Our annual election of eleven Directors kicks off this month. A ballot is included in this month’s Bluegrass Breakdown (or available at the October 2017 Fall Campout and Annual Membership Meeting ). Results will be tabulated at the Capout and a new Board will be seated at the Annual Membership Meeting. We have 12 candidates for 11 seats this year. Please read the candidate statements carefully and submit your ballot. A big thank you to all the candidates for stepping up to sit on the Board. We hope to reintroduce online voting in 2018.
Lucy Smith (Butte County Area VP) organizes our International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) presence at the World of Bluegrass annual conference and celebration in Raleigh. Ten CBA members are on the official team to represent our Association and host the CBA Suite. We have participated in this annual event for a quarter century and it is financed by our annual Instrument Raffle. Many more CBA members attend and volunteer at our Suite during the event. Sponsors include Rumiano Cheese and the Sierra Nevada Brewery. Put this event on your bucket list.
CBA members are well represented in the IBMA Bluegrass Awards this year! Molly Tuttle is nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year, Guitar Player of the Year (first time ever a woman has been nominated) and Emerging Artist of the Year. Front Country is also nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year. We still claim CBA members Frank Solivan II and Rob Ickes as Californians since they were teen players at our events. Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen and Rob Ickes also have nominations. The ballots will be cast by the time this edition is published and winners will be announced during the Award Show at the World of Bluegrass. We are pretty proud of these nominees.
Deb Livermore is our new Campout Coordinator and she wants to hear from you. Deb needs volunteers for our weeklong event in Lodi. There are lots of jobs that need filling and Deb is busy at work recruiting volunteers and scheduling activities. There is talk of a quilting room and of course there is our Saturday night dinner and raffle. Thirty-Five Years of Trouble are scheduled to entertain at the dinner. Helen Lude, Tessa Schwartz, Megan January and John Gooding are band members. The Fall Campout is a big one. This is our annual Membership Meeting, our election and our kickoff for fundraising for the CBA Youth Program Scholarship Fund. Put this event on your calendar. Campouts are wonderful social and jamming events.
The Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival Retrospective will be held during the September 2017 CBA Board Meeting. Festival Director David Brace chairs this portion of the September meeting. Our 2017 financial results and attendance figures will be posted in the October Bluegrass Breakdown. The Festival Five Year Plan Committee (Maria Nadauld, Jessica Furui, Geoff Sargent, Yoseff Tucker and Chuck Poling) is hard at work looking at the future of our premier event and plans to present at the August meeting with a plan for branding our festival. Work on the festival proceeds yearround and the 2018 lineup is almost complete.
Our Bay Area members are actively discussing bringing back the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old Time Festival (SFBOT). The SFBOT began in 2000 and had a successful run for about a decade. A presentation will be made at the August Board meeting (held after the deadline for this issue) to fast track this event for an October 2017 rebirth to be held after the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco. This very short timeline necessitates a San Francisco only event and at this date (August 1) there are somevenues lined up and a committee has met once. Expect more news about this in the October issue of the Bluegrass Breakdown.
Please remember to renew your membership and VOTE in the election. Purchase a ticket to win an instrument in the Instrument Raffle to support our IBMA effort. Plan to attend the Fall Campout in Lodi in October. Open up your wallet and donate to the CBA Youth Program to support our next generation of fans and pickers.
