Hello, Everyone,

Community Service for 9/6/22:

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Sadly, Hartmann (C. William Hartmann) shared that his Mother, Helen Patricia Hartmann (Marino), passed away in her sleep on September 2nd, at age 89. Does anyone know a current mailing address for Hartmann, in the DC/Maryland area?

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A couple months ago, I suggested writing a "Thank You & Best Wishes" Newsletter article for Deborah Graham, since she has moved to the West Coast. I "dropped the ball" on this, but still think it would be a good idea.

I know Deborah has:

1. Collected & processed Membership Payments for several years.

2. Managed the Festival/GetAway Boutique several times.

3. Organized the Halloween Concerts several times.

Does anyone know other projects/activities she has done for us?

Gary - Can you give more specific time period she managed Membership Fees?

Mark - Can you give more specific number of GetAways she managed the Boutique?

Mike or Jean or Amy - Do you know how many Halloween Concerts she managed?

Do we have a new/current Mailing Address for Deborah?

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Thanks,

Evelyn Maurer

FP Community Service

Newsletter Committee Report 2022-09

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

As I was assembling the September newsletter, I got a submission of an ad for a grand piano to be given away free from a woman whose husband had died. This is the kind of ad that is periodically submitted by members and friends of the Folk Project, so I added it without much thought to the list of articles I was working on for the next newspaper.

Just before I finished laying out the issue, I got another submission for another grand piano that the owner was willing to give away because they had a hand injury and couldn't play it any more. This stuck me as an odd coincidence, but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with someone wanting to find a good home to another piano, and there didn't seem to be any scam potential, so I added it to the advertisements section of the newsletter and the newsletter was sent out as usual.

Afterwards, I got a note from Jean Scully that she had received a notice about someone who was trying to find a good home for a baby grand piano asking if it could be placed as an ad in the next issue of the newsletter. This set off some alarm bells. Upon calling her back, she mentioned that Todd had sent her a note saying that the request was a scam and should be ignored.

On doing a Google search, I found that there is such a scam, and it is based on the "seller" recommending a moving company to take care of transferring the free piano to the recipient. Of course, the "moving company" needs a down payment before they can pick up the piano and move it. When the down payment is paid, the "seller" and the "moving company" disappear along with the money.

Since the newsletter had already been sent out, President Lachowicz decided we should send out a warning about these ads to the membership, which Mark Schaffer did via Constant Contact. He also included a warning about the scam in the Music Alert. I edited the online version of the newsletter to remove the ads and replace them with a warning about the scam.

Going forward, I intend to be more careful about checking the ads submitted for inclusion in the newsletter.

Thanks,

George Otto

Folk Project Newsletter Editor

newsletter@folkproject.org

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Publicity Report for the September 6, 2022 Board Meeting

Sam Edelston, September 5, 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

Web Team Members

John Lamb, Allan Kugel, Charles Lamb, Lori Falco

Reports

Chairperson’s Report – Sam Edelston

Some big numbers in the August calendar-month web statistics:

• 4259 User Sessions was 18% more than any other month in the past year.

• 3087 Unique Users was 17.7% more than any other month in the past year.

• 6925 Total Page Views was 17.6% more than any other month in the past year.

• Part of this was driven by UkeFest (511 views for the month).

• In addition, the Muriel Anderson (208) and Trout Fishing (183) concerts are the only Troubadour shows this year to get more than 160 visits in a single month. (Tom Paxton got nearly 320, spread between two months.)

Last month, I mentioned that the 8/11 episode of Inside the Song featuring Dar Williams was on its way to record numbers. Ultimately, that episode wound up with 204 responses, shattering the previous record of 139 from the inaugural show with Dan Navarro.

E-communications – Mark Schaffer

e-Communications Report for September 2022 Board Meeting.

[See image below]

Facebook – Kathi Caccavale

Sam, filling in for Kathi:

Folk Project Page: 4,481 people Like this (up from 4,352 last month). 5,637 Followers (up from 5,468).

Folk Project group: 1,694 members, up 50 from 1,644 last month.

NJ Uke Fest group: 244 members; Up just 1 from 243 last month.

Swingin’ Tern group: 603 members; up from 597 from last month.

In this chart, the big spike in “Reach” is on August 26 (3,400) and 27 (1,400). The Facebook stats don’t make clear how much of that is due to (A) UkeFest that weekend, (B) problems with the Trout Fishing livestream and the cancellation thereof, and (C) a post announcing Getaway.

[see graphs below]

Twitter, Instagram – Jean Scully

No report from Jean.

YouTube – Joe Guzzo

Sam summarizing: 7 of Tina Ross’s 10 “Inside the Song” shows have been uploaded. As of 7/31, 3 videos are visible, and 4 others are uploaded but haven’t yet been made visible.

Web – John Lamb

Here’s John’s written report. His web statistics are attached.

August was a slower than usual month, mostly due to the webmaster being on vacation for the first half of the month. We still managed to do the following:

• assisted with new show postings for Inside the Song

• did major updates for UkeFest and Getaway

• set up ticket sales process to notify Event Coordinators immediately when a new ticket sale for the event was made, at the request of Mark Schaffer who needed this information as UkeFest approached.

• showed Mike Agranoff and Gary Pratt how to use a Gmail filter so that they did not get a slew of ticket sales notification emails that they did not want

• updated the COVID banner on the home page and the procedures page that it links to

• renewed the registration of folkproject.org for two years

• handled some inquiries that came in via info@folkproject.org and forwarded the ones that I could not handle to the responsible parties

• helped George Otto with the usual update of the newsletter distribution page

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

Merch – Paul Fisher (acting)

Nothing new.

Dear Board,

Based on month-old changes to CDC guidelines and current norms of behavior, the Reopening Committe will make the following motion for Board consideration.

We point out that the current virus is spreading similarly among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, so the communal advantages of requiring vaccination are limited compared to past variants.

And, although the consequences of infection are worse for the unvaccinated population, that is their personal risk.

Here is the motion:

This motion replaces all previous COVID motions that the board passed.

1. Vaccinations will no longer be required at all Folk Project events.

2. Masks will be encouraged, but not required.

3. Chairpersons and committees can still enforce stricter COVID safety requirements at their individual events.

Theses addendums are not in the motion:

1. Vaccinations are also encouraged.

2. This is not our final report. COVID is still here and changing.

This is not saying that COVID over and we are safe, but that under the current circumstances we recommend a shift to personal responsibility for personal consequences and that particular chairpersons of particulars events may prefer stricter guidelines than we recommend.

Elizabeth,

Please put this on the September agenda at tomorrow’s meeting.

Thanks,

Mark & Bob

Sound Reinforcement Committee Report September 2022

We covered 4 Friday night concerts in August. We also covered Friday and Saturday for the Uke Fest.

We had two Troubadour concerts were not broadcast over Facebook due to equipment problems. The first was Grover Kemble on Aug. 5th where the failure was establishing the connection to Facebook. The second on was the Trout Fishing on Aug. 26 where the failure was due to the broadcast computer “freezing”. Both of these problems have been corrected. We now have a procedure that reliably connects to FB, solving the first one. The second one involved a power fluctuation probably due to the sanctuary cleaning crew. This is thought to be a rare occurrence. Should it occur again, it can be fixed by restarting the computer from a “cold boot”. I am told that a long-term solution will be the installation of an uninterruptable power supply.

We have initiated a training program to instruct new sound techs in the operation of the sound board. We have four individuals signed up. The training will complete in September.

John Mahon

Committee Chairperson

Special Events Report to Board for September 2022

Event Hosting:

The August Evening of Music was at the home of Dave and Ann Marie Schwartz in Saddle River. It was a lovely gathering with wonderful music in a warm and friendly setting.

NJ Uke Fest:

Another successful “Home Edition” with about 40 in attendance, including staff and artists, was held on August 26, 27 and 28. Spirits were high, the concerts fantastic, the workshops intense and fun, and the joy was palpable.

Artists included The Kennedys, Lil’ Rev, Bill Wynne, Yaniza, Author Larry Bartram, Hula Dancer Skye Randazzo, Workshop Leader Frank Sole, and Song Leaders Mark Dutton and Kevin Coughlin. Budget-wise, we broke even, with the general funds endowment from the Project. Thanks to Robin, Peggy, Margie, Jean, and Frank for volunteering for multiple tasks over multiple hours.

Highlights included, but are not limited to, a visit from a far-away-but curious bear, mid-afternoon sandwich hors d’oeuvres, and a musical challenge during Bill Wynne’s concert set where the audience called out any song written between 1920 and 1989 and Bill played a fully-arranged version of it.

If anyone is interested in chairing this wonderful event, please contact me. It’s fun and rewarding, but The Folk Project has blessed me with enough fun and rewards, and it will be nice to share a few.

Acoustic Getaway:

Due to fears that a fall COVID surge would cancel the event, early planning put options in place and final decisions were delayed until last minute - the end of August. At this writing - 9/8/22 - registration is open one week, and it’s a pleasure to announce that 27 people have registered for the full weekend. Forty is our break even. If we reach our maximum of 50 guests, we will add more professional workshop leaders and this amazing lineup - possible our best ever - will be even better.

A lot of our friends are asking when we’ll get the “old” Getaway back. COVID, cost increases, and lower attendance make that Getaway impossible for now. We are considering adaptations that include an overnight weekend away, but none are currently feasible.

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for being so late with my report.

Busy getting numbers in order. Still working out some glitches with posting numbers to the right venues (class). There is always a lag between the actual event and when things get posted to Quickbooks.

I can report that we got two donations posted today from two anonymous donors. One for $1008.20 and one for $10,000 that is earmarked to WNYC as a pass through for advertising. Yippie.

I have included both a general Profit & Loss plus a current Balance sheet.

The thing to notice in on the balance sheet is we currently have $18K in our money market down from $23K at the end of last year.

Our checking account is currently at $6K and it was $7K at the end of last year which is pretty much the same.

The Vanguard was $202.5K and is currently at $170K. obviously the stock market is down. You will see this loss in the P&L as a loss in unrealized gains. So no, the Folk Project did not loose $34K in our operations, we lost that number in our Vanguard account. Our current operational losses are only $4K mostly due to the fact that Michael has been subsidizing Troubadour's losses this year. Last year we had some fabulous donations from some very generous members. I should also point out that part of the losses are due to the fact that the way we account for the subsidies from the Vanguard has changed. We are no longer able the juggle the books to post those numbers to the venues unless we actually deposit the cash. Some of the losses you see are due to that constraint.

Everyone is loosing money to some degree or another. Fighting Covid and it's effects has been difficult and discouraging. The good news is, we have enough saved to cover our expenses in our current money market fund.

I have been working on trying to set up some budgets for 2023. I should have them done for our next meeting. I was hoping to have them ready for this meeting but got involved with the Uke Fest.

I also got the go-ahead from Michael to approach the Fellowship and talk to them about lowering the rent while we try to rebuild the Troubadour. I have contacted a few people to explore the best way to make the presentation/request to the Fellowship. I will keep everyone informed of my plan before I move forward. Hoping for a favorable outcome.

Respectfully Submitted

Peggy Karr / Treasurer

Well, all I can say about the Troubadour in August is that it has been more of the same. In spades. Attendance continues to hover around 40 (42.7 paid, 55.3 total). Now that it’s been a full year since we reopened in September of 2021, I’ve expanded the attached charts to cover one full year of operations. You’ll see that the attendance has been pretty flat from the very beginning. Our operations continue to lose a lot of money. $1,805 in August, $5,324 YTD, and a staggering $9,404, since we first reopened. This has been balanced by $9,681 in donations, but it is a situation that is obviously untenable in the long run.

I will continue with my personal financial support until the end of the year, but if there is no sign of attendance turning around by then, we will have to reexamine our operations.

I had put out a self-congratulatory email that we had finally had one show that turned a profit on August 5 with Grover Kemble & Jerry Vezza. That later proved to be incorrect due to an error on the part of the Exchequer of the show. (Me!) That show actually lost $31.

The August 26 show with Trout Fishing in America turned out to be a disaster, financially and otherwise. I had originally booked them in May of 2019 before anyone even knew about COVID to perform on April 17, 2020. They are a nationally known act, and came with a guarantee of $2,000. Well, obviously April, 2020 wasn’t going to happen. I had committed that any acts canceled due to COVID would be re-booked when we re-opened. So when we reopened in September of 2021, I found a date for them that fit their touring in March of 2022. I even talked them down to a $1,500 guarantee because of the low attendance we’d been experiencing. I figured that would improve by March. And then along came Omicron, and we closed again in January. So then they got pushed off to July, 22. And then one of their members, Keith Grimwood, caught COVID, and we again rescheduled them to August 26. By that time I knew we were in trouble, because the expected improvement in attendance never materialized. I had some hopes that their own national draw would bring in some folks. Nope. There were only half a dozen first-timers at that show. There were only 35 paid that night, and we lost over $1,300 on the show. To add insult to injury, we experienced technical difficulties, and were unable to stream the show that night. We had to refund 17 streaming tickets, and lost who knows how many more who tried unsuccessfully to stream the show, but were unable to. All in all, not one of our stellar nights.

The repeated reshuffling of Trout Fishing in America also proved most unfortunate for Carla Ulbrich. She had been scheduled to open for the Trouts on July 22 as a teaser for a headline appearance on August 26. When Keith caught COVID, the plan was to move the Trouts to Carla’s night on August 26, and promote Carla to a headline act on July 22. And then 2 days before her headline date, Carla reported that her husband had been exposed to someone who had subsequently tested positive. So in the interest of safety, we canceled the July 22 show entirely. So Carla got jobbed out of two gigs. That all got fixed when I booked Carla for December 30 as a headliner. And then, I booked the Loose Canons on November 25, and started casting around for an opener. Eureka! Who better than Carla, again as a teaser for her December headliner? That would make for a great show. So Carla wound up getting her two gigs back.

If there is any bright spot on the horizon, it is that the number of COVID cases appear to be coming down. This month the CDC Community Risk Assessment went down from ORANGE (High) to YELLOW (Medium). With the lower risk, we have dropped our mask mandate. But to ease the concerns of those who are still reluctant to show up in person, we’ve divided the audience into MASK REQUIRED and MASK OPTIONAL sections. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go down to GREEN (Low) in September. Also, with new vaccine boosters coming available in September things will be even better in terms of COVID safety.

With this in mind, I am going to ask at the meeting an informal poll to get a sense of the Board.

Our rental at MUUF is based upon the room usage of the night. There are three locations where we have served snacks as follows:

1. The Dining Room, where we used to serve the snacks pre-COVID for most shows: $58/night

2. The Terrace Room (bigger), which we used for high attendance shows. $105/night

3. The Terrace (outside), which we’ve been using most of the summer for COVID safety: $52.50/night

Since COVID, we had dropped the use of the Dining Room for the smaller shows in favor of the Terrace Room in order to maintain social distancing. But we were also able to use the outside Terrace, which was more COVID-safe , as well as being less expensive. As we go into colder weather, we will not be able to use the Terrace. If indeed, the CDC Risk Factor goes down to GREEN, I would like to resume serving snacks in the Dining Room for the more lightly attended shows when the weather prohibits us from serving outside. It will be a significant financial savings Perhaps make masks mandatory in that room.. I’m going to ask the Board what they think of that idea.

New bookings since last month:

1. November 25 (Thanksgiving Friday) The Loose Canons, with the aforementioned Carla Ulbrich opening. That will be a very funny show!

2. December 30: The aforementioned Carla Ulbrich.

Highlights in September:

My God! They’re all highlights!

1. The obvious one is Tom Chapin on Sept. 30. That’s another high guarantee show. I sure hope we can get a crowd for him.

2. But if I may promote a sleeper less known to the general audience, I would plug Muriel Anderson on September 2. Astonishing guitarist and harp-guitarist. First woman to win the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship at Winfield. Check out this video, and any others of her you can find on YouTube. Music of all genres, complete with a multi-media display on screen behind her.

Respectfully submitted:

Mike Agranoff

Program Chair

The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series

Morristown, NJ. USA

www.Troubadour.FolkProject.org