Greetings all. This will be my last President’s Message. I retire at the October Annual Membership Meeting and someone else will be selected by the Board to become President.
I have been asked recently what exactly a CBA President does. The By-Laws define the role as the liaison between the Board of Directors and the Membership. The President is elected by the sitting Board at the Annual Membership Meeting each October. The President may or may not be a Board Member. Each President in the past has defined that role for himself/herself.
Very few members reach out to the Board or the President. We receive little in the way of guidance from the membership. I act mainly as a “traffic director” and refer enquiries on. Most of the four or so emails I receive each month are asking about deadlines or asking for a volunteer’s contact info. Larry Phegley (Board Member and Membership Coordinator) forwards all enquiries he receives on renewal forms to me and I respond and/or refer to the appropriate person.
The President attends Board Meetings and that is easier now for many because of our By-Law
change that allows a percentage of the Board to attend “electronically.” After I spent a couple years as President I then ran for the Board because I wanted to be able to vote.
I defined my role as “membership development” and tried numerous strategies to boost our membership. A new President may or may not follow this route. I also developed and maintain the California Bluegrass Association and CBA Youth Program Facebook pages. A new President may or may not do this.
I finally settled on developing future membership by establishing a free standing “CBA Youth Program” and increasing the number and kind of programs we offer to families knowing that recruiting families and supporting kids would both develop a new generation of fans, leaders, musicians and keep the music alive. Val Cornejo has always served as the Budget Director/ Administrator for the CBA Youth Program when we separated out the funds for the CBA Youth Program from the CBA General Funds.
The CBA had already developed and supported KOB under Frank Solivan and the Lending Library under Sharon and Steve Elliott. Both those were already successful programs but we needed to expand our recreational program at Father’s Day to support families who were attending the festival. Kathleen Rushing took over the direction of KidFest and her program now serves a couple hundred small children during the festival.
We developed the role of CBA Youth Ambassador with Angelica Grim Branum serving as our first Youth Ambassador. The Youth Ambassadors generally serve a two-year term and help develop some of the ideas we consider to reach out to young people. The VolunTeens were an outgrowth of that role and we hope to develop the role more fully. October is the month we start our annual Youth Program fundraising drive. So far in 2019 we have awarded about $8000 in scholarships and grants. We award scholarships to the Academy and the CBA Music Camp. We issue “grants” to our young musicians selected by the IBMA to participate in the Kids on Bluegrass Program in Raleigh. We spent another $2000 or so to pay our Youth Jam Leaders and our Teaching Assistants. Some of our VolunTeens (unpaid) receive community service credit in their High Schools for volunteering.
Gary Mansperger added a donation section to our Tix.com program for online ticket purchase. Larry Phegley collects donations with membership processing. We have a donation site on the website. Our largest donations come from me begging you to support our programs. (I did a birthday Facebook non-profit plea in May and raised close to $2000) We kick off our fundraising drive every October. Just as we were beginning to pick up steam in 2018 we switched gears to run the GoFundMe for our members affected by the horrific fires. This year is a catchup year.
The CBA Youth Program counts on the public to support what we do. We are NOT funded out of CBA General Funds, we are self-funded. We now have an Annual Academy (newsflash: we may produce a winter one as well). Instrument Lending Librarian Randy January found us a weather-controlled storage facility for our shelved instruments that requires rent. We spend about $2000 annually on insurance for our program. We have an increasing number of awesome Youth Bands that deserve our support. We published the second edition of our Academy Songbook in 2019. We are beginning to more fully define and develop our Mentorship Program. We want to be able to give our young people the knowledge and skills they need to be CBA Leaders, Music Camp Faculty, Professional Musicians. We see it as our mission to support the younger generation. We definitely see some successes in this endeavor!!!
So….Please give generously. Donations can be made on line www.cbaweb.org/Youth . Checks can be sent to the CBA Youth Program, 2106 9th Ave, Oakland, CA 94606. I can take credit cards over the phone. You can trust me with your cash contributions as well. Contribute when you renew your memberships, when you purchase your ticket to our events online.
I am retiring from the Presidency but continuing to direct/coordinate the CBA Youth Program at least through 2020. You should take pride in what we accomplish in this organization. We can do more. We need your ideas, possibly your grant writing skills, your willingness to volunteer. There is nothing more rewarding than watching the kids we support grow up. Some of the musicians you watched in KOB and the Academy are playing on stages around the world. Some of those kids are teaching/mentoring the next generation. Some of them are enrolling their kids in our programs.
Everything we are able to do as a volunteer organization is because you volunteered and/or donated.
