Working from the Ground Up

I've been rethinking our approach to the festival.  I've chatted with some of you about it and I'm just outlining some ideas here.  I want to work with our stage hosts on how they would like to set up their stages.  But I would also like to get their input on how the festival might happen next year.  To do this I think it would be useful to take a "your festival" approach.  That is, to ask the hosts how they want their stages to go, but also how they would like the festival to go.  Their ideas are super important as to how we put it all together.  

The last meeting we had at the Rooster last Sunday was really helpful to me in talking to people outside the Square One universe and having Steve, Nathan, and Kami there.  I suggested to Kim, in an email on Thursday last (3/12) that we might schedule a meeting with the stage hosts to ask them about their concerns and ideas.  

It seems to me that doing this on a regular basis at the Rooster on Sunday afternoons might be a great way to kind of shift our mode of operations from a "we to them" to a "them to us" communication.  It would also give us the chance to catch up with each other and for them to network with each other.  

So I'm going to start doing that:  meeting at the Rooster on Sunday afternoons, starting at 2:00 pm. You guys are, of course, invited, but not required to attend.  I hope you do, but you may need to take this time for family or down time or whatever, which is totally cool.  I may even miss a meeting along the way for the same reasons.  But for starters I plan to be there.  

I'm also going to put together a roster of our stage hosts and send it out this afternoon. The message is, No pressure, but if you want to come and talk about the festival, you're invited.  It's your festival, right?  

I wanted you to know, so there you have it.  Any thoughts? 

Also, I have been communicating with Curt Young about a documentary film he made about open mics in Edmonton. Cool, huh?  I'll attach the trailer.  Wait till you see this.  Wow!  He wants us to co-promote the film and maybe have a screening just before the festival.  I'm totally in with that.  What do you think?  Curt will be at the Rooster this coming Sunday afternoon.  Some of you might know him and your ideas about how we can work together would be very interesting!  


See you soon, 

Tom


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