has helped to establish numerous new programs and organizations during Bell's tenure, including the Rome International Film Festival, Ninebark Press, the Bach Festival weekend, the Empty Bowls Project, Business After Hours with the Arts, the Ana K. Davie Elementary School Writers Academy, Rome Area Writers, Rome Art Coterie, Three Rivers Singers and the Gateway to Rome public art project, among others.
"When I first began working at RACA, we established several goals for the organization," said Bell. "We wanted to improve the visibility of the organization, increase membership and audiences, and improve the quality and quantity of arts programs."
During Bell's ten years at RACA, the organization tripled the size of its gallery and offices and moved to a more visible location at 248 Broad Street. The organization also significantly increased the number of programs and more than doubled its membership during the past decade. In addition, RACA significantly expanded its marketing efforts, including an extensive web site at www.romearts.org that provides information about arts organizations and arts programs in the Rome area.
RACA has reached numerous fund raising milestones during the past ten years as well, including doubling the annual budget for programs and operations, receiving the organization's first grants from National Endowment for the Arts, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, and Alternate ROOTS, and receiving more than twenty grants from Georgia Council for the Arts.
"Allen has done an outstanding job as Executive Director of the Rome Area Council for the Arts," said Scott Moody, RACA's current President. "His dedication over the years to the arts community and the community at large has made Rome, Floyd County, and the surrounding region a better place to live."
"I want to thank the RACA Board for the opportunity to serve the citizens and arts community of Rome and Floyd County through such a dynamic and ambitious arts organization in a field about which I am passionate," said Bell. "RACA's growth in visibility, programs, audiences, space, and budget has been nothing short of remarkable and largely is due to the vision of the Board of Directors, the support of members, patrons and audiences, and the work of Rome's talented artists, writers, performers, and volunteers."
A reception to recognize Bell's ten years of service to RACA will be Thursday, December 6, 5:00-7:00 pm, at RACA. The event is free and open to the public.
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