Publicity Report

Webmaster Report – John Lamb

The website continues on it merry way, with event updates now mostly handled by non-webmaster volunteers. That frees up the webmaster to do things like attend the workshop on improving cultural access for the disabled that was presented by the Arts Council of the Morris Area. From that workshop, I have gotten pointers to resources on culturalaccessnetwork.org that will help us evaluate and improve our website so that we may better serve all audiences, including those with disabilities. I plan to use those resources over the next few months to make minor changes to the site that I hope will improve usability for all. Elizabeth Lachowicz was also at that workshop and may have ideas that can be implemented at our physical venues.

Facebook Report – Pam Robinson

The Folk Project's Facebook "likes" continue to grow. Please post on the FP’s wall or event pages your thoughts about an upcoming show, a past show, the FP in general. Please also "share" FP events on your wall.

Publicity Report – Nancy Kelner, Chairman

A quick count of where we’re sending publicity shows that the publicity committee covered approximately 70 media outlets in April. These include newspapers, magazines, calendars, organizations, churches, libraries, and radio stations. Thanks, committee members!

On April 10th, I attended an awards reception given by the Arts Council of the Morris Area. The awards were presented for outstanding arts advocate, organization, educator/school, corporation and professional. A special recognition award was given to Kevin Coughlin of Morristown Green, who was honored “for his outstanding efforts to document, promote and enhance the arts in our area.” It was a very nice event. Ran into musician Grover Kemble, who told me he wanted to join the Folk Project; put him in touch with Scott Ross. The link to Morristown Green’s article about the evening is http://morristowngreen.com/2012/04/12/morris-arts-council-awards-scholarships-honors-communitys-arts-contributors-and-morristowngreen-com/.

Have started distributing Folk Project press passes to various journalists, DJ’s, etc., and have created a log sheet for Minstrel and Swingin’ Tern to use. The log sheet asks for date, name and media outlet. At the end of 2012, I will review the number of press pass holders who visited the Minstrel and Swingin’ Tern. The press pass is also valid for special concerts.

Discovered that Jersey Arts did not list the April 20 Minstrel two-fer in its April E-Savers email. Apparently, the fellow in charge never received my email about it. He was unable to send it out in a separate email, but he did offer to post it on their Facebook page the week of the event. I will do my best to make sure he receives information on the May 18 Minstrel Jersey Arts two-fer.

Was looking at the website of the Bucks County Folk Song Society (one of our publicity outlets), which has links to other folk organizations. Sent them the correct link to the Minstrel page and the link to the Swingin’ Tern page on our website.

We are still dealing with errors “on the other end”: The Spring 2012 issue of NJ Skylands Visitor listed the Folk Project Festival in its events listing, but got our website partially wrong; they used dot-com instead of dot-org. Emailed the editor to let him know. The Cranford Chronicle re-printed the April Minstrel line-up and got April 20 wrong -- again (there is no opening act). Decided to let it go.

Attended the Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association monthly show on April 15 and ran into Dave Sherman there! He had just performed with John Siehl. (Wish I had known; we would have arrived earlier.) I set out some Minstrel flyers, Keith Murphy workshop flyers and Folk Project cards; 2 Minstrel flyers and 1 card were taken. The show was being taped by a man from the Monmouth County area Cablevision station; told him about Minstrel and gave him a Folk Project card; he said he’d pass it along to a more northern Cablevision guy. Haven’t heard anything from them yet and probably won’t.

Folk Project cards - Don’t leave home without them! You never know when you’ll have an opportunity to post one (e.g., coffee shop bulletin board) or give one away (e.g., at a garage sale). I even put one on the board at a deli on Route 22 near Round Valley State Park; it’s not near Morristown, but lots of travelers stop there.