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Ey up!

Hopefully by now you are all aware that something is well and truly 'going on' with our UK CBG scene.

The first festival was a huge sucess, with around 25 folk attending the day sessions, and 60 for the evening gig.

This almost doubled to 50 and 100 respectivly for this years fest - and from what I gather, a lot more than attend many of the US events. And they invented it! ;o)

Clearly our scene is exploding... and I reckon it will continue to do so.

A lot of this is down to you, the participants, the anonymous benefactors, and the hardwork that Chickenbone John and a few others put in throughout the year doing all the planning and organising.

As it stands at the minute, John shells out his own cash, then worries if he'll get it back on the night! He spends hours planning, meeting, travelling, discussing - all at his own expense.

The performers play on the assumtion they will not be getting paid. They pay their own travel and accomodation costs. As it turned out this year, the anonymous donation and the good turn out, coupled with the deal done with the venue, meant they did get a little financial help, but they were there out of their own good will and dedication to the scene.

So, heres my point (FINALLY!!)

Wouldnt it be great if we had a little money in the kitty to help with all these little costs? Maybe to lay on food at the next fest? Help John with some of the planning costs? Or to actually pay the preformers something like a proper wage? Maybe cover venue costs so we can avoid the dreaded door split? Or, to put it another way;

To support the scene we all take so much from, and to ensure its continued success.

Lets just imagine for a moment that John cant afford the time off to organise next years fest, or that Hollowbelly cant afford to come and give a workshop and gig... pretty dreary picture huh? You would be left with me, in a dingy pub, talking nonsense for 15 hours. Not worth 25p...

I know what youre thinking. Sounds like a begging letter, but trust me, its not - I have a plan!

And better than that, everyone gets a little something back too :o)

The plan is to set up a UK CBG Registry (for want of a better name - it would be cool to include all homemade instruments).

And this is how it would work;

* There would be a nominal fee to join - say £5 per year. This would give us a few hundred quid to do something with next year.

* There would be NO obligation to join, and not joining would have NO effect on you attending the festival, etc etc - the idea of this is to support our democracy and help it grow, not to divide folk.

* For your £5, you would get a membership number, maybe a downloadable logo with said number (so if you are building / selling / preforming etc you can show you are affiliated, so to speak - handy if you Ebay etc) and your name on 'The List'

* 'The List' will therefore be a Uk directory of of builders and players and interested folk. If someone was activly looking for an artist, or a builder, or even just folk to interview for a documentary, what better resource?

* The registry would also have the benefit of drawing in folk who are on the fringes of what we do. Plenty of folk build and sell on Ebay, but dont come here or to the shows. Maybe seeing everyone else affiliated would motivate them to get a bit more involved. Same goes for players - lets get everyone together and share our tips, help each other, and educate the rest of the musical world together!

* As an additional benefit, once we have a proper group set up in this way, and with a little extra paperwork, we can apply for outside funding. Want to see Seasick Steve play the next UK festival? This could pay for it. Seriously.

Incidentally, I did also think about a sticker for your guitar case, but this then becomes a 'money in, money out' affair and doesnt actually raise anything for the kitty. Maybe a bit of merchandising could be done as a seperate venture?

I am volunteering to help set all this up, and it would be done properly with an elected board, proper accounts etc, so its all above board and,most importantly, for the good of the group.

So - thoughts please!

Im asking for honest open opinions here folk, so dont hold back! DO, however, try to read the whole thing before you start on about making it elitist etc etc - I think its pretty clear thats not the point!

Thanks again

Ben

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by bemuzic on November 4, 2010 at 6:42am

I'm in, great idea Ben!!

Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on November 4, 2010 at 7:08am

Hell yes, I've got my local horse butcher's number on speed-dial! But seriously, no pressure on anybody at all...and we've got a fair bit of work to do in order to go thru' all the formal legal stuff yet. Hopefully though, it will start falling into place soon.

neill connor said:

count me in, but i agree with juju, £10 would`nt be an unreasonable amount.
I think chickenbone is supposed to say "come join the family, or wake up with a horses head on your pillow"

Permalink Reply by Mark on November 4, 2010 at 7:26am

I agree that we can't let this all continue to fall on the shoulders of one person. So some type of organisation is the obvious way to go. The question is what sort of organisation and how is it going to be run? I don't want to go shooting this down before we're even started - quite the reverse, I'm keen it should succeed - but sometimes it's worth working through the potential difficulties at the start so it doesn't get messy later on.

I don't claim to be an expert but I have a little bit of knowledge because (a) in the past I was involved with various clubs and societies related to other hobbies and (b) I once got lumbered with helping to organise a large event that had charitable/cultural aims and also had lots of different people and groups involved (which was an absolute nightmare!). A lot of the clubs and societies had some sort of limited company arrangement to deal with their money. The down side of that is there are costs associated with a company, which would probably be too much for us. For the big event we were on the verge of setting up a full-scale charity but in the end we were bailed out by a trade union, which provided us with a legal entity that satisfied donors, venue etc.

One possibility for current purposes is to set up a small charity. If a charity has only a small turnover (I believe the threshold is currently £5,000 a year) it's a lot less complex to do - you don't have to register with the Charity Commission, just with HMRC. It's a system that's designed to cover things like village halls and the like. There are some potential advantages: Firstly you can use the tax relief system to get a small amount of extra money for every donation (OK so probably not a lot but every penny counts these days). Secondly, having charitable status can give you a bit of extra respectability that might play well when dealing with venues (or, being optimistic, grant giving bodies). Also, some banks (eg. the Co-op Bank) will provide a free business-type account for charities.

If a charity turns out to be too complicated we still need to have some sort of entity that holds the funds, keeps accounts and has some sort of substance for legal purposes. As John says, it might mean a little but of tedious stuff but it avoids some awkwardness.

I'm thinking "The Cigar Box Guitar Trust" might be worth considering as a name.

Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on November 4, 2010 at 7:43am

It's almost sorted...don't need a charity or limited company, just a plain and simple club/non profit bank account and a constitution. I've sorted this sort of thing for clients of mine when I've done lottery applications, so I've got a good handle on this..and also years and years as a member, chair, secretary etc of various voluntary service and community organisations (and no it wasn't the Masons!) has set me in good stead for dealing with these sort of affairs.

Permalink Reply by Roosterman on November 4, 2010 at 8:19am

Wow! This post is less than 12 hours old and already things are looking very positive. Good on ya guys and gals - you make me proud :o)

Tim, I hear you loud and clear. Its a fine line, but I hope that by keeping the donation cost down, everyone should be able to become a part of it if they want to.

Ryan - your absence was noted on the register this year, but hell, you have enough CBGs anyway!! lol
I dont really know what to say about your kind offer. Other than Thank you!! It warms the cockles of me heart.
It will take a little while to set up the bank accounts and all the paperwork, but all progress will be noted here,so when its done you'll know.

I had another chap also email today who has anonymously contributed another £100, so already we have twice the budget we had for this years event - looking good huh?!

Just to be clear though, the purpose of this post wasnt to get folk to start throwing money in the pot (though it is really touching that folk who can, are), its all about the 'Hollowbelly Theory' - that which states 'A lot of fivers or tenners is better than just one'.

Mark- John is on this, and is currently inventing a secret handshake that we will all use to acknowledge one another ;o)

Seriously though, we have been thinking along the lines of having a proper board, to be elected at the festival each year, with an AGM, minutes, books - as you say, it all helps when applying for funding.

Good work folks! :o)

Permalink Reply by GARAGE HERMIT on November 4, 2010 at 8:27am

yep,, i'm in,,

Permalink Reply by Colin S on November 4, 2010 at 8:38am

What a great idea! I'd love to be a member and contribute a little something.
I don't think it breaches the terms of my A.S.B.O.
and I'm all for the 'secret' handshake thing!

Permalink Reply by Strolling Tone on November 4, 2010 at 8:45am

Great idea Ben - I'm definitely in.

Permalink Reply by courtney higham on November 4, 2010 at 9:43am

hey all im from warwickshire and im new to the CBG world, i ave been a guitar ist for mmmm years now.. and all i can say is damn i missed the fest and where do i sign up.. i m still et to build my cbg but cant wait to.. i love the idea of having our own UK CBG CLUB.. i ave to go out now but as soon as i found this post i had to ave my ramble hehehehe hope to chat to ya soon

Permalink Reply by Yellowbelly Flatt on November 4, 2010 at 11:40am

This idea seems to have legs. Count me in.......

Permalink Reply by Roosterman on November 4, 2010 at 11:29pm

Time for an update folks - we aint hanging around with this!!

Bank forms are being sorted today, but we need a name.

I suggest something that is not specific to CBGs, nor to the blues or any other single group. We want this group to grow, and therefore should be including all home made instruments and all types of music.

How about "Home Grown Music Collective"? Or "Home Grown Music Reserve"?

Funders will love the home grown thing - it reeks of grass roots community based music for the people!

Any comments on these tags, or any better name suggestions - we could do with having a decision by high noon ;o)

Why the rush? Well, by now next years fest is usually already in the planning stage, and if we want to get some big names in for the evening gig, we need to act NOW.

As for the actual running of the group, we've had a few further ideas.

How do you guys feel about electing a board through an online AGM, just this first time, in order to get everything rolling? Maybe we could do this by having everyone who wants to have a say logging in to chat between, say 6 and 9 on a given night, or maybe just by simple email vote?

Obviously after the intitial set up, a live AGM will be held at the fest each year.

Im also of the opinion that it may be best to have ALL funding come directly into this account, from tickets, donations, membership, merchandise etc etc, and then have the fund open to requests. For example, John may require £300 for advertising, we might need a few quid for an artist, Tinqui8 might put a request in for his flight costs, maybe some funds for printing etc To put it simply, EVERYTHING goes through this account, and the elected board decide where it can be best used.

Any thoughts on this?

Re the £10 fee - it has been suggested that the fee be uped to £10, but maybe for this you get all the above, plus £5 off a festival ticket. The idea being, festival go-ers will be tempted to join the group for the dicount, and club members will be tempted to go to the festival due to the dicount. Make sense??

Keep the comments coming, and please remind all those whop havnt replied yet to get over here and have their say

Cheers

Permalink Reply by Colombia Lobon on November 5, 2010 at 12:02am

Cool idea - I have been to both festivals which were great.
Hopefully there can be more gatherings, live performances, festival appearances - this will make that happen.

CL