Toonik Tyme organizers ask city to help lead festival

This year Toonik Tyme will miss the help from volunteers with Katimavik, seen here in 2012.

Days before Iqaluit’s Toonik Tyme festival is set to start, its organizers have told city officials they are are too often short of volunteers to run the event and want the city to help organize future festivals.

The Toonik Tyme Society relies on at least 100 volunteers every year, president Janet Brewster told city council at a regular meeting April 9.

Recruiting these volunteers is a big part of the yearly effort to keep the event running.

Even though the festival’s size has grown from year to year, volunteer and organizational support has not kept pace. Toonik Tyme had become a non-profit organization to recruit new sources of public and private funds and relieve the pressure on the city’s recreation department.

The loss of student volunteers from Katimavik, the former youth volunteer-service program that provided at least 15 helping hands until last year, has left a “gaping hole.”

“Katimavik was really an incredible force for this entire community,” Brewster said.

“We’ve been backed by the city, but one of the questions that we have is why isn’t the city more involved,” she told council.

The Toonik Tyme Society president noted that at least three city employees have volunteered their time to help set up this year’s event, but on their own time, independent of their day job functions.

These volunteers have gone “above and beyond what we would consider appropriate for anybody who is volunteering,” she said.

“You have city employees who are really keen about Toonik Tyme,” said Brewster, adding that she hopes this shows that the city could organize the festival in an official capacity.

Coun. Mark Morrissey, who heads up the city’s economic development committee, pointed out that the city would need a firm schedule on when the event happens, close to a year in advance, to provide funding and other help.

“Events like Toonik Tyme are an excellent opportunity to bring in more visitors to see the city, but it’s hard without dates that are targeted,” he said.

Asked if dates could be set well in advance, Brewster replied that the volunteer board has not been able to meet consistently enough to do so.

“Ideally we will be setting the dates [for next year’s event] by June this year,” she said, and turned the question back to council.

“What would really help is if we had people available from the city to tell us what the ideal time would be. We’re open to it.”

Some councillors also raised questions about charges placed on events, and about the balance of events highlighting local entertainers and Inuit traditions.

Brewster estimated it would cost more than $65,000 to put on a free festival.

On the topic of traditional activities and performances, she replied that part of the appeal of Toonik Tyme is for participants to see musical acts and events that “you would not otherwise have a chance to see.”

Asked by Coun. Joanasie Akumalik about efforts to gather more private sponsorship to support the event, Brewster replied that the scale of work volunteers must do leaves little time to pursue added support. Keeping existing sponsors “just happens to be a lot easier,” she said.

Brewster suggested the festival’s upcoming 50th anniversary, to take place in 2015, would be an ideal occasion for the city to take the lead in organizing the spring festival.

Most councillors agreed, but stopped short of considering taking over the event outright.

“With 100 volunteers at the event, that would be impossible for us to take full control over,” said Coun. Kenny Bell. “But Toonik Tyme is such a massive event for the City of Iqaluit, and brings in lots of people from around Nunavut. I think we could provide some support to them, that would be more than just a few of our employees volunteering.”

April 12 is a civic holiday in Iqaluit, although many private businesses will not close and the Government of Nunavut is only closing down its offices in the afternoon.