Creative Manitoba is proud to introduce a brand new pilot program: Online Coaching.

Available exclusively to Creative Manitoba members, the Online Coaching program will provide access to personalized one-on-one coaching with arts professionals. The pilot run of the program, November 18 – January 29, will provide 3 FREE  1-hr coaching sessions for the first 40 members who sign up.

Not a member? Become one today

Incredible coaches are available in a variety of disciplines including Marketing and Social Media, Grant Writing, Website Development, Taxes, Songwriting, Resumes, Visual Art, and more. The full roster of coaches available is below.

Upon booking a session with a coach, you can leave a short intro message describing the type of guidance you’re looking for and can add links to work for them to review prior to your session together. Preparing a bullet list of talking points and questions is also a great way to ensure you get all the answers you need.

Terms and conditions

1. The program is only available to Creative Manitoba Members
2. The program is only open to 40 participants
3. All sessions must take place online through the Creative Manitoba Mentorly online portal, instructions will follow after registration.
4. Participants are limited to one session with a coach, you cannot book all three of your sessions with one coach. This will ensure more participants have the opportunity to experience a variety of coaches.
5. All three sessions must be completed by January 29.

Coaches

Jen Doerksen is a non-binary communications professional with a deep knowledge of videography, photography, and a serious interest in audio engineering. Jen is currently the marketing manager at Birthday Cake Media, a role includes branding, long-term marketing strategies, digital-focused marketing, and creative development. Jen is a co-founder of BNB Studios, a videography outfit for artists and musicians, which is how they discovered and developed a passion for working directly alongside artists. They play drums for a few hobby bands in Winnipeg, and are constantly exploring ways to mix mediums and bring visual and audio artforms together.

Areas of expertise: Marketing, Social Media

Bev Pike has raised millions of dollars in art funding as a grant writer for artists and organizations since 1984. As an artist, she has received senior arts grants from the Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council and Canada Council. Pike is known for her large-scale land-form paintings, her videos and her artist-books that have been shown across Canada in solo and group exhibitions. Her works are held in the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England as well as in public and private collections across North America. Pike’s current artistic research includes performative landscape, underground shell grottoes and other Baroque spectacles.

Areas of expertise: Grant Writing, Sculpture, Photography, New Media Art, Printmaking, Installation Art, Drawing, Painting

Hazel Venzon is a theatre artist: an actress, social-performance artist, writer, director and producer with
an artistic background rooted in Sculpture and Performance Art (University of Manitoba’s School
of Fine Art) and formal Acting Training (Studio 58). Venzon’s artistic practise is based around
Canadian Identity – how it shifts and how to appreciate the uniqueness of (our) cultural make-up. Her projects often circle back to her Filipina roots. She makes plays and events that highlight current themes of migration, cultural integration and the human cost borne by globalism, while
creating alternative ways for the public to think deeper about social issues. Hazel is the Artistic Director and Producer of U ‘N I Together (UNIT) Productions.

Areas of expertise: Acting, Theatre, Directing, Producing, Scriptwriting

Jean-Guy Talbot believes that happiness is a choice you make every morning. Passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience with others, he has celebrated success and has overcome challenges since founding Talbot & Associates in 1987. He has grown the practice from a one-person operation in his basement to over 70 staff in seven locations across Manitoba.
In his many years in practice, Jean-Guy devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy to research the secrets of operating a better practice, including how to use time and billing software to his advantage. At the same time, he continues to cultivate an organizational culture that promotes fun and individual development. This has been one of Jean-Guy’s main accomplishments as an empathetic leader. His hiring practices are unique and ensure that candidates who are chosen are a perfect addition to the team. By applying methods tested by years of practical experience and mentoring other practitioners through RêveNew Practice Management, Jean-Guy helps practitioners reach levels of profit they never thought possible.

Areas of expertise: Tax Preparation, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Team Management

Stephanie Sy is an established local TV/Film & Theatre actor, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has worked for many theatre companies in Winnipeg including Prairie Theatre Exchange (Prairie Nurse, Upcoming: Post Democracy, Bad Parent), Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (Vietgone, Penelopiad, Romeo & Juliet), Rainbow Stage (Beauty and the Beast, Footloose, Miss Saigon, A Chorus Line), Winnipeg Jewish Theatre (Tribes), Manitoba Theatre for Young People (James and the Giant Peach), Winnipeg Studio Theatre (American Idiot, My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding), Dry Cold (A Little Night Music, Little Women), and performed in over 10 seasons for the Fringe Festival. Away from Winnipeg, Stephanie has toured all of North America in Queen’s Musical ‘We Will Rock You,’ worked at the Blyth Festival (Yorkville the Musical, Prairie Nurse), Persephone Theatre (Velocity, A History Of Breathing), Segal Centre (Prom Queen the Musical), Globe Theatre (Ariel in Disney’s Little Mermaid), and Musical Stage/Mirvish (Next to Normal- Dora Mavore Award nominee).

Areas of expertise: Acting, Zoom Auditions, Make-up/Hair/Costume Consultation, Story/Character Discussion

Don Betts is a web designer and WordPress developer coming from a non-profit background. In his ten years of experience with websites, he has primarily worked with non-profit organizations and artists to develop cost-effective ways to grow their online presence through their websites.

Areas of expertise: Web Design, UX Design

Albert McLeod is a Status Indian with ancestry from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation and the Metis community of Norway House in northern Manitoba. He has over thirty years of experience as a human rights activist and is one of the directors of the Two-Spirited People of Manitoba.

Albert began his Two-Spirit advocacy in Winnipeg in 1986 and became an HIV/AIDS activist in 1987. He was the director of the Manitoba Aboriginal AIDS Task Force from 1991 to 2001. In 2018, Albert received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Winnipeg and received the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH) 2019 Champions of Mental Health Award for Community (Individual).

Albert lives in Winnipeg, where he works as a consultant specializing in Indigenous peoples, cultural reclamation, and cross-cultural training. www.albertmcleod.com

Areas of expertise: Indigenous Art Design, Photography, New Media Art

Issa Kixen is an Anishinaabe Two Spirit Comedian/Producer who’s roots lay in Couchiching First Nation, Ontario. They have travelled across Canada and the USA as a Comedian and improviser. They use comedy as a tool in dealing with racism, homophobia and sexism. They are the Co-founder/producer of WOKE Comedy Hour, voted number one comedian in the 2019/2020 Uniter’s top 30, featured on APTN’s The Laughing Drum, a member of the Bannock Babes drag collective and they are the executive producer for Minogondaagan: the good voice podcast.

Areas of expertise: Comedy, Improvisation, Drag, Podcasting

Stefanie Blondal Johnson is a singer-songwriter, musician, manager and one half of the duo in the Winnipeg based Indie Rock band, Mise en Scene. Mise en Scene has been nominated for Canadian music awards, toured the world, played several national and international showcasing and taste making festivals, released three full length records and one EP and are signed to Light Organ/604 Records out of Vancouver. Stefanie has attended and studied at the prestigious Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in both Independent and Singer-Songwriter Residencies. She has cowritten in Nashville with Grammy winners and Hall of Fame inductees, and cowrites in multiple genres with musicians. Stef has worked in marketing, content creation, branding and consulting contracts for other musicians and has completed contracts with the Winnipeg Arts Council for community projects and artists in the schools. She has also worked in education, working with high risk female youth, creating alternative creative programming in both music and art. She has a degree from McGill University with a major in English Cultural Studies and minor in Media and Communications, and a partial degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) with a focus in film, video and photography. She has dealt with many areas in the music industry having worked both sides of the industry as a musician and manager and content creator (filming, directing and editing music videos and photoshoots). Stef is well rounded and well versed in the modern music business and loves to work with emerging and established artists.

Areas of expertise: Singing, Songwriting, Music Business, Social Media, Branding

Hugh Conacher is a lighting and multi-media designer, and a photographer, whose practice is based in live performance. He has collaborated with choreographers, directors, visual artists, and dance and theatre companies throughout Canada and around the world, in venues large and small. He approaches each project as an individual work of art.

Hugh’s work, the foundation of which is 35 years as a lighting designer, straddles the worlds of lighting design, new media technologies, projection and photography, blurring the lines between disciplines, using whichever media form best serves the vision of his current project. He takes the static space of the stage and turns it into an immersive environment with light and projection created specifically for the project. From light and projection he develops form – form that living bodies interact with. He brings together the ephemeral medium of light, including projection, with living bodies and new technologies in a conversation, the collective result of which is more than its individual parts. Hugh’s photographic work resides in private collections and has been published worldwide.

Areas of expertise: Theatre, Lighting, Lighting Design, Video Design, Set Design, Production Management, Technical Direction

Annette Kohut is a Talent Acquisition Specialist who’s been in the recruitment industry for almost 15 years. Working for one of the top HR and Recruitment firms in the city, her focus is on leadership and executive search. Partnering with public, private and non-profit organizations, Annette has helped hundreds of organizations find talent in HR, accounting, engineering, administration and technology – you name it, she’s probably recruited for it. Over her career, she’s reviewed thousands of resumes and cover letters and talked to thousands of people from all walks of life at all stages of their life.

Annette is also one of the co-founders of White Rabbit Productions and has been involved in the theatre community for 20 years in various aspects, though mainly in administrative and event coordination functions. There’s a special place in her heart for musical theatre.

Annette has long held the belief that business and the arts are similar in nature – both require creativity, ingenuity, innovation, collaboration, courage and commitment to be successful. She loves providing artists insight into their skillsets and experience and how they can apply that to the corporate and business world.

Areas of expertise: Resumes, Human Resources, Interview Prep, Career Insights

Rick Chafe is a playwright and screenwriter.

In 2019 he celebrated the release of the feature film STAND!, a musical co-written with writer/composer Danny Schur; the stage play STRIKE! (Rainbow Stage), also co-written with Schur; Red Earth (One Trunk Theatre), a graphic novel for stage co-written with Kristian Jordan from a story by Andraea Sartison and GMB Chomichuk; and the publication of Marriage: A Demolition in Two Acts (Playwrights Canada Press).

Two new plays to have premiered in 2020, Five Moments (Theatre Projects Manitoba), and Both Alike in Dignity, co-written with Yvette Nolan (Prairie Theatre Exchange) have been delayed by COVID-19.

Other selected plays include: The Secret Mask for Prairie Theatre Exchange (2013); Beowulf’s Daughter for Two Planks and a Passion (2011); Shakespeare’s Dog for Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre – National Arts Centre (2009) and The Odyssey for Shakespeare in the Ruins (2001).

His television credits are: head writer on the 13-part series NEXT! (APTN); Script Consultant on Indian City: Stories from the Street (Global); story editor on In Valhalla’s Shadows (in development, Blue Prairie Productions).

He is winner of the Chris Johnson Award for Best Manitoba New Play (The Secret Mask), a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama (The Secret Mask), and a nominee for the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre.

Areas of expertise: Film, Theatre, Scriptwriting

Supported by/Avec l’appui de :