NEWSLETTER

Newsletter Committee Report 2014-02

Pat Brangs had Staples print out 330 copies of the newsletter for physical distribution. She mailed out 188 copies to members, with the others distributed to the usual places: Minstrel, Morris Arts, Eddie, Carl, etc.

Pat, Nancy Kelner, and Liz Pagan were very helpful catching errors to be corrected.

Contrary to my prediction last month, the February newsletter took longer to produce than the January one. Primarily this was because for January I was just trying to get the job done by whatever means necessary, while for the February issue I began to spend more time organizing to create a simple and efficient workflow. Part of this effort was taking a 7-hour online course about InDesign, the program used to assemble the Newsletter and integrating a grammar-checking program into the workflow. Another part was spending more time understanding the customization tools available in the program, including the styles that Liz had been using, or in some cases fixing problems with automatic font assignments.

One of the more time consuming and error prone articles of the newsletter is the calendar. It is done last, and you would think it would be a pretty easy to make since it copies information from many of the other articles. However, there is a lot of technical construction (changing number of days each month, matching days of the week to each date) and the updating is subject to copy/paste errors (adding or removing extra characters during the copy, putting things in the wrong place, etc.), or forgetting new events because of the complexity of dealing with the old. After the newsletter was produced, I decided to fix this problem by writing a program to automatically generate the calendar master template, with dates, weekday names, and all the standard boilerplate text in place. This would mean that updating the calendar would focus on adding new events, updating placeholders, or the occasional removal of a standard item as needed (such as a Minstrel concert during Festival weekend). We shall see how much this improves things for the next issue.

Here is the output of the program for March. Please let me know of any errors or omissions to this template.

1/Sat. Swingin' Tern: (performers)

Zed Music Series: 7pm pot luck, 7:30pm Open Mic followed by featured performer. (848) 219-1868, (201) 306-8744, ZedMusicSeries@gmail.com

EVERY Saturday: CD*NY: Contra dances, 8pm. NYC, www.cdny.org

People’s Voice Cafe: (performer), 8pm. Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist, 40 East 35th St., NYC; www.peoplesvoicecafe.org or (212) 787-3903

2/Sun. EVERY Sunday: Music You Can’t Hear on the Radio, 7pm. WPRB 103.3FM; www.wprb.com; www.veryseldom.com

EVERY Sunday: Radio Nowhere, 7–10pm. WMSC 90.3FM Montclair or streaming at www.wmscradio.com or www.live365.com/wmsc

EVERY 1st & 3rd Sunday: Open Irish session, 6pm. Dublin House, Red Bank

EVERY 1st Sunday: NJ Friends of Clearwater Circle of Song, 12:30-2:30pm

3/Mon. EVERY Monday: Maplewood International Dancers, 7:30pm. Maplewood, njfolkdance.tripod.com/fd_maplewood.html

4/Tues. FP Board Meeting: 8pm. At (host's) in (town).

EVERY Tuesday: Northwest NJ Acoustic Jam, 7pm. Westside United Methodist Church, Hopatcong. (973) 770-0179

EVERY 1st & 3rd Tuesday: Stony Brook Friends of Old Time Music Jam, 7:30pm. Mannion’s Somerville. www.diamondcut.com/oldtime/

5/Wed. EVERY Wednesday: Morristown Int’l Dancers, 7:30pm. Mountain Lakes Community Church. (973) 539-7020, njfolkdance.tripod.com/fd_morristown.html

EVERY Wednesday: Princeton Country Dancers, 8pm. Suzanne Patterson center, Princeton. (609) 799-2073, www.princetoncountrydancers.org/

EVERY Wednesday: “Down Jersey” with Jim Albertson, 7:30pm. WSNJ am1240, am1440 and www.wsnjam.com; members.aol.com/downjerseyjim/

EVERY Wednesday: 9pm, Open Mic, McLynn’s Restaurant, Springfield. (973) 258-1600

EVERY 1st Wednesday: Folk Open Sing; 7pm. Ethical Culture Society, 53 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn. (212) 636-6341 or (718) 788-7563

EVERY 1st Wednesday: Morristown Uke Jam; meetup.com/MorristownUkeJam; Mark (973) 978-0751, MarcoDtheUkeman@gmail.com

6/Thur. EVERY Thursday: Mannion’s NJAMP Acoustic Jam, 6pm. Somerville. (908) 203-9700; meetup.com/NJ-Acoustic-Music-in-the-Park

Alternate Thursdays: Scandinavian couple dancing, 7:30pm. Bound Brook. See skandinoje.org for dates/info

7/Fri. Minstrel: (performers)

8/Sat. FP Evening o’ Music: 8pm. At (host's) in (town)

People’s Voice Cafe: (performer), 8pm. Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist, 40 East 35th St., NYC; www.peoplesvoicecafe.org or (212) 787-3903

Walkabout Clearwater Coffeehouse: (performer), 7:30pm. Walkabout Chorus "Teachabout" at 6:45pm. United Methodist Church, 250 Bryant Ave., White Plains, (914) 949-2146, www.WalkaboutClearwater.org

9/Sun.

10/Mon.

11/Tues.

12/Wed.

13/Thur. NJ Songwriters Circle: 7pm. Dave Kleiner’s, 32 Williamson Ave., Bloomfield. (973) 429-0288

14/Fri. Minstrel: Open Stage

15/Sat. Swingin' Tern: (performers)

People’s Voice Cafe: (performer), 8pm. Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist, 40 East 35th St., NYC; www.peoplesvoicecafe.org or (212) 787-3903

Coffee with Conscience: (performer), 8pm. 1st United Methodist Church, Westfield, NJ. Directions: http://www.coffeewithconscience.org/Westfield.html; upcoming shows: http://tinyurl.com/7vyfgrr

Music at the Mission: (performer), 8pm. West Milford; www.musicatthemission.org

16/Sun.

17/Mon.

18/Tues.

19/Wed.

20/Thur.

21/Fri. Minstrel: (performers)

Princeton Folk Music Society: (performer), 8:15pm. Christ Congregation Church, 50 Walnut Lane, Princeton, NJ ; www.princetonfolk.org

22/Sat. Bonus Evening o’ Music: 8pm. At the Roffmans’, 11 Butternut Rd., Randolph. (973) 328-7742

People’s Voice Cafe: (performer), 8pm. Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist, 40 East 35th St., NYC; www.peoplesvoicecafe.org or (212) 787-3903

23/Sun.

24/Mon.

25/Tues.

26/Wed.

27/Thur.

28/Fri. Minstrel: (performers)

29/Sat. People’s Voice Cafe: (performer), 8pm. Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist, 40 East 35th St., NYC; www.peoplesvoicecafe.org or (212) 787-3903

30/Sun.

31/Mon.

George Otto

Folk Project Newsletter Editor

(908) 604-4623

newsletter@folkproject.org