Summer has been quite the whirlwind of events!  After two years, Fiddle Camp was back in session last month – and it felt like coming home.  With our limited attendance, and all classes confined to one building – it was almost like a family reunion, all cozy and snug.  The number of campers over at the fairgrounds made for wonderful evening jams after the school events were over.  In all, I had an absolutely wonderful time.  I have been working to upload videos of the 1st day of the contest (unfortunately my phone overheated and I didn’t get video of day 2 – so if you have videos please send them my way!) and the showcase to our new WOTFA YouTube channel.  Hopefully this makes it really easy to share with your friends an family, as well as provide us with a platform for uploading more and more videos over time.  Visit the channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3xdvPJCBanPlKXuiM_wUGA Be sure to subscribe, so you can see additional videos as we get them loaded up.  Once we have enough subscribers (we have to hit 100), we’ll be able to customize the link – to make it easier to find.  I think everyone’s favorites so far are 6-year-old Clark (https://youtu.be/lwdwdtNi0Mo) and The Polka Dots (https://youtu.be/OX6MHobFJsg).  If you haven’t heard “Angeline, The Bassist,” you’re in for a treat! (https://youtu.be/mLQqRE62NAk).  They’re all great musicians, and lots of fun to watch.  Be sure to share the ones you like with your friends, family, neighbors, people on the street, etc.

As is customary, our Summer Board meeting met during Fiddle Camp, and the running theme was membership.  It appears that all but two districts (2 and 10) have restarted their monthly meetings and everyone is hoping that our jam attendance and play outs start picking back up.  I have been running several social media accounts on different platforms (FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, Reddit, and even TikTock) and we are definitely getting folks who are interested in what we’re doing.  Just today We got a new member of District 4, from our TikTock channel!  I am continuously helping people get in touch with their district chairs, to find local jams and resources.  I’ve even had folks reach out to me to ask about fiddlers coming to do playouts for them.  Don’t be surprised if someone new reaches out to you!

This month is the annual Centralia Campout, and it might not be a WOTFA-sponsored event, but there are always plenty of us there!  If you’ve never been before, it’s a week long (August 13-21, it includes two weekends) and you can go for as many or as few days as you like.  There’s jamming and music all day long every day, in nearly every genre you can imagine.  I enjoyed walking around with my clarinet, stopping to play music whenever I found something intriguing to play along with.  The cost is $130 for the whole week, or $33/day.  Visit https://www.centraliacampout.com/home for all the details.  I hope to see some of you there!

As always, if you need any information or resources, I’ll do my very best to find some and share it with you.