Some Personal Reflections on Continuity Planning

I've wanted to write to you since I left our very intense continuity-planning meeting in Atlanta, but shortly thereafter I left for vacation.

Despite my efforts to try not to think about professional concerns while on vacation, as I relaxed on our beautiful beach (while fearing once again the prospect of two hurricanes coming our way which- thankfully this time - veered out to sea), I couldn't help but think about our discussions and what we in our field must do to prepare ourselves and our loved ones as well as our staffs, artists, boards and donors and audiences - our individual organizations and our field as a whole - for what we-hope-may-never-happen to us and/or our community.

Sometimes in different speeches and remarks I've given over the years, I've said "I don't mind being crazy and lonely as long as I know there are people out there who are feeling crazy and lonely too!" As we talked in Atlanta and discussed the range of unexpected disasters so many of us have faced already, the craziness and sometime loneliness and exhaustion of trying to keep going - despite the odds and the gods - seemed all-too-real and painful - and extraordinarily heroic.
Indeed, it is this very collective experience - our struggles and triumphs of coming through fire, flood, theft, death - that will inform and shape this important ArtsREADY dialogue and process. ArtsREADY is going to be an invaluable tool to help us through too many difficult times.

As I've thought about the planning process for continuity and the eventual tool that will be developed for our use, I've realized that - if you're at all like me - there are personal barriers that may need to be overcome as well in order to make this tool as effective as I believe it will be.

Nobody wants to think about unforeseen catastrophes and disasters. It's easier to bury our brains in the sand. We don't want to face ourselves and our fears; it's too hard to think about such things as wills, escape routes, preventative medicine, and safety precautions for ourselves and our families - let alone, how to face what that means to our organizations when we might not be able to locate our colleagues, our artists, our data bases.

"It's not going to happen to me! It's not going to happen here!"

But it does, Life happens!

It happens to us as individuals, and it happens to the communities, the people, and the organizations we care about and work tirelessly to keep thriving.

The term "Continuity Planning" sounds very institutional (which of course it is), but it is, to me, at the same time a personal journey, making sure that we take responsibility to put in place what needs to be there for the organizations we all work so hard to keep strong and relevant and for the people and the art we so desperately love.