I have to admit that these 200 word-columns for the new Breakdown format feel like trying to write a Haiku, which is more-or-less a 3 verse, 17 syllable poem about something to do with nature. Well Bluegrass music has its own structure built around (mostly) 3 cord songs about something to do with broken love, problems with the farm, and anything to do with railroads. One description of Bluegrass songs that I like are “happy songs about death, murder, divorce, poverty, drug abuse, alcoholism, unrequited love, infidelity, lonely-ness, and losing the farm”. Maybe we should add “sheltering in place” to that list; it certainly promotes all the above “happy song” subjects.
Meanwhile, we are charging ahead. Pete Lude has launched Turn Your Radio OnLINE, and Pete has recruited some amazing CBA volunteers to help out. I am really excited about this because I am hoping the TYRO project will lead to the CBA being able to offer virtual Bluegrass concerts, music, open mics, and maybe even jams. Deb Livermore is planning our Fall Campout, Jack Pierce is moving ahead with planning the Great 48, and soon the CBA will start laying the groundwork for the 2021 Father’s Day Festival. Hopefully life and the Coronavirus will cooperate and we will soon be jamming together again.
One project that I am working on is to implement online voting for the CBA elections. A number of nonprofits around the US already use online voting, including the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association), for various votes by their membership. This could potentially solve one big problem we have for CBA Board elections and that is we require 10% of our membership voting to elect new board members or for other issues that need to be ratified by the CBA membership. The problem is that for several years we have struggled to get the minimum 200-300 members voting and typically we have to walk around at the Fall campouts to get those last few votes to put us over the minimum number of votes. The hope is that by adding the online voting option we will make it more convenient for members and avoid our annual ritual of last-minute scrambling and shaming members to vote. For those of you that prefer a more traditional hard copy ballot or for those members who aren’t as fond of their computers as I am, we still plan to offer a hardcopy ballot option that could be mailed or personally turned in.
Implementing online voting is a little complicated because the CBA Board needs to find a good online vendor that meets our needs and would be affordable, we need to ensure that the online voting process would be allowable under California and Federal statutes, and finally we might need to modify our CBA By-laws to give us that option in addition to traditional hard copy ballots. I’ll keep ya’ll updated as to what we find and our discussions will be available in the monthly board minutes that will published online.
Stay safe, stay awake, and keep on picking.
