Happy Autumn and Happy WOTFA Election month to everyone! With the start of our “new year” of the Old Time Fiddlers, I have made it one of my personal missions to help start the recovery process on our membership. As I’m sure everyone has noticed, our membership numbers have taken a pretty sharp decline in the last five years. Of course not having Fiddle Camp the last two years has made things even more pronounced, and the inability to play out in public, and a myriad of other Covid-19-related things have not helped us at all, but as more and more people are vaccinated and as the treatments for the disease have brought us back to place where we don’t have to stay locked away any more, it’s time to tackle this problem head-on and I’m ready and eager to do so!
I made up some pretty simple business cards that just have the general mission of WOTFA, a pointer to our website on the front, and the simplified district map on the back. Every time I go to a jam or a performance, or any place where WOTFA might come up in conversation, I plan to have a few card
s with me to give to people who might be interested. I want to talk to parents and kids and adults about what Old Time fiddle music is, and why it matters. Driving folks to our website, and possibly to that magic “join” button at the top is the first step in helping our membership. Letting people know how to contact their district chairs, seeing our calendar of events, listening to the tune of the month – our website is a wealth of information!
In the long run, I am working on some tri-fold fliers that I can hopefully take to schools, music programs, and music shops that will have more information than these little cards have, but I figured it’s a first step.
If you are interested in carrying a few around with you, please just drop me an email (ClarinetKatieG@gmail.com) with your name and mailing address, and I’ll be happy send some along to you! I can’t fix the membership numbers by myself, but with your help, we can make this next year one of our biggest growth years!