Hi, Everyone,

Community Service Report for May 3, 2022 Board Meeting:

Nothing to report.

Evelyn Maurer

FP Community Service

So this was an interesting month.

I have sat looking at this membership data for the last 3 months and had so many questions.

Some of them related to the data and some related to things like, why does my subscription to coffee on Amazon get delayed more frequently lately. Also, the whole Twitter/Elon thing.

Anyway, back to the database. So I recently ran a report, for my amusement, to see how many people had joined the Folk Project and left. How many people are no longer members?

I consulted my team and we thought it would be interesting to reach out to former members and try to recruit them back into the Folk Project. We don't care why they left. I think we all know why.

We spent hours in some pretty contested and heated debates about how far back to go in time.

I listened to all the ideas and arguments and decided to side with the very crazy idea (I thought) someone put forth to go back 22 years all the way back to 2000! 22 years!

I ran a report and collected the names, how many you ask? Over a thousand.

Then I drafted a letter to send to those past members. I reached out to Mark Schaffer, a talented wordsmith, and he helped me to craft a letter that felt right.

I sent out a mass email last Thursday and then I sat back and waited. Not too long.

No one in the membership committee was prepared for what would happen next, least of all me.

In 24 hours I received almost 80 renewals.

This tops the renewal record of 7 previously set (since I've been involved)

Please note: All of these renewals will take a while to process so the attached file is NOT updated yet. I will send out updated reports after I process everything.

I plan to do this again in another 4 months.

I will not rest until I annoy get every last former Folk Project member.

Todd Dennison

Chairperson Membership Committee

Newsletter Committee Report 2022-05

Things are proceeding as usual with the invaluable help of Kathi Caccavale, Pat Brangs, Liz Pagan, Bill Henderson, and Gary Pratt, and Todd Dennison.

Thanks,

George Otto

GeorgeOtto@mac.com

We had a show. (1)

People came out. (42)

Some new performers played (3)

All the slots were filled. (14)

We live streamed the show (1)

People watched it online at showtime (30)

Other people watched before we took it down (84)

We turned everything off and packed up. (6)

We exited the building (3)

The door was locked (1)

We talked in hushed voices as we went to our cars (3)

The End

Todd Dennison

Chairperson

The Folk Project Open Stage

ps. We plan to do it again

Publicity Report for the May 3, 2022 Board Meeting

Sam Edelston, April 30, 2022

Publicity Committee Members

Alicia Weimer, George Otto, Howard Goldman, Jean Scully, Jim Gartner, Joanne Cronin, Joe Guzzo, Kathi Caccavale, Liz Pagan, Loretta Brooks, Mark Schaffer, Michael Mitsch, Mike Rauchwerk, Olga Alvarez, Pat Brangs, Paul Fisher, Rebecca Rydell, Susan Lembo

Web Team Members

John Lamb, Allan Kugel, Charles Lamb, Lori Falco

Reports

Chairperson’s Report – Sam Edelston

Troubadour is open, and the shows have been great. Thanks (and curses) to Covid, I got to attend the 4/14 Everly Set/Simon & Garfunkel online, rather than in-person. I was physically at the 4/22 Joe Jencks/The Levins and 4/29 Low Lily/Juliana Parker Edelston. According to Mike’s Troubadour report, paid attendance in April was 42-44 – compared to a median of about 75 for regular shows in the months immediately before the pandemic. Increasing attendance at Troubadour is our #1 priority right now. I know the upward path will be gradual, but I’d love to see us back to 60 within a small number of months.

Swingin’ Tern and Uke Fest will be on Publicity’s radar in the not-too-distant future, when they’re ready for it.

Uncle Sam wants YOU! If you aren’t already “Following” the Folk Project’s Page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/FolkProject) and on Twitter (@TheFolkProject) please do so. When the Folk Project announces a new show, please Like or Comment or Retweet it. These things raise our ranking in the algorithms. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

With the return of live shows, I’ve received a couple of requests for Press Passes. I’ve started updating the pre-pandemic Press Pass list.

Peggy Karr has stepped aside from managing the FP Logo project. With much gratitude to Peggy for all she’s done on it so far, management of that project has now moved to me, as a Publicity function. More to come about that in the not-too-distant future. I promise that I won’t do the design or art work.

Wikipedia … may be useful and convenient for some things, but it’s not always current or accurate. The info on the Folk Project’s Wikipedia page was about 15 years old. Working with Gary Pratt, we’ve updated a couple of no-brainer items (changing “Minstrel” to “Troubadour” and changing “over 35 years” to “since 1976”). I’ll reach out to knowledgeable Projectiles so we can update and enrich the rest of the article, as well.

E-communications – Mark Schaffer

Mark reports that the Folk Project total stats for all communications in April are:

43,001 Sends

14,881 Opens (34.6% opens)

779 Clicks (5.23% ... up from 4.42% last month)

112 funny jokes

3 jokes totally bombed

[Sam notes that the last number there is inflated.]

Facebook – Kathi Caccavale

Kathi says:

The most interesting thing about Facebook is that people can send stars during a livestream. Stars are worth $0.01 each, and the money goes to the Folk Project. Every time we accrue $100, Facebook will make a payout into our bank account. In April, we earned about $24, down from about $42 in March. I don’t think we’ve received a Stars payout yet. The last payout was made Jan 2 and it was for event earnings in November. [Sam added some info to this paragraph.]

4,299 people Like our page (up from 4,247 last month), and we have 5,362 Followers (up from 5,285 last month). We also have 290 Instagram followers.

We reached 11,286 people in the past 28 days (down 32%), and had 3,818 Post Engagements (down 10%), but we got 58 new Page Likes for the month, which is 25% better than the previous month.

In the past 28 days, we created 28 Events, and received 311 Purchases for our paid online Events, for revenue of about $1,023. In the past year, we’ve created a staggering 121, most of which has been the Tuesday and Friday concerts. [Sam adds: Huge hats off to Gary Pratt and Kathi Caccavale.]

From our Facebook video stats, our most-viewed videos (by Minutes Viewed) in the past 28 days (April 2-29):

• 2237 … Tue 4/5 … Open Stage

• 1921 … Tue 4/12 … Kathy Moser

• 3351 … Tue 4/19 … Ordinary Elephant

• 4367 … Tue 4/26 … Shanna in a Dress

• 2472 … Fri 4/15 … Everly Set

• 4505 … Fri 4/22 … Joe Jencks

• 2022 … Fri 4/29 … Low Lily

Folk Project group: 1,579 members, up 25 from 1,554 last month.

NJ Uke Fest: 240 members; unchanged from last month.

Swingin’ Tern: 580 members; up 3 from last month.

Twitter, Instagram – Jean Scully

No report from Jean.

YouTube – Joe Guzzo

Joe says:

YouTube Channel Report for April 30, 2022.

· We have 294 subscribers. That’s a gain of 5 subscribers in the last month.

· This month, the channel got 93 views.

· Watch time was 13.3 hours.

· In April, we had one program with new interviews and music (Sam Edelston) and then a rerun of Joe’s 2020 episode with Tracy Grammer.

o 1/2 Circle Round the Sun has 27 views

o 1/16 HSNOI featuring Dave Murphy and others has 14 views

o 1/30 Victoria Vox has 49 views

o 2/13 HSNOI featuring Jim Photoglow has 9 views

o 2/27 Dana Cooper has 9 views

o 3/13 High Tea has 41 views

o 3/27 Claudia Nygaard has 35 views

o 4/10 Sam Edelston has 49 views

o 4/24 Tracy Grammar (rerun) has 5 views

· Joe is on a short hiatus from doing fresh episodes, but expects to do more later this spring.

Website - Sam Edelsotn

More User Sessions and Unique Users than any other month in the past year, by about 7%-8%, and more Total Page Views than any month in the past year, as well.

Average Session Length was shorter than average, but that often happens when there are so many more Sessions. We actually had slightly fewer User Minutes than we got in November.

Web – John Lamb

John says:

The workload has picked up a bit in April, with mostly minor but important updates for almost all of our active venues.

· For Troubadour, we redesigned the calendar page so that it would no longer preload videos but rather provide a text link to them. The number of entries on the calendar got to be large enough that preloading dozens of videos so that they could be played without leaving the page was greatly increasing load times and preventing the page from loading at all on some smart phones. Things are working much better with text links pointing to the videos, which now open on their own page after a click.

· For Troubadour, we also fixed an obscure but troublesome bug in the Tally Sheet (a spreadsheet that allows Mike to track income and expenses from each individual show; not strictly part of the webmaster job, but something extra that we do) and reminded one of the volunteers how to create the Advance Sales Worksheet from sales data collected by the website.

· We assisted Streaming Tuesdays, Inside the Song and Horses Sing None of It by either entering new shows for them or by correcting show entries made by the respective volunteers from those venues.

· We enabled Wait List sales for Getaway and started work in preparation for the opening of registrations for Uke Fest.

· We updated the Swingin' Tern pages with the new location for their dances.

· We uploaded the eNewsletter download page in preparation for distribution of the May 2022 edition.

· We updated the COVID protocol information that applies to all of our live events twice, once to relax them in early April when the Morris County COVID state was Green and again to make them more stringent when we relapsed to a Yellow state near the end of the month.

· We forwarded incoming mail at info@folkproject.org to the people who are responsible for handling each of the inquiries in those messages.

As always, many thanks to Charles, Liz, Lori and Allan. Please send questions, comments and suggestions to webmaster@folkproject.org.

John Lamb, Folk Project Webmaster

{The usual statistics spreadsheet will follow on May 1}

Merch – Paul Fisher (acting)

Nothing new.

Sound Reinforcement Committee – May 2022 Report

We supported five events in April. The first, the Open Stage on April 1 was covered in last month’s report. There were no live room sound reinforcement issues in April. This month did see the start and completion of the installation of the new tech in the Sanctuary room at MUUF. We now have a three-camera video system with a separate audio mix fed in from the audio mixing desk. This is all mounted in a desk with seating in the back right hand side of the room.

Throughout the month we had a range of technical solutions for the video broadcast that varied from using the camera microphone to using the completed system on the last two weeks of April. The Facebook broadcasts of these last two weeks met with great critical acclaim from all who viewed and responded. There was a minor issue on the April 29 show where a radio-like interference appeared in the auxiliary ceiling speakers. These were disconnected for the night of the show, and Alex West, MUUF’s technical person located and solved the problem.

We are looking forward to operating with the entire new system with no issues. At this point is preparing documentation for training, and setting up a schedule for the same.

Some detail for those looking to better understand the problems that have impacted sound reinforcement in the recent past as we have delt with the new installation and the pandemic. I prepared these remarks for an April 27 mailing, so I apologize for repeats some of the comments above.

Just for the record, we have been laboring under the promise of new audio and video technology being installed in the MUUF sanctuary for over six months. This spanned the timeframe that included the Sept 2021 Troubadour restart, the Jan 2022 Delta shutdown, and the March - April 2022 second restart.

All during this time, I concluded that it would be hard to get volunteers to come out for lessons, I would have to teach them how do work the old equipment that was going away, and I would have to then teach them to un-learn the old system and teach them the new system. Volunteer burn-out was inevitable. All of this conducted under Covid safe rules which make live teaching gatherings that much more problematic. There was no point to try to train new individuals until the new equipment was up and running.

In short, the technical staffing of our live productions was just one more aspect of life as we know it that was subjected to the blender of the Covid chaos that impacted the entire planet. Just as a side note, Alex told me he had delays of several months in getting shipments of the video equipment, all due to supply chain problems.

It was just last week, 5 days ago, that we had the new audio/video setup in place, and working 100%, and we were able to produce a show that included:

3 camera video,

a separate audio mix for video broadcast,

and the traditional room audio mix with a separate stage mix for performer monitors.

And, it was excellent.

Kudos came in from all corners of the live audience as well as the video audience. The video broadcast actually doubled the total attendance.

And, that experience forms the basis for the new procedure going forward. Something which we could not fully plan for until we had the final equipment in place, fully operational, in use for a live revenue producing production.

Now (after 5 days) that we have the operational procedures worked out we can start to work out training and increasing staff. This is already being threatened by our old nemesis, Covid. We have already needed to adopt stronger Covid protection procedures for Troubadour shows due to rising Covid numbers. This could be problematic for scheduling and conducting training sessions.

In the coming weeks I will be planning instruction for the technical staff. It seems that we have a new layer of FP members, gathered from the video broadcasts during the Covid time. Hopefully we will be able to get this done without too much interference from Covid concerns. The technical requirements have ramped up considerably since before the Covid time, but I have a strong hope that we can meet the challenge to create a sufficient technical staff to service our needs.

Special Events Committee

May 2022 Report to Board of Directors

Dear Boarders,

Work on Getaway and NJ Uke Fest is continuing and time-consuming but always rewarding. Thanks to Robin, Diane, Todd, Gary, Peg, Kevin, Mark D. and John for their hard work, support and advice. The mission is to keep the artists, program, and experience close to pre-COVID, but with a third of the income from admissions.

That's a bit daunting, but the success of last year’s NJ Uke Fest is the model, so we’re hopeful.

The Paxton/DonJuans concert was a wonderful and successful evening. Tom, Jon and Don were thrilled because we had an exceptional turnout compared to other shows on their tour. 106 were in attendance, which was enough to feel like a full-enough house and we had an appreciative audience, both for the show and for finally getting out.

After donations and grants as previously reported, the concert made $303. Without the grant from Mid Atlantic Arts, the concert would not have been attempted.

Live long and sing loud,

Mark

EVENT HOSTING

Jay Wilensky

The Monday on-line song circle continues to spin. Attendance has held steady at 25 to 30, and many of the circlers refer to us as their "family by choice." We continue to have terrific guests: In April, Darden Smith, Karyn Oliver, Joe Jencks and Kyle Hancharik graced us, and the first four Mondays in May are filled with more name performers. John Hone picked up the gavel on a night when I needed a break, and word is that he did a superb job. And, in a bit of cross-pollination that I'm thrilled about - and with thanks to Gary Pratt - two dedicated circlers, Raymond Gonzalez and Bett Padgett, will do streaming Tuesdays in May. Event Hosting is also planning an Evening of Music, outdoor sings, and Summer Songs.

Many thanks for the Project's ongoing support. *

The Swingin' Tern report for April 2022

The news is better than for over two years.

Swingin' Tern has a new home at the beautiful St. Paul's Episcopal Church. It's on Main Street in Chatham, not far from the train station, which is convenient for New York dancers and performers. Doug Heacock found and explored the suitability of this venue for us, for which we are all thankful.

This past weekend, a full dozen volunteers turned out to move our stuff to St. Paul's. Having so many people made the move easy.

The people at St. Paul's have been welcoming. Some current tenants have a decades-long relationship, which is promising.

Our first dance is May 7 -- this coming Saturday. We've kept a low advertising profile, having sent notice of the initial dance basically just to people who have come to Swingin' Tern previously. We want to regain our own dance form and become accustomed to the new facilities before we get many newcomers. Newcomers will be encouraged to attend our next dance on May 21.

Our schedule will the first and third Saturday every month at 7:30 PM, with an introductory workshop 30 minutes before the dance. We'll dance on New Year's Eve and host about about three double dances per year. When we have a double dance, the challenging afternoon dance will be more complicated and suitable for experienced dancers, while the evening dance will be like a normal evening dance -- beginners/inexperienced dancers welcome.

Last week we had a discussion about mask-wearing and took a vote. Narrowly favored was having two different lines, one with masks mandatory and one with masks optional. Without a clear consensus, we decided that for our first three dances, masks will be mandatory. And for the first dance, N95 or equivalent masks will be required.

We will decide the policy for our summer dances later, as more information and data emerge. Likely we'll have one line for which masks are optional.

We're moving forward!

Leigh Walker

Swingin' Tern

Hello Everyone,

Not much to report. Not many transactions however, we are now open for in-person events so things should pick up.

I have included a balance sheet so everyone can see we are in good shape. The prepaid expenses & prepaid ticket sales are for Bromberg.

The Finance Committee met last week. We discussed operating expenses and how best to budget for them. More to come in the coming months. We also discussed the Vanguard account. I am submitting the forms for a third time to give me access to the account. They keep changing to goal posts on me. Hopefully the third time is the charm.

Respectfully Submitted

Margaret (Peggy) Karr

Treasurer

From: The Troubadour <mike.agranoff@folkproject.org>

Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2022 3:05 PM

To: Boardplus@FolkProject.org

Subject: Troubadour Booking Report -- May 2022

The Troubadour resumed its concert schedule this month after a 3-month hiatus due to the Omicron shutdown. It picked up right where it left off in December ’21 with great shows and dreadful attendance. Average paid attendance was 42.7, and total attendance was 52.3, roughly half of what we were doing pre-COVID. Our performers were paid well, with an average of $767 for the headliners, and consequently we ran at an operational loss of $1,263. I say “operational” loss, because those losses were made up in full by personal donations from individuals. The $3,800 donation from Bill Henderson and the $1,500 gift from an anonymous donor from last year were fully eaten up by April’s deficit, and I, as promised, covered the remaining $944 of the deficit. I will continue to support the Troubadour’s losses until the end of this year, and I have had a similar offer from Bill Henderson.

It seems that a large portion of the regular attendees of the Troubadour pre-COVID are simply not showing up. That situation appears to be the same for many of the volunteers, although I imagine Jean will cover that aspect. I do not know whether it is concern for safety, or simply just getting out of the habit of coming. But all I can do is hope for a gradual, or preferably imminent relaxation of those concerns.

Just prior to the April 29 show, the CDC changed Morris County’s risk status from “Low” to “Medium”. That triggered return of the safety precautions recommended by the Reopening Committee’s recommendations at our February meeting, rather than those of the March meeting. The primary differences between the two sets of recommendations are that N95 (or equivalent) masks are now required, and that there be no intermission or food service. The mask mandate, while not exactly enjoyable, is tolerable. However just about everyone at the show to whom I talked, including Elizabeth, Jean, and other Board members felt that the no-break format significantly diminished the pleasure of the evening. It made for a show that was too long to sit through uninterrupted. It also negatively impacted the Creel and the performers’ CD sales. So I am going to propose the following motion at the May Board Meeting.

Motion:

I move that the restrictions of no intermission and no food service be removed from our operations at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship. When weather conditions permit, food service will take place outside on the Terrace. When Morris County’s COVID risk factor drops back to “Low”, we may move the food service back inside at our discretion.

The rationale for this motion is that we have pretty much agreed that our practical goal is not to have zero transmissions of COVID at the Troubadour, but rather to minimize the risk of transmissions that result in a serious case or hospitalization with COVID. Considering that unlike amongst the general public, we are operating in a fully-vaccinated gathering, so such a risk will be minimal if a transmission does occur.

The new 3-camera video system has finally been installed at MUUF, and the universal verdict is a smash success. Quality and reliability of the video webcast is remarkably improved, much more professional-looking, and, I think, well worth the rise in the streaming ticket price from $2.99 to $4.99. (And the extra income from that price rise is welcome.) Bill Henderson got the knack of using the system almost immediately, and comments from the viewers have been all favorable. The new console in which the audio and video operators’ station is much improved, and easier to use. I will leave it to the Sound and Streaming committees to furnish more details.

New booking since last month:

1. Sept. 16: Happy Traum: Pioneer of the Folk Revival fingerstyle guitar movement.

2. Nov. 4: Don White: “Blue-collar intellectual”. Comedian-songwriter-raconteur

Mike Agranoff

Program Chair

The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series

Morristown, NJ. USA

www.Troubadour.FolkProject.org