PUBLICITY

Publicity Committee Report

4 May 2014

Publicity Committee members: Alicia Weimer, Jeff Saxton, Jim Gartner, Jim King, Joanne Cronin, John Lamb, Michael Mitsch, Nancy Kelner, Pam Robinson, Pat Brangs, Paul Fisher, Loretta Brooks and Cathy Ballard

Webmaster Report – John Lamb

April was another busy month for your web team. In addition to the usual minor updates and tweaks on pages throughout the site, we completely rewrote the online membership signup page to reflect the new membership structure and rates. Allan detected another hacking attempt that sought to exploit a vulnerability that was most likely noticed by the perpetrators who compromised our site last summer. Eliminating that vulnerability was one of the steps taken in cleaning up after that earlier intrusion, and it appears that this latest attempted break-in failed. We continue to monitor the site for suspicious activity.

Ongoing work, mostly by Allan, has focused on integrating the carousel feature introduced last month with our existing database so that updates to the carousel may be automated rather than performed manually. Discussions have started concerning how best to include Special Concert events on the Minstrel Calendar. I have been updating the Minstrel Tally Sheet, addressing comments on the existing version received from Mike Agranoff, Barrett Wilson and Bill Henderson. Although the Tally Sheet is not strictly speaking a part of the Folk Project website, it is a web page that runs on the Minstrel computer to help Head Staff track admissions and account for money received and disbursed at the show. It produces weekly reports used by the Treasurer and Minstrel Chair. The new version completely reformats the reports section and should be in use by the end of May.

As always, many thanks to team members Allan, Lori and Charles. Please address any questions, comments or suggestions to webmaster@folkproject.org.

Facebook Report – Pam Robinson

The Folk Project's FaceBook page is moving along nicely.

Shari has been posting for Zed Music and Scooter has been posting for Special Concerts.

Posts with a Photo(s) rather than just a link or only a status reach almost 3x more people and generate way more activity on the site.

Venue chairs consider creating albums and/or posting photos to the page.

The MinstrelGram for Spuyten Duyvil generated a lot of buzz, I hope that was reflected in the turnout for the show.

Report From “The Chair” – Paul Fisher

Another complex month with some improvements but one announcement sent out late. Not a lot of details to report.

The committee continues to function smoothly, getting out releases as needed when the chair provides them on time.

Nancy continues to be very helpful with ideas, suggestions and reminders.

Other news:

· 500 new business cards were printed and some were distributed.

· There is one box at The Minstrel, Paul has another.

· Early notice was sent to the committee of the July 1^st increase in ticket price at The Minstrel in order to accommodate outlets with longer lead times.

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Online

· The Minstrel continues to be frequently listed among the Top Ten Monthly Events by the Morris County Tourism Bureau.

· Minstrel event was listed in njskylands.com.

· Folk Project events listed on northjersey.com

· The Daily Record did a long piece on the Bucky Pizzarelli in anticipatin of the concert.

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In Print

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Working with Performers and Their Publicists

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On the Radio

· There is an ongoing discussion on connecting Minstrel performers with local radio stations and how to most effectively provide promotional CDs.

· Some performers have been sent lists of media contacts for their own outreach efforts.

Other Items

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