Just to stay on time, let's go ahead and get started for business session for October 31 Halloween 2024.

First item is approval of minutes for business session of October 24th.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Northland.

It's been moved and seconded.

Y'all go run the meeting.

Uh as we moved and seconded.

All in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

The motion passes.

We will actually start.

Let's go ahead and start because they appear to be ready with the UNESCO Creative City of Music Report.

We'll go ahead and start with UNESCO.

Probably gonna have to be a little shorter this time, just given the volume, but come on up and we'll get started.

We've got papers to share.

Is that okay?

Yep.

There you go.

That's yours.

Good afternoon, and thanks for your time.

Jacob Wagner, and I am the vice president of the board of Creative City KC and one of the founders.

Good afternoon.

I'm Anita Dixon Brown, executive director and founder of the Creative City KC.

And I'm Bukica Blakemore, Deputy Executive Director of Creative City KC.

So we're here to give you an update.

We've obviously been working on it quite a bit this past year with the development of a new brand.

So we have a new logo, and we actually brought you all t-shirts today and uh some of the swag bags that we have so everyone can see the brand.

We're currently working on rolling out the brand to create greater awareness.

The city has invested in us to develop a citywide branding strategy.

So we're moving forward with that.

We've actually developed that brand with Reactor Studio right here in Kansas City, Missouri, and they have won two awards for the brand already.

So they won a Philly ward and they also won a uh graphic uh arts award as well.

As part of that brand awareness, we are working on obviously a number of exchanges with all the different music cities around the world.

We're currently working on a Belfast music exchange, and in a matter of a week, we'll be sending four musicians over to Belfast in Northern Ireland to participate in an exchange, which we expect then to have some Irish musicians come back to Kansas City in 2025.

This is the draft of our uh working document for a global music strategy for Kansas City.

So we've laid it out there, and we were requesting feedback from you from the city manager.

Uh manager Platt and I missed each other, but we are planning to sit down and go through this as well, so I'm looking forward to that conversation.

This lays out the number of goals that we're currently working on to strengthen the Kansas City music economy and make sure there's a return on an investment for every dollar spent by the city.

So you'll see our key goals there in terms of brand awareness, and we are actively participating in promoting the Kansas City sound around the world.

We had Councilwoman uh Melissa Robinson who attended the conference this past year in Braga, Portugal.

Uh Councilwoman Robinson, would you like to say anything about uh attending the annual meeting?

Uh well, in the interest of time, I'll keep it really brief and short.

It is really critically important that the city of Kansas City is represented at these types of um events and and conferences.

Uh what we've learned is that there is a strong connection between building a robust economy and making sure that um artists are supported.

Um, some of the lessons learned uh coming out of that, those conversations have been uh we really need an artist and residence program um in the city of Kansas City.

Um imagine if whilst we're doing infrastructure projects, we have artists that are sitting on those committees um that are informing us on how we uh build a stronger Kansas City.

I think that we will just have that much more of a robust uh response as we as we work to ensure that we have um we're saying a 22nd century right now, and as we're moving into the to the future, and so um I know that our mayor pro Tim attended as well and represented us great with the mayors across the world, and so would love to yield the 30 to 60 seconds of my time if she would like to talk about her experience.

But one last thing is meeting with the ambassador memes was really really critical as it relates to how are we as a country showing up with United Nations.

And when you look at the sustainability goals of UNESCO, they're in alignment with our business plan.

And it's important for us to be at the table because we can utilize these goals in the breadth of the expertise and knowledge around the world to help us here in Kansas City with what we're trying to do with our residents every day.

Finally, International Jazz Day is huge, and I look forward to working with um all of you to see how we can bring that to fruition for next year.

So Mayor Pro Tem, I don't know if you want to talk about your experience, but it was certainly a great experience.

Sure.

Uh, in the essence of time, I'll be brief, but definitely had an excellent opportunity to uh collaborate, discuss with uh mayors, uh vice mayors of just from country, other countries across the world.

And um, it was really inspiring to understand the things that they are doing and how um they are utilizing their um their UNESCO cities to really advance their economies.