President

I. As I’ve said before, as an organization the Folk Project does so many things so well so much of the time, it can be easy to take our state of affairs for granted. But I think it’s important to slow down, recognize and appreciate just what it is we are accomplishing month after month, year after year. Certainly not without bumps in the road, not without rumbles and bumbles, but on the whole we have a lot to be proud of for what we provide our members and guests thru out the year. Heart felt congratulations to all of us!

II. Honorable Mention - May, 2016

A. Our Honorable Mentions are intended to be a recognition of good solid work done in the background, work that typically gets little or no recognition, and even less applause, but is crucial to our organizations progress. This monthly Honorable Mention will be an effort to look beneath the radar, and highlight accomplishments that may go unnoticed, but that substantially affect our organization. And it’s worth noting that there are many more instances of this kind of invisible accomplishment than we can list here - so our heart felt thanks and appreciation goes out to all efforts that fit this description - thank you!

B. Mike Del Vecchio - Honorable Mention May 2016. Two area’s of work that deserve mention:

1. MUF Sound System Upgrades

a) Our landlord, the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, is installing a new sound system for use in their main meeting room. This is the facility where the Folk Project puts on our weekly Minstrel concert series, and many other events thru out the year. This is our home base of operations.

b) For close to a years time, Mike has been working with the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship’s Sound Upgrade committee to represent the Folk Project’s interests in the selection and installation of MUF’s new sound system upgrades. This has turned into hours and hours of time, emails, on site meetings, more emails/time/emails/meetings…. Mike has stayed engaged and active thru out this long process, evaluating, discussing, and advocating for the Folk Project’s needs in the final result.

c) This project is finally nearing it’s end, and MUF has installed most if not all of their sound system upgrades. We have been using this new equipment for a few weeks now for our Minstrel concerts, and there is a high level of satisfaction with the system.

2. “Soundies Training Program”. Mike is now the prime mover behind our training program for our Sound Volunteers.

a) Background

(1) Having a reliable. and preferably deep reserve of competent Sound Volunteers is crucial to us in presenting quality, professional sounding events to all of our guests at multiple venues.

(2) This is a training and grooming process that requires an ongoing effort to identify, train, and qualify competent, “Soundies”.

b) Training is ongoing in several areas:

(1) The general theory and practice of professionally shaping and maximizing the sound of our performers at all our venues - Minstrel, Getaway, Special Concerts, etc.

(2) The hands on ability to use the MUF sound system equipment to create a professional sounding event.

(3) The ability for our Soundies to use other sound equipment outside of MUF (Getaway, Special Concerts, etc.) to deliver a professionally sounding show.

C. For all the hours of background work in these areas, kudos and appreciation go out to Mike!

III. Workman’s Compensation Insurance Committee

A. We’ve had our second meeting on April 19.

B. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 24, 8 PM, at Chris Riemer’s home in Morristown.

1. This may be our last meeting, where we condense what we’ve learned, and attempt to form a consensus recommendation to the Board.

IV. 10K Grant

A. We have disbursed to MUF the first 5K of grant money. This has been used in their main meeting room sound upgrades.

B. As their work is near completion, we will soon be sending MUF the balance of 5K. This will mark the end of a very long and successful journey from first being approached by our benefactor, to actually turning on and using the new MUF sound system upgrades at our Folk Project events held at MUF. Thanks in particular go out to Mike Agranoff for being our first point of contact with the donor, and to Mike Del Vecchio for being our MUF liaison during the whole process.

Barrett Wilson