Community Services

From: 'Evelyn Maurer' via Fullboard - Current and some former board members <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2020 3:36 AM

To: fullboard@folkproject.org

Subject: Community Service - January 2020

Hi, Everyone,

During the past month, we have lost two long-time members, and one Family member.

On 11/29/19, Joan Clifford passed away. She was a member of the Folk Project, and also of MUF, for very many years.

Joan was a good friend of mine, and I attended a Memorial service for her on 12/21/19. MUF is planning their own special service to remember Joan, with the date still pending. I sent a card to her son and daughter-in-law, Michael and Sue Clifford, who had been most actively involved in assisting Joan in these later years.

On 12/30/19, Doris (Pertz) Woolf, a very long-time member of the Folk Project and also FMS (Folk Music Society of NJ), passed away. Her Family sat Shiva and had special Prayer services for her January 1 - 3rd. A special Memorial celebration - probably musical - is being planned for Sunday, March 15, 2020, with time and location still to be determined. A card has been sent to her children, Judith and Glenn.

Very sadly, Chris and Anne Bukata, who recently lost Chris's sister Gerrie, also lost Chris's mother Elsie on 12/16/19.

A card has been sent.

We have received another donation in honor of Steve Wexler, and a Thank you note has been sent to the donor, and a card sent to Steve's wife Leslie, advising her of the new donation.

Mitch Radler has resigned from the Board, so management of the Performers Resource List is "in limbo" right now.

Much thanks to John Lamb and Allan Kugel, who have been maintaining the list online.

We have not received any new requests for performers since prior to July 2019.

Thanks,

Evelyn Maurer

FP Community Service

Performers Resource Discussion Follows

From: 'Evelyn Maurer' via Fullboard - Current and some former board members <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Sent: Monday, January 6, 2020 9:22 PM

To: president@folkproject.org; fullboard@folkproject.org; pbrangs18@gmail.com

Subject: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

Hi, Everyone,

If Mitch has left the Board completely, then that also leaves responsibility for Performers Resource List without coverage

As of December, Mitch told me had not done anything in that department since taking over from Pat Brangs last July.

He said he'd had no requests for performers, and was apparently unaware of need for list to be updated.

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

Are some of the Website people already working on updating Performers Resource list?

Paul - please include this subject in the Agenda.

Thanks,

Evelyn Maurer

Folk Project Community Service

From: John Lamb <johnlamb@aol.com>

To: eamaurer <eamaurer@verizon.net>; president <president@folkproject.org>; fullboard <fullboard@folkproject.org>; pbrangs18 <pbrangs18@gmail.com>

Sent: Mon, Jan 6, 2020 10:00 pm

Subject: Re: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

I am not certain of what you mean by a Performers Resource Directory or Performers Resource List. There is a page on the website at https://folkproject.org/performers.shtml that lists Folk Project members who are available for bookings and we try to keep that somewhat up to date. Several months back, the web team removed from that page all entries for performers who were no longer members. In looking at it again, I see we still have Jim West there and I will remove his entry.

We do not get very many requests from performers to be added to that page - perhaps an average of one or two per year. Those requests may come to us directly via email from a performer, or through the email form on that page that sends their information to the Community Services Chair. If you have not received any such mail, it is most likely because nobody has sent a request since you took over from Pat. Both you and Mitch would have received anything sent via that form. There is not much to do when a request comes in - check the roster to see if the request is coming from a member in good standing, then contact them to request a photo. If you do not wish to handle such requests, we can change the form to come straight to the webmasters. I believe Pat liked those requests to flow through her so that she knew what was going on.

My sense is that this page very rarely produces leads for any of the performers on it. (I have gotten a total of perhaps two or three inquiries and no actual gigs in ten years for the three groups that I have had there at various times. Maybe others are doing better, though.) The page is currently designed with outdated technology and it takes a lot of work to maintain. Given the rather small gain that I think it generates and the large amount of work required to maintain it, my inclination is not to do more than cull the list about once a year and add whatever requests come in without trying to encourage more. We plan to update the page as part of the initiative to redesign the website, but it is fairly low on our list of priorities.

John

From: 'Evelyn Maurer' via Fullboard - Current and some former board members <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Sent: Monday, January 6, 2020 10:24 PM

To: johnlamb@aol.com <johnlamb@aol.com>; pbrangs18@gmail.com <pbrangs18@gmail.com>; fullboard@folkproject.org <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Subject: Re: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

Hi, John (and Paul),

John - Thanks for your response. When I did Community Service many years ago, for two years, the Performers Resource List was definitely part of Community Service, and there were several requests that I handled during that time. Pat was also very instrumental, through this list, in helping the Memory Café get started, as well as helping with other community events that had requested potential musicians

When Pat asked me, last July, to take over the "cards" part of Community Service, I was relieved to know Mitch was planning to manage the Performers Resource List, especially since he was a musician, and more aware of other musician-members, their special talents and musical styles, and so, would be better at forwarding requests for specific types of performances.

I did not know that you and others have been updating and culling the list - I am very glad to hear it.

For a long time, it had been very out-of -date.

Paul - I think this needs to be discussed by the Board regarding how to handle The Performers Resource List going forward.

If not at tomorrow's meeting, then in the near future.

Thanks,

Evelyn Maurer

FP Community Service

From: Allan Kugel <kugel@connect.rutgers.edu>

Sent: Monday, January 6, 2020 10:44 PM

To: 'Evelyn Maurer' via Fullboard - Current and some former board members <fullboard@folkproject.org>; johnlamb@aol.com; pbrangs18@gmail.com

Subject: Re: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

Hi, Evelyn --

Greetings from San Diego.

I did some work on a redesign for this page a while ago. One reason I stopped is that I wasn't that happy about my new update procedure, and it wasn't clear that enough members wanted to add an entry to make it worthwhile to smooth that out. We were also working on the web redesign and it wasn't clear whether that should affect the design.

The current list also has an issue with outdated performer pictures, and a philosophical one about keywords (which I ran into with a potential new entry.)

So I might take this up again, but want to know if it's worth the time and effort first.

-Allan

From: 'Evelyn Maurer' via Fullboard - Current and some former board members <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Sent: Monday, January 6, 2020 10:56 PM

To: kugel@connect.rutgers.edu; fullboard@folkproject.org; johnlamb@aol.com; pbrangs18@gmail.com

Subject: Re: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

Hi, Allen,

I'd never seen this current list before, and it already looks pretty good to me.

Thanks for your response.

Evelyn Maurer

From: Patricia Brangs <pbrangs18@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2020 7:50 AM

To: Evelyn Maurer <eamaurer@verizon.net>

Cc: johnlamb@aol.com; fullboard@folkproject.org

Subject: Re: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

Hi john and Evelyn

Please leave me connected to Community Services. As Evelyn mentioned I let her know about stuff.

Re: performer directory, The last Time I tried to add new people, I was told that it was too difficult right now. I was working for a little while with Allan Kugel on a new updated module, but we never finished. I have several people that wanted to be added to the directory including Annie Donahue.

I also thought that the directory was not getting much play, but I’ve had a number of people tell me that they get calls from it As you know John I used to send you the information to add someone with your description and their photo and all that stuff. Is Allan’s module ready to use?

If so, I will happily solicit updated information from musicians.

Pat

From: Patricia Brangs <pbrangs18@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2020 7:52 AM

To: Evelyn Maurer <eamaurer@verizon.net>

Cc: johnlamb@aol.com; fullboard@folkproject.org

Subject: Re: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

One more thing. When I first did this job Mike Agranoff let me know the prior people had made it a very passive job. Meaning if a request came in they just told people to look at the directory. I made it and much more interactive job, specifically looking for people to fill requests and sometimes it was very successful. I’ve also used the directory myself because I didn’t necessarily know every single musician in the folk project.

From: 'John Lamb' via Fullboard - Current and some former board members <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2020 9:31 AM

To: Patricia Brangs <pbrangs18@gmail.com>

Cc: Evelyn Maurer <eamaurer@verizon.net>; Fullboard@folkproject.org; Webmaster <webmaster@folkproject.org>

Subject: Re: Community Service - Performers Resource Directory

Allan stopped working on the replacement for that page for a number of good reasons. If you have requests from members to be included on that page, please send them to me. Depending on the progress of the new site design, they may be added to the existing page or they may be added after we build the new site. I would prefer that we address any requests that have already been received before soliciting any more.