Al Podber and I have arranged to do tapings in Brattleboro Community TV's studio starting in April and Al has invited 9 guest artists he saw perform at a traditional music festival up there. They all agreed.

Peace, Ralph Litwin

837 Florence Road

Florence, MA 01062

973-538-2432

Newsletter Committee Report 2023-03

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

George Otto

Folk Project Newsletter Editor

newsletter@folkproject.org 

Publicity Report for the March 7, 2023 Board Meeting

Sam Edelston, March 6, 2023

Publicity Committee Members

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

Web Team Members                                 

John Lamb, Allan Kugel, Charles Lamb, Lori Falco

Reports

Chairperson’s Report – Sam Edelston

Who on the Board can recommend people that I can recruit to help with Publicity efforts?

E-communications – Mark Schaffer

Here’s Mark’s e-Communications Report for March 2023 Board Meeting.

·         40,194 Total Sends for the Music Alert

·         14,338 Opens … 38.2% open rate, down from 38.9% last month

Facebook – Kathi Caccavale

Folk Project Page:  4,759 people Like this (up from 4,707 last month). 5,948 Followers (up from 5,898).

Folk Project group: 1,855 members, up from 1,821 last month.

Swingin’ Tern group: 624 members; up from 620 last month.

NJ Uke Fest group: 259 members; Up from 255 last month.

 Instagram – Ralph Pedicini

Sam says:

Content Overview (from Facebook/Instagram reports):

·         Instagram followers: 374, up from 358 last month.

·         Instagram – Down from December, but up compared to November.

o   Reach: 243 … down from 293 last month

o   Profile visits: 42 … down from 51

o   New Likes & Followers: 18 … down from 20

·         Instagram posts (90-day results)

o   Reach: 451 … up 117%

o   Engagement (likes, comments, shares): 192 … up 44%

·         Instagram Stories (90-day results)

o   25 Story posts.

o   Reach: 107

o   Engagement: 4

Ralph says:

I have been working on three areas.

1)      promoting Folk Project and encouraging people to "follow" us on IG.  I believe we are seeing an uptick in followers.  I frequent a lot of open mic and open stage in the NJ area and always look for membership and interest.  I think it would be advantageous for the Folk Project to let their mailing/email base know that we are on IG and to Follow us. Perhaps a mention in the Music Aert and the Newsletter

2)      cross-promoting - I made an effort in cross promoting recently. In particular, I did a series of "stories" and "posts" for the Dead to the Core.  I had the band tag the Folk Project in their posts and stories as well and I believe we had a successful event.  I would like to continue the cross-promotion efforts.  We need to have the performers market/tag the Folk Project when they post their appearance dates so we can expose their fan base to the Folk Project

3)      I've been adding stories to the day before and day of events when possible. In particular, for the streaming Tuesdays

Thoughts -

·         For a small fee IG will "Boost" your post and engage in people with similar algorithms.  So a post that only reached followers of the Folk Project could reach multiple, similar interests, IG users. It's an inexpensive and effective tool that we are not utilizing.

·         A survey at events - how did you hear about us? So we can get a feel for how the promotional efforts are working.

Twitter – Jean Scully

No report from Jean.

Web – John Lamb

Here’s John’s writeup:

February was less busy than usual for the web team.

- we assisted the Troubadour Chair with adjustments to entries for upcoming shows

- we whitelisted Jeff Canter after an email he sent to boardplus@folkproject.org was mistakenly intercepted as spam

- we improved the appearance of the home page when displayed on tablet-sized screens

- we made corrections to the entry for the Getaway Songwriters Day

- we assisted users of Google Drive with password resets

- we updated the COVID policy page and the Swingin' Tern page to reflect the revisions in their COVID policies

- we assisted the Newsletter Chair in getting the most recent edition of the e-newsletter online

February is a bit of a puzzle as far as web numbers go.  The old version of Google Analytics made it look like a great month, with user sessions higher than any month in the previous year and nearly twice what they were in February 2022.  The numbers in Google Analytics 4 are very solid, but down about 8% in sessions per day over last month. I note that GA3 recorded traffic from 50 countries and GA4 from only 35.  This may indicate that we had a lot of automated traffic (bots/crawlers and the like) which tends to come disproportionately from abroad inflating the GA3 numbers.

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

John Lamb, webmaster

Merch – Paul Fisher (acting)

Nothing new.

Sound Reinforcement Committee Report March 2023

We provided sound for the four Friday night shows scheduled in February, and all proceeded without glitches. We are starting to see participation of the new sound techs newly trained this past October. We have adopted the new procedures for the video broadcast after Facebook eliminating the “paywall” for collecting tickets, and we have not encountered any problems.

In the month of March I will initiate a project to evaluate and repair or replace our stage audio equipment. A good deal of it is in need of repair or replacement. The past three years has been very hard on this equipment due to the equipment traveling to remote locations for streaming shows.

John Mahon

Committee Chairperson

March 2023 Special Concerts Report to Board

MEMBER HOSTING

Jay’s doing a great job.

The February Evening of Music in Rockaway was a success. Over 20 people made great music and had a wonderful time. 

The March Evening is also in Rockaway, and this time the hosts will actually attend.

EXPLORATORY SPECIAL EVENTS SUBCOMMITTEE

1. Peg and Robin are evaluating grants to apply for.  We have identified 19 that are applicable and are working through the application details.  

2.  We are discussing feasibility of a summer 2024 festival and building a go-no go plan.  We will bring a report to the board in April.  We need that decision for grant applications.  

3. We identified two other projects for grant applications:  A high level special concert series, and the Getaway.  If anyone has other project ideas for funding, please send to robin.schaffer@folkproject.org

SONGWRITERS DAY

Five weeks out we have 20 tickets sold - short of expectations.

We’ll restart the publicity campaign by

emphasizing the evening concert-only tickets, increasing social media outreach, working with other songwriting groups, a special new news outlet outreach working with a new volunteer who has professional media experience, working closer with the artists publicity teams, and crossing our fingers.

SPRING GETAWAY/50th Anniversary

Upon advice at the last meeting, we’re not cancelling Spring Getaway. It’s been turned into a 50th anniversary celebration based on May is exactly 50 years since our Camp Kiamesha launch under Project Founder Laurie Riley.  We’ll have two evening concerts Friday and Saturday at MUUF, plus a day of workshops (including a celebratory dinner) on Saturday at MUUF.  The original plan floated in the Music Alert included Sunday activities, but Sunday will be dropped.

The emphasis will be on 50 years of this community’s great music. Tickets to Friday and Saturday evening concerts will be sold separately. A full weekend ticket including both evening concerts, Saturday workshops, and a special dinner will be sold. The weekend is intended to draw enough to break even at a low cost TBD.

The theme will be 50 years of Great Music. Performers include: The Robinson-Rohe Band, Frank Vignola with Vinnie Raniolo, Project Founder Laurie Riley, WSAG (The Rolstons & Nerenberg), Grover Kemble, Mike Agranoff, Dave Kleiner & Liz Pagan, Bill Hall, Roger Dietz, Betsy Rose, Frank & Hank, Todd & Annie, Andrew Dunn, Ken Galipeau, Christine DeLeon, Tina Ross & Andy Hirsch, Michael Arthur, Teddy Parker, Jean Scully,  two current Open Stage Special Guests, & More.

The Valentines Jazz Band under the direction of Frank Sole will welcome guests on  for mocktails and hors d'oeuvres before the Friday concert.

Saturday afternoon workshops will showcase 50 years of chorus songs, a non-competitive storytelling workshop a la “slam,” an On the & Off the Charts song circle, two Frank & Vinnie guitar all-star workshops, and more.

FALL GETAWAY AT STONY POINTY

The board survey showed solid support to run our first "Getaway Away" since COVID. The questions were based on a 75-person contract, a $390-ish price, and sharing the retreat center with other guests.

As an FYI, the results were:

• 13 thought the Project should attempt this event, 1 said don’t, and 1 didn’t say.

• 10 thought we would draw sufficient attendance, 3 thought not, and 2 didn’t have an answer.

• 14 said they would attend, 1 wouldn’t attend, 1 couldn’t say.

Based on board support of the plan despite the issues described,

I have signed the contract with Stony Point.

The Fall Getaway is underway.

Submitted by Mark Schaffer, Special Events Chair

Folk Project board members,

As mentioned last month, we have been unable to stream Facebook paid online events since January. We found out the day after last month's board meeting that Facebook is discontinuing Facebook paid online events, which is apparently why Kathi didn’t receive any response to the trouble tickets she had submitted to Facebook.

Our workaround has been to stream the Troubadour shows as free events and asking audience members to make a suggested donation of $5.00 to The Folk Project to cover the lost ticket revenue. More information regarding the donations can be found in the Troubadour Booking Report.

We have found a streaming platform that will be far superior to Facebook. I have met with the Streaming Chair of a venue who has been using this platform for well over a year and is very satisfied with the product. He graciously provided a very thorough demo of the platform. I also purchased a ticket for one of their shows and was very impressed with the ticket ordering process as well as the presentation of the show itself. We are hoping to meet with the vendor within the next few days with the hope of moving Troubadour shows to the new streaming platform by April 1. We will coordinate closely with the Troubadour chair, Open Stage chair, and the A/V Team.

Respectfully submitted,

Gary Pratt

The Folk Project Streaming Chair

Swingin' Tern February report

A down month. On February 4, Sue Gola and Dylan Simpson called to Wry Bred. On February 18, Paul Morris called to the Contragenarians.

We lost $325 on the month. February is when Flurry happens and is often a poor month for us. March is looking better.

Leigh Walker

Swingin' Tern

Hello Everyone,

Not much to report. I have attached a P&L through March 6.

The only significant things to report is we are beginning to spend the Pass Through 10K Donation to WNYC. It will come to $10,150.00 in total over the next 2 months, and show as a loss for this year skewing our numbers. I should also note we paid our Directors & Officers insurance in full which is $659 for the whole year. This explains the loss to date of $4,954.58

Respectfully Submitted,

Peggy Karr / Treasurer

We had only 2 shows in February.  Quality-wise, both were great.  Attendance-wise, one was good (for these days), and one was poor, averaging out to 53.5, slowly creeping up from the COVID slump of last year.  The Dead to the Core show on Feb. 17 drew 71 paid, and actually made a profit of $240.  The show itself drew raves from virtually everyone there.  Overall, February had an average paid attendance of 53.5, and was a whopping $36 in the black.  Year-to-date, we are $124 in the red.

Starting in January, we had been unable to connect to FaceBook live for our webcasts.  Our Streaming Team had come to the conclusion that FaceBook had discontinued live-streaming for a paid ticket price, and didn’t bother to inform us of that little detail.  So this month we resolved to make it a free ticket, and ask for a voluntary contribution of $5.00.  For the month, we had an average of 33 streaming viewers per show, which donated an average of $78.65 per show.  Roughly half what we would have gotten with the $4.99 ticket price, but better than nothing.  Oddly enough, fewer than half the viewers donated anything, but those that did, gave anywhere from $3.00 to $20.00 apiece.  It starts to get confusing to the customer when he’s asked to donate to the Troubadour and to the performer.  It’s not a good system.  The Streaming Committee is in the process of finding another streaming platform that can handle paid streaming tickets anyway.  So the clumsy issue of asking for donations to both the Troubadour and the performer may go away soon.  More details in the Streaming Committee report.

Speaking of donations to the performer, I had been quite disappointed with the small numbers that online viewers have been donating to the performers in the past.  Up until January, those donations had been averaging $3.21 per viewer, while the live audience, who had already paid $10 at the door were putting an average of $6.62 per attendee in the Creel.  The donations to the performer were promoted by Gary as the streaming host in the chat.  I thought they might be boosted some if the in-person emcee made a similar pitch to the streaming audience from the stage.  So I instructed the emcees to make that pitch right after they did the Creel pitch, asking people to pay what they thought the show was worth.  That made a big difference.  For the two shows in February, the streaming viewers donated an average of $5.21 apiece to the performers.

An issue that had been worrying me in the past was the overnight accommodations for  performers after the show.  We have always put them up in the homes of volunteer hosts.  I had a list of a dozen people who had offered that service.  But over the course of the last few years, the number of hosts who answered the call when I put it out had been dwindling, and I had to scramble and make personal calls to accommodate some acts.  I had put a number of requests for such overnight hosts in the newsletter that drew no response.  By the Tuesday before the Feb. 17 show, no one had volunteered to host Dead to the Core.  So I figured that a dedicated email inquiry to our membership might get more response.  Mark raised objections to that, and wanted to put it in the Music Alert.  But the next Music Alert wouldn’t go out until Thursday, and that would be too late.  So he relented.  The response was very gratifying.  I got 2 new hosts the same day I sent the email, and 6 more over the succeeding few days.  I’m much more comfortable about being able to house performers now.  Thank you, Mark.  I intend to find a volunteer to whom I can delegate the task of finding housing for performers.  DO I HEAR ANY VOLUNTEERS???

New bookings since last month’s report:

March 31:........ Katie Weiss & Friends opening for Culomba.  FP member performing old time songs

April 7:............. Bill Hall opening for Christine Lavin

April 28............ Russ Rentler opening for E.T.E

May 5.............. Frank & Hank opening for Enrico Granafei  FP members doing jazz and standards

July 7............... Bill Hall with Kathy Moser opening.

September 29.. Máire Ní Chathasaigh & Chris Newman  Outstanding harp & guitar.  Irish and other music

March highlights:

March 24:........ The Kennedys  Longtime Troubadour favorite folk-rockers

March 31:........ Culomba  This is one that no one has heard of, but I’d urge you to check them out.  It’s a 5-member vocal ensemble doing all sorts of great choral harmony traditions from all over the world.  If you liked Windborne or Finest Kind, you’ll love these guys.

Respectfully Submitted:

Mike Agranoff

www.MikeAgranoff.com