Some of you know that one of the jobs that I do is teach Biochemistry to college students applying to medical schools, dental schools, veterinary schools and so on. It’s sometimes thought of as a gateway course, a kind of a rite-of-passage class that has the reputation of being difficult and sometimes tedious. One of the things I teach my students is something called the transition state, which is an unstable, in between, form of a chemical going from chemical-a to chemical-b in a reaction. For example, when we drink bourbon, something I am quite fond of, there is something in our bodies called an enzyme, named alcohol dehydrogenase, that converts the ethanol in the bourbon to a chemical called acetaldehyde. As part of this chemical reaction the enzyme will kind of stretch the ethanol molecule, but a strain on it, to make it easier to convert into acetaldehyde…at least that is the conceptual idea. That stretched out, strained form of ethanol is called the transition state. And we do something similar everyday at a real world level when we might cut a rope or string by holding it tight before using the knife or scissors.
Now I would guess that for most readers this is more biochemistry than you want to know about alcohol metabolism in our bodies, but that idea of a transition state can be found in a lot of other everyday things. And what I mean by a transition state now is an unstable, or potentially hazardous, in between moment in doing something. I have more fender benders in my truck in the middle of turns; that moment in the middle of a left turn where I am crossing the oncoming lane of traffic, that moment that I always rush and try to beat an oncoming car…and sometimes don’t time right, could be called a transition state. To bring this into the bluegrass world, the kick to a song is a transition state where if everyone doesn’t hit that first note together, well we all know how that can lead to a ragged kick and a reset to try again. Transition states are risky moments where we are the most exposed and moments that we might want to hurry through to minimize the chances something unpleasant could happen.
Well I got news for you folks…I think we are in, or rapidly approaching, a transition state for the California Bluegrass Association. The transition state I am talking about is more of a generational transition from the founding generation of the CBA to a younger generation of bluegrassers to carry on with our community and our music. What I want to do here is enlist all of the founding generation of the CBA, all of those folks who have helped to build this community, I want you to help get us through this transition state safely into a new generation. So how do we do this? There are two things all of you can do. The first is use a tool that parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents use almost daily…the tool of shame. Shamelessly shame your kids, your nieces, nephews, and grandkids into volunteering for the festival. We need a new generation of volunteers to take over running the festival and we need them to step up and learn how it is done. We are gradually getting there but I am asking you to lean on ‘em, and lean hard. One of the unstated tasks that falls on every board member is to recruit so I’m recruiting you to help us.
The second thing you can do is get your kids, your nieces, nephews, and grandkids to run for the board of directors. Yeah I know I made an unfair portrayal of what some of the younger generation think about the board, but our board is made up of the folks that are stepping up to keep the CBA going and if we are going to successfully see this transition through to a new generation, well we have to recruit a new generation to get involved. Now being a board member is a pretty serious commitment. We’re not one of those boards where you get to sit around and float a bunch of ideas that a staff will carry out…nope we come up with the ideas and then we have to carry them out and we do that sometimes ourselves and we do that with the help of our amazing volunteers. That is probably the most unbelievable and amazing things about our organization and that is the amount of work that we do, what we achieve, as a all volunteer organization. When we go out and talk about the CBA to other groups, folks sometimes get a quizzical look on their face when it finally sinks in that the vast majority of what the CBA does is with volunteers.
Ok…so you have successfully shamed your relations into volunteering, what next. Well direct them to Deb Livermore, our volunteer coordinator, at Deblivermore@gmail.com. Direct them now if they want to do a regular volunteer gig at the festival for a comp or direct them to Deb, or our Festival Director David Brace, if they want to be an informal volunteer and just help out for a few hours. Either way is good. But if you have really scored and played the Ace of shame cards, and one of your relations is considering running for the board then there are a couple of things they need to know. First, you need to direct them to our web page that describes what they have to do to run and that web url is https://www.cbaweb.org/About/RunningForTheBoard. But basically they will need to have a petition and collect the signatures of 10 CBA members. That hard copy petition can be mailed to us or it can be scanned and sent as a pdf to CBA Membership Vice President, Larry Phegley, 47 Ralston Drive, Monterey, CA 93940, larry.phegley@gmail.com. The petitions need to be sent by August 1. I will have blank petitions at the Father’s Day Festival for anyone who wants to run for to the board and makes their decision at the festival. I encourage anybody who is considering this to come talk to me, or any of the other board members, at any time. Also by August 1, they will need to send a Candidate’s Statement providing a little background about your reasons for running along with a current photo of yourself to the Bluegrass Breakdown Editor, Mark Varner, P.O. Box 1245, Boulder Creek, CA 95006, mrvarner@ix.netcom.com.
