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Newsletter – December 2015_1
In this month’s newsletter:
Update from the President – July, 2015
Hello all,
Planning for Mountaingrass 2015 is in full swing now with three headline US acts already booked! Our US Old Time act are The Orpheous Supertones and bringing bluegrass to us are Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands. Laurie hails from the West Coast of the US. She has a very expressive vocal style and has been voted Female Vocalist of the Year twice by the IBMA.
We are also thrilled to have Chris Henry back again in 2015. Chris will be accompanied by US banjo player Kyle Tuttle, and joined by the members of One Up Two Down (George Jackson, Andrew Small and Dan Watkins) to form Chris Henry & The Hardcore Grass.
Performer applications for acts from Australia and New Zealand have now closed. We will announce the remainder of our 2015 line-up towards the end of July.
This year we have reduced the total number of acts performing in order to stay within budget and also provide a bit more space in the program to allow folks to move more easily to between venues.
We will continue to have a blackboard concert at the Mountain View Hall on Sunday afternoon and we invite everyone who wants to perform at this blackboard concert to see Angus Golding. Angus will be doing sound at the Mountain View Retreat Hall over the weekend so you will find him there.
The festival site: Feathertop Chalet
The management and staff at Feathertop Chalet are also looking forward to hosting the event again this year and we are already discussing how to make the event as enjoyable as possible for the festival attendees. The café-style set up with chairs and table and wood fires under the covered area outside Reception will be back, along with the Bright Brewery beer and the delicious meals and takeaway snacks. Dogs will not be allowed inside the marquee and we would prefer dogs to be kept off-site altogether during the festival.
Volunteering
Needless to say staging Mountaingrass is a huge amount of work. We welcome volunteers, both during the festival, and during the lead-up to the event. In return, volunteers will be given a free ticket in return for 6 hours of work and hopefully a warm fuzzy feeling from helping out as well!
During the event we need help with setting up and packing down, selling raffle tickets and checking wristbands at the venues.
During the year we welcome help with fundraising, grant writing, sponsorship, publicity, artwork, managing and processing memberships, and other administrative and legal work associated with managing the event.
We would be interested in hearing from anyone who is undertaking Event management or Media and Marketing courses who might be interested in doing an internship with us over the year. You would gain practical experience in the logistics of events, media and marketing, website development, and promotion via social media. The skills learned will be highly transferable to other events and we can provide a report that outlines the practical experience that you have gained.
Aside from a report, the reward would be a free ticket to Mountaingrass and lots of free hugs. Even if you are not studying but might want to organise and run an event some day and want some practical experience please let me know.
If you are interested in giving us a hand please get in touch with us via info@abotma.org.au.
Goals for 2015
We have some ambitious goals for 2015, and may not achieve everything, but we want to undertake the following to both improve what ABOTMA can do for the bluegrass and old-time community and the Mountaingrass festival:
We have now provided information about what we are looking for and how we select our performers. We’ve done that this year with some Guidelines for Performers. If you have any comments or suggestions about these performers send that through to us at info@abotma.org.au.
We are very conscious that while we’ve been putting all of our energy into staging the first two festivals we are now turning to look at what benefits we can extend to ABOTMA members aside from discounted tickets to MountainGrass. We are also very conscious that we need to communicate more frequently with our members throughout the year and will be doing this via regular newsletter delivered via email.
We are also looking at enabling others who are members of ABOTMA to put on events or concerts and be able to do this using our Public Liability Insurance. Currently, the cost of public liability insurance makes it very difficult for small organisations and community groups to put on a concert. Our current Folk Alliance Australia Public Liability Insurance is well suited to small events of less than 200 attendees and under the terms of our insurance we can put on several events per year.
We are also looking at re-developing the website to make it easier for us to maintain. From the beginning the ABOTMA and Mountaingrass websites has been very generously developed, hosted and maintained by Greg McGrath from the Australian Bluegrass Blog. Anyone who manages a website knows that maintaining a website takes up a huge amount of time because information is constantly changing. We are very grateful for Greg’s ongoing support but we also need to allow Greg off to work on his other projects including the fabulous Bluegrass Blog.
Looking forward to seeing you all again at Mountaingrass 2015!
Helen Ludellen
President,
Australasian Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association (ABOTMA)
www.abotma.org.au
Dear Friends,
In November 2013 members of the newly established ABOTMA met in Harrietville for the first time, meeting for our AGM. I was elected President for ABOTMA in 2014 and I gladly accepted the role to head the body of bluegrass and old time music people in both Australia & New Zealand.
Our major task since establishment was to build and present a new music event in Harrietville in 2013. The first inaugural MountainGrass was viewed to be a success both financially and among the local community. High levels of enthusiasm and support came from musicians returning to this part of the country to celebrate Mountain style music in Australia.
The original steering committee (led by Will Manovel) completed the outstanding task in minimal planning time which ensured the success of such an event. Their extreme effort left a solid platform in order for the forthcoming committee to build upon, welcoming feedback from members, performers and local businesses.
As we get closer to our 2nd annual MountainGrass festival I would like to remind all members that we invite any input, assistance and encouragement. We plan to present a bigger and better event this year with the introduction of a 500 plus capacity marquee and professional sound & stage setup to present our main feature concerts. We’re flying out a 4-piece band, Special Consensus from the United States to headline the festival joined by twenty other fantastic acts from across Australia, NZ and the US. Once again we will continue to use venues across the town of Harrietville on the program.
We continue to be transparent in our operations and planning, offering all our committee meeting minutes on the ABOTMA website, we also offer all the financials of last year’s event for members to view.
We’ve been lucky enough to start with money in the bank and a full 12 month preparation in 2014 but as we plan to grow our expenses have increased and our chance of start-up grants available is minimal. To ensure the success and growth for MountainGrass and ABOTMA I ask that each and every one of you tell everybody about our event, share our news, follow our social media, pre-order your tickets and help promote us as best you can.
I’ve been heavily involved in bluegrass music as performer locally and internationally for almost 20 years and I’m absolutely thrilled with the current growth in Australia, seeing new festivals and bands emerging across the country. I look forward to serving as president for ABOTMA and getting involved in future tasks of setting up a national touring circuit, partnering with other events and educating other and this music nation-wide.
Kind Regards
Lachlan Davidson
President
ABOTMA Inc. presenting MountainGrass 2014