Publicity

Publicity Committee members: Alicia Weimer, Deborah Graham, Eileen Napolitano, George Otto, Howard Goldman, Jean Scully, Jim Gartner, Jim King, Joanne Cronin, John Lamb, Loretta Brooks, Margaret Crowl, Michael Mitsch, Nancy Kelner, Olga Alvarez, Pam Robinson, Pat Brangs, Paul Fisher, Susan Lembo

Report From “The Chair” – Paul Fisher

December was a month where the committee focused on getting the basics done (our press releases for January) and looking at a few other items that needed attention. Our monthly detailed Minstrel Concert release (written by Jim King) was for Beppe Gambetta.

Our web team continues to keep things updated and are always ready to respond to issues and suggestions. Details are in John's report below.

Most of the activity under our Social Media Coordinator focused on Chris Riemer's work on our YouTube channel and setting up HootSuite to monitor all of our social media activities with one tool.

Details on YouTube are in George's report below.

Nancy has sent out this year's press passes (13 recipients).

Nancy also completed and distributed a new radio station list. Thanks Nancy and thanks Mike for your input.

Many thanks to Liz Pagan for updating the ad for the Morris County Tourism Bureau booklet. It was updated to include references to our 40 years plus the Morris Arts award and the “free admission with ad” was eliminated (as requested by Mike Agranoff).

Jeff Saxton was a member of the Publicity Committee going back a long ways. He will be missed.

The Publicity Committee will be building and/or updating a contact list of Jewish organizations and outlets in advance of the March 4 Minstrel appearance of the Odessa Klezmer Band, which features FP member Miriam Libove. A volunteer to champion this effort is needed, as are suggestions for additions to the list.

We need to build a list of our members that take pictures at our events who would be willing to share them for Publicity uses. For example, the Morris County Tourism bureau has asked for high-res event shots (performers, audience and participants). Please email publicitychair@folkproject.org with any suggestions.

Webmaster Report – John Lamb

It has been a typical if somewhat warm December for the web team. As a result of Folk Project's annual elections, we have updated the Administration page and various mailing lists. The mailing list changes have taken place immediately, so both the outgoing and incoming office holders will be copied to for a month or two during the transition. The Admin page entries were put into the database and should appear shortly aftermidnight on 1/1/2016.

We have made minor updates on several pages, including updating information on the carousel on the main page, adding a performer to the Performer Directory page, eliminating an inconsistency in the link to the Performer Page in the menu system (thanks to Mike A. for spotting it), changing "Internal Affairs" to "Event Hosting" at the request of our new Event Hosting chair. assisting the new Special Events chair to create a page for the upcoming Comas concert, making run-of-the-mill updates to various email addresses and updating a link on the Volunteer page.

We have requested that the incoming Secretary and Event Hosting chairs take responsibility for entering the dates of board meetings and Evenings of Music, respectively and respectfully, and have provided instructions to both as to how that can be done.

We have requested that the Getaway Committee provide information for updating their page, which still points to last October's event.

Aside from the website, we have helped Elizabeth obtain MS Office software at a very good price through TechSoup.org. This site is highly recommended if you need software to do your job for Folk Project. Folk Project is already registered with them, so contact John Lamb for the information you will need to purchase through that site at steeply discounted rates.

As always, many thanks to Allan Kugel, Lori Falco and Charles Lamb for all that they do to keep the site running. Please send comments, questions and suggestions to webmaster@folkproject.org.

Social Media Coordinator – George Otto

YOUTUBE

Chris Riemer is working on the final details of setting up the FP YouTube channel, providing a link to the HSNOI channel for starters, and to other video content as it is deemed appropriate. Here is an informative email he recently sent out:

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Greetings, folks -

Now that the holiday rush is over, I wanted to take another step forward on the YouTube channel. For reference, you can take a look at :https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdbfs4jHHGz--AYidrnfZA. The artwork and logo are in place.

Here's a quick tour, Tab by Tab.

• Home - This is essentially an activity tracking page, where station owners can post Facebook-style status updates, and where likes, subscriptions and such are presented in reverse chronological order.

• Videos - Here you'd find videos that channel owners have uploaded themselves. We ain't got any, but that's more a matter of taking a phased approach. This might be a place we could upload some of Bill Henderson's recordings, as long as we secured the appropriate performer permissions.

• Playlists - We have four, one for each of the primary venues. You can build a playlist by linking to anything that's already on YouTube, and I've tried to find reasonably good looking stuff for a selection of recent or future performers at each venue.

• Channels - Right now, we have one. And while it appears to be Ralph, it is actually the Horses Sing None of It channel. We'll get that nomenclature sorted in the next week or two.

• Discussion - I would favor letting discussion take place here, unless it becomes burdensome. I would moderate.

• About - Odds and ends of descriptive stuff.

I'd like to hear opinions on the Channels tab. Linking to Horses is obvious, since it's The Folk Project's own property. But what about linking to member performers? Should we or shouldn't we? It's really just a YouTube version of our performers' list, but there are some side issues.

Some folks are using their YouTube space as a general kind of blog, incorporating things that are not music related. Others are only engaged casually, so their channel pages lack artwork. What happens when memberships lapse? Do we need to remove YouTube Channel links? And we can't control the content that gets published at these individual channel pages. We are implicitly recommending them if we list them on our page. Can they all be trusted? And if our YouTube channel manager decides to unsubscribe from a member's channel for some reason, will there be protests? Hurt feelings? Motions made?

And then there's the question of third-party channels. I'm a Folk Alley listener, and they have a nice channel that you can see here. Does presenting links to sites like this add value to our page? I tend to think it does. Folk Alley appears to think so too, since they're linking to 22 of them.

If you have any thoughts on these curatorial questions, let me know. I'll keep following my nose and moving forward, but would be interested in your opinions.

Regards,

Chris

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HOOTSUITE

To help us monitor and track our social media channels going forward, and post coordinated messages to those channels as needed, a HootSuite account has been set up for the Folk Project. Basic controls have been put in place, and the Twitter and Facebook channels are being added now. As soon as the YouTube channel is finalized, that will be added as well. We currently have a year’s subscription. After we gain some experience with the various reports and statistics the program can give us, George should be sending out monthly reports.

Facebook Report – Pam Robinson

Nothing new to report.

Twitter – Jean Scully

No report.

Merchandising – Margaret Crowl

No report

Publicity Happenings

Swingin’ Tern was to be featured in The Daily Record's TGIF section on January 1 thanks to Nancy putting Bill Nutt in touch with Leigh and Doug providing photos. The article was to cover Tern and its 32nd anniversary and contra dancing in general. Hopefully we picked up some newcomers!

Online

• The Folk Project continues to be listed by the Morris County Tourism Bureau (morristourism.org).

▪ They have Uke Fest pictures on “our” page and can use new ones.

• NJARTS.net continues to list most Minstrel events and Special Concerts.

• JerseyArts.com is listing most Minstrel, Special Concerts and Swingin' Tern events.

• The Daily Record has listings for Minstrel concerts and Special Concerts.

• The Beppe Gambetta concert was given prominent mention in the newsletter of the Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association (BOTMA).

In Print

• Listings were seen in a number of local outlets, including Ledger Local.