Published in Bill Berry's February 2018 Songwriters Square Newsletter
FAR-West 2018
by Jeanette Lundgren
Many of you know me either as a fan and supporter of quality indie music or as Mother Hen Promotions. Some of you know me because I am on the FAR-West Board and have co-coordinated conferences since 2014. I have a passion for quality music and stories, and this translates over to my support of FAR-West.
But what IS FAR-West? Have you seen our mailing list or social media posts and wondered? Well, first the FAR stands for Folk Alliance Region, and the West shows our location as the western region affiliate of the larger parent Folk Alliance international organization. As such, we strive to foster and promote traditional, contemporary and multicultural folk music, dance, storytelling, and related performing arts in our Western Region. The word ‘folk’ should never be off-putting; to our organization the word ‘folk’ encompasses anything you can play or sing acoustically – whether it be song, story, or dance; whether it be traditional, contemporary, multi-cultural, or historical.
Back in 2002, FAR-West was founded by a group of people who primarily lived in the greater Los Angeles area. They met on a monthly basis for about a year to address the issues, set some basic goals, write and approve bylaws, and do all the ground work to get the organization up and running. Many of you know the people who started FAR-West since they are still an integral part of the folk and music community in Los Angeles and on the west coast. A history of the early organization is here, so you can get up to speed on how and when we were formed.
FAR-West is governed by a Board made up of folks from CA, WA, OR, NV, AK, and ID. Our Region includes California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii in the USA, and Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada. Our 2018/2019 conferences will take place in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, CA, and then in 2020/2021 we will move back to the Bay Area (specifically San Jose). After that, we will most likely move back to the Pac NorthWest for 2 years.
We are a strong organization, but in order to move forward we need more volunteers to join us to make us even stronger. We are currently taking nominations for the FAR-West Board of Directors. We are a working board within an all-volunteer organization, which expects Board members to assume a leadership role in some aspect of the conference and year-round operations of the organization. Here is a listing of criteria for the type of people we would love to join us. Time-wise, we “meet” on an evening phone call every other month or so. If you are interested in joining us, please send your name and email address to Janet Dukes, FAR-West President, and Carey Appel, FAR-West Secretary. FAR-West Board members must maintain current membership in Folk Alliance. Nominated candidates will be contacted to verify their willingness to serve if elected and to submit a short statement of qualifications, skills and a brief bio. Nominations will close on March 1. Voting will open on March 20 and continue until April 20. Current members of Folk Alliance listed as affiliated with FAR-West will receive ballots. In order to vote in the election, you must be a current member of Folk Alliance (you can update your FAI membership here: http://www.folk.org/).
In addition, I am coordinating our 15th Annual Conference and because we have now moved to Los Angeles for the next two years, we are looking for folks in the area to take on some of the open roles in our conference organizing team known as Movers & Shakers. These roles include coordinators for our Networking Center, Official Showcase coordinator(s), a Volunteer Organizer, Registration assistant, Conference Coordinator assistant, Program Book help, program book/tote bag ad sales, street teamers, and people to do outreach for genre, venues, radio, and places within our region that are under-served, and more. All positions come with training and support from the FAR-West Board, the conference coordinators, and the other Movers and Shakers. Basic requirements include attendance at the conference, participation on conference calls with other Movers and Shakers to plan, and a few hours more (mainly online) to coordinate, schedule and confirm. I am fully prepared to be available to answer questions and provide support as needed.
We held successful conferences at the Hyatt in Bellevue in 2016 and 2017 and will do many of the same things again this year. Late night PGS (Private Guerilla Showcases) will be hosted on one or more hotel floors. The Thursday evening Venues Choice Concert and The Official Showcases on Friday and Saturday evenings will again be presented on our main stage. We will have panels and workshops throughout the weekend. The Best of the West luncheon will be held on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday, we will host our 5th Annual Storytelling Expo as well as master classes, and Breakfast with the Board. It has become tradition to hold an open stage event at a respected venue on the Wednesday evening prior to the conference, and 2018 will be no different. We also invite our attendees to stick around on Sunday afternoon, both to enjoy the Storytelling Expo and to jam with us as we end the conference. And though many of the aspects of our conference will remain the same, there are some parts where we are considering changes.
Please think about signing on to help us out. Call a friend and volunteer for a position together. Being involved in coordinating this conference is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done which is why I keep doing it; I've made lifelong friends and working relationships. Please contact me directly at meetmepresents@gmail.com if you have any questions about what you can be involved with. We already have a great group of people involved and we hope to have the full team assembled by the end of February, so we look forward to hearing from you!
If you want to follow us to get all updates, you can sign up for our mailing list and discussion list at this link, like and follow our FAR-West Facebook page, join our FAR-West Friends Facebook discussion group, tweet with us on Twitter, be linked with us on LinkedIn, share with us on Instagram, and watch videos from previous conferences on our Youtube channel. You will also want to bookmark our website which has connections to all of the above and more. Our 2018 hashtags are #farwest18, #farwest2018, and #farwestconnects.
Yeah! It's a milestone conference! Our 15th! And we're back at the hotel where it all started ... the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills. The conference dates are October 11-14, 2018!
One thing to know about FAR-West, we are a friendly group of people who love music and want to help musicians and venues and music business people from all over our region and beyond, to network, teach and learn while making new contacts and friendships within our region. We’d love for you to join us.
