President's Report

Folk Project Board of Directors

President’s Report

August, 2015

Dear Board Members,

First off, congratulations to us all for a wonderful Folk Project/Minstrel celebration weekend July 24 - 26. We started with a Friday evening of great member performances at our annual Birthday Show, moved on to a Saturday night world class concert w/ Tom Paxton, and finished with a home made music and schmooze fest on Sunday. All in all - we did what we do best, and have been doing now for forty years. May we find our way to the year 2025, as an org, and as a community, and celebrate our 50th anniversary together with the same pleasure and delight as we shared last weekend.

I wanted to take this chance to write you all on the status of Mark and Robin’s future involvement with the Folk Project and the Getaway. As was announced in a previous post, both Mark and Robin have re-committed to chairing our Getaway venue. This is a positive step in a positive direction, and welcome news for all of us. I’d like to suggest though that email is not the best way to have a dialog about any outstanding questions or concerns you might have. So I’d hope that we can hold off on discussion until we meet next week.

While Mark’s resignation and re-instatement has been a difficult time for our org, it has also served to highlight three issues that need our close attention going forward. These are 1) negativity vrs. collegiality, 2) tension over the proper role of Board oversight, and 3) and resolution of how to cover general (G & A) overhead expenses. I’d like to briefly outline these issues now….

1) In the type of close business and social community that we share, it can be easy for policy / process disagreements between us to slide into personal complaints. Over time this can deepen into a loss of community, a loss of collegiality, and at its worst a loss of respect for our “neighbors” commitment towards shared goals, and their ability to work toward them. Right now we’re at an important juncture in our Folk Project evolution, and it’s up to us to make a course correction that rejects negativity in favor of a more healthy, positive atmosphere of collegiality.

Several ways to make that course correction come to mind. One is to keep focused on the future and positive ways to make it better. This means letting go of the past as our main focus, and instead offering constructive suggestions for how to do better next time an issue comes up. Another important area we each have a role in is discouraging rather than inflaming interpersonal tensions. Instead of the instinctive response of taking sides, we can choose to try and understand both sides of an issue and look for common ground to move towards.

I don’t mean to be simplistic or naive here. Presenting goody two shoes solutions to our complex situation is not my intent. The suggestions offered above will be part of our path out, but this erosion of basic collegiality and sense of common purpose has happened over time, and it’s going to take time and sustained positive effort to correct. It may not be easy to walk back from some of the interpersonal issues that have arisen, but I’m confident based on my many conversations with all involved that we have the commitment to do so.

2) Defining the proper balance between venue chair autonomy (Minstrel, Getaway, Swingin’ Tern, Special Concerts) and Board oversight will be crucial to us moving forward as a cohesive group. There has been unaddressed tension surrounding this issue for too long, but we now have the perfect opportunity to discuss and resolve it as part of the larger conversation regarding Marks resignation and re-instatement. I’ve asked several Board members to help us sort out and clarify this issue: Mike Agranoff, a long standing venue chair, Elizabeth Lachowicz, a past President, Jay Wilensky, a new member of our Board, Chris Reimer, a long time

Board member, and myself. We will be meeting soon and hope to have a report for the Board by years end. Our goal here is to stimulate an active Board wide discussion, and eventually reach a true consensus on what is now a divisive issue. Achieving this will be a big step forward for us as an organization.

3) Regarding our finances in general, and the issue of G&A in particular, the Finance Committee plans to finish their work soon as possible and report to the Board at our Oct. meeting. Using this report and the ensuing debate over it’s findings, we’ll have the chance to reach a clear consensus on not only what our annual overhead expenses are, but where the money has to come from each year to pay for them. This issue of G&A responsibility also ties in with issue #2 above.

These past two months have been a difficult time for all of us. Yet as trying as things have been, I’ve also been inspired by the many people, Board members and Folk Project members in general, who have stepped forward and offered their time and efforts to be part of a positive outcome. My heart and gratitude go out to them. And now with Mark firmly back on board and committed to running the Getaway, and with the above three issues defined and awaiting debate, I think it’s safe to say that the Folk Project stands to be a stronger, more focused organization than before. I’m looking forward to all of us actively participating in this coming process of discussion, clarification, and resolution.

For the Music, for the Dancing, and for our Community,

Respectfully submitted,

Barrett Wilson

President - The Folk Project

president@folkproject.org

Staffing Chairman - The Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series

volunteers@folkproject.org