2021 Special Events

2021 Year-End Annual Report Special Events Committee

Submitted by Mark Schaffer, Chairman

Special Events had an active and highly successful year in the face of COVID. Everybody had a great time and The Folk Project made money.

Indoor Evenings of Music became Outdoor Afternoons of Music, a revamped NJ Uke Fest was a resounding success, and The Troubadour at Home launch of live in-person Folk Project concerts fulfilled the hopes and needs of the performers, audiences and planners. As confirmed with Treasurer Peg, we achieved or exceeded all our financial goals as reflected in these subcommittee reports, but, as Quickbooks is in a transitional year, the actual numbers are not yet reflected in the treasurer reports. We are planning a concert this spring by Tom Paxton with The DonJuans thanks to a generous grant received from The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

NJ Uke Fest Subcommittee:

A super-successful NJ Uke Fest weekend was held on August 20-22, 2021.

• The three-day program was adapted to accommodate COVID realities. It was in a house-concert-festival hybrid format similar to past Getaway Days. It was held at the Schaffers’ home in Rockaway, NJ and limited to 50 maximum attendees

• Everyone was vaccinated. Workshops, merchandise sales, Saturday’s sit-down dinner, and the Sunday Morristown Square sing-along were held outdoors. Due to weather, evening concerts were indoors, ventilated, and everyone masked.

• The Program & Volunteers:

• Friday evening’s performers were Jim Boggia and Christine DeLeon.

• Saturday workshop leaders and evening performers were Jim Beloff, Christopher Treitsch, Grace Terzain with violinist Audrey Hayes, and Christopher Davis-Shannon, who was joined by guitarist Frank Sole & fiddler Joel Glassman.

• Frank Sole led a full-day workshop giving personal attention to beginner and intermediate players.

• Play-along group song leaders included Al & Ro Foster, Steve Norwood, Mark Dutton and Kevin Coughlin.

• A permit was obtained from the The Morristown Square Trust for the Sunday Play-Along, and amends were made to the trust for Uke Fest’s previous use of the square without a permit.

• NJ Uke Fest netted $973 profit, which we will ask the board to roll over into next year’s NJ Uke Fest budget.

Acoustic Getaway Subcommittee

Both Spring and Fall Acoustic Getaway Weekends were cancelled because COVID-reduced attendance would not bring enough income to justify the losses. Stony Point Conference Center and its management are in transition and their charges for running a scaled-back weekend would be prohibitive by our low-cost standards. If COVID-diminished attendance remains the same and a financially viable traditional Getaway is not possible, we will plan two local weekends of activities for 2022, likely on the same model as the 2020 NJ Uke Fest.

Special Concerts Subcommittee

The Troubadour at Home concert series was a transitional series designed to claim Friday evenings in the acoustic concert marketplace for the Folk Project as the world left isolation after the launch of vaccines. It ran from May 7 through July 30, 2021.

• Concerts were held at The Schaffers’ home in Rockaway, NJ. Attendance was between 20 to 45 people. Vaccinations were required and checked

• Concerts were also streamed and hosted by Gary Pratt.

• The first concert charged house concert prices. It was immediately apparent that despite vaccine hopefulness, people were wary about gatherings, so pricing was lowered to the Troubadour model, $10 admission and direct donations to the artists by in-person and streaming audiences were solicited.

• The series finished just as the Delta variation began spreading.

• Artists featured included: Grover Kemble with Hal Slapin, Mike Agranoff, The Scott Rover-Carrie Cantor-Glen Coleman Show, Cliff Eberhardt & Louise Mosrie, Frank Sole & Henry Nerenberg, Robinson & Rohe, Michael Arthur (streaming only), Abbie Gardner, South for Winter, and of special note: the June and The Folk Project’s July and August Open Stages.

• Planners and Volunteers included Mark Schaffer, Robin Schaffer, Todd Dennison, Dave Heistand, John Hone, Bob McNally, and Gary Pratt.

• Troubadour at Home netted $260 profit.

• The Troubadour at Home budget was made possible by an exceedingly generous donations by an anonymous donor and the anonymous donor family who have supported our Acoustic Getaway in past years.

Event Hosting Subcommittee Report

(Note from Mark: It's been an extraordinary year for Event Hosting. Great work, Jay!)

Report by Jay Wilensky, Chair of Subcommittee:

We’ve now held 84 consecutive Monday on-line song circles, with no sign of slowing down. What began in April, 2020 as an experimental pandemic stopgap has become a musical and social home for a solid core of at least 20 people. Our regular Circlers hail from as close as Verona and far as Washington State, Mississippi, upstate New York, Chicago, Massachusetts, and Canada. We’ve enjoyed almost weekly professional-caliber performances from Michael Arthur and Raymond Gonzalez (Raymond included the circle in the dedications on his latest CD). We’ve had extraordinary guest performers, including Brooks Williams, Cliff Eberhardt, Tom Prasada-Rao, Buddy Mondlock, Laurie MacAllister, Deni Bonet, and Joe Crookston. But most important is the fellowship and mutual support, and remarkably good music, of our regulars, a few of whom refer to the Circle as their “family by choice.”

Huge thanks for the song circle are due to Mark Schaffer for the concept; to Todd Dennison for setting up the tech and handling my panicked last-minute calls with aplomb; and to John Hone for ably filling in as host when I’m away.

We also revived the July 4 picnic, and held a well-attended event in Lewis Morris Park after the rain clouds parted for us. And, because it seems too early to pack a house full of people singing, we held a very enjoyable Afternoon O’ Music in the park in October, attended by about 15 hardy souls.

We did not hold a Halloween show, because there was not enough interest. The show would have been held on-line, and I believe and hope that that was the reason for the lack of interest. I’m optimistic that we can revive the show when it’s safe to hold it in person again.

Finally, plans are in place for the annual show to benefit the Fellowship. We’ll have an excellent lineup of Project musicians, and a (donated) feature performance by the much-loved Geneveive.

Onward!

Jay Wilensky, Event Hosting sub-chair