Life Membership Was Recently Awarded to Guy Plecash
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
VOLUME 20 NUMBER 1 FEBRUARY 2019 the official journal of the calgary musicians association - local 547 CFM/AFM BOB ALLEN DONATES $47.5K TO THE ASSOCIATION n January, the Calgary Musicians Association Ireceived a donation of more than $47,500 from long-time member, Robert Allen, through his estate. Bob passed away on April 14th, 2017 at the age of 96 years and was a continuous Association member for over 68 years. He was very active in the music scene as a bandleader and sideman; and in 1971 he formed the Chinook Concert Band. He was also a very active member of the Local and NEWS BITS acted as one of the Field Reps for many years. CMA Members in the News He was a true Union Man and always stood up 2019 Maple Blues Lifetime Achievement Award (Blues with for the rights of musicians. a Feeling) - Ellen McIlwaine ST Kuss recounts when he moved to Calgary in 1977, and Bob was the Business Agent for the JUNO Nominations Association. For those who might remember, Album of the Year - Jann Arden ‘These Are the Days’ he was the one who ‘carded’ your band when Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year - Kobra And the Lotus he visited a local club or bar, to make sure you ‘Prevail II’ knew about the Musicians Union. Over the Adult Contemporary Album of the Year - Jann Arden ‘These years they got to know each other through Are the Days’ Kuss’s participation on the Executive Board. They met on several occassions and Bob relayed The following are CMA members who performed on his intentions to leave money to the Association JUNO nominated recordings: and some of the initiatives that he thought we could accomplish with the donation. No one Brett Kissel (Country Album of the Year): Matty McKay, knew it would be such a sizable gift. Ben Bradley, Justin Kudding, Spencer Cheyne. One of his priorities was to give the opportunity Brian Doerksen (Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album to help financially challenged children take of the Year): Spencer Cheyne, Chris Byrne, Mike Little, music lessons. Music can be such a motivator Russell Broom. and offers many valuable life lessons. The Deep Dark Woods (Contemporary Roots Album of the To that end, the Executive is in the process Year) Geoff Hilhorst of researching and making plans to provide assistance for children at risk and those Alberta Country Music Awards who can’t afford to take music lessons, by Group/Duo of the Year – Nice Horse establishing a yearly contribution for some Video of the Year – Nice Horse fortunate young person to take advantage of Musician of the Year - Mitch Jay Bob’s generosity. Bob’s passion for music and his dedication to helping musicians will live on Best of Calgary Nominations through this initiative. The Association is very Best Local Music Act - Michael Bernard Fitzgerald and The fortunate to have such a generous benefactor. Flat Whites (Russell Broom, Chris Byrne, Spencer Cheyne) calgary musicians PAGE 2 FEBRUARY 2019 No Stone Unturned do what some locals have done and take the equity to use as a down payment embers will be receiving a on our own building? Becoming landlords could add to the revenue stream by short survey to give the board renting out space, but with all the attendant challenges that a landlord faces. Mdirection as to how best to The President is paid a monthly honorarium and pension. He/she is not paid serve you in the near and long term. to attend meetings but chairs the meetings, writes articles for the local and As you probably are aware, the local participates in negotiations. has had budgetary shortfalls 3 of the Our local is invited by the Federation to participate in negotiations/meetings past 4 years. 2 were not significant, at a national and international level. These are for national agreements such as representing less than 1% of budget the CBC for which not all expenses are borne by the Federation. It pays for the but we had 1 year that did eat up flight and hotel but all transfers/parking/ per diem come out of the local coffers. approximately 10% of member equity. Is there a best practice to establish here for not just our local but all locals in So we are looking at ways to both increase our revenue and decrease our determining the cost/benefit to local members? We typically send 2 local officers expenses to safeguard, if not grow, your member equity, to ensure that the to the Canadian Conference, which is annual, and the AFM Convention, which local can best serve its members for years to come. happens every 3 years. We could send just 1 but these are opportunities for You’ll see from the S-T article a chart that outlines our local’s annual education, networking and industry-shaping events that have a direct impact and work dues for a variety of different work and how it compares to other on you. locals of our size. Our biggest challenge with revenue is that we have lost In all these things, and perhaps things I haven’t even mentioned, we are a significant number of members during the past recession. People have looking for direction from you as to what kind of local you want. For some, less moved away or, as weekend warriors, the work has dried up to the point may be better as you feel you receive minimal service from the local anyway. that it was felt that it wasn’t worth renewing membership. Increasingly, we Others may want at least status quo or perhaps even more service as the local, are seeing young players in the business not joining as they feel it isn’t particularly in the area of collective agreements, spends a great deal of time and of benefit. It’s hard to have a conversation about things like pension and money administering and negotiating these agreements. It comes down to cost/ protecting your fees with filing contracts, when musicians are just entering benefit, both on the revenue and expense side of the balance sheet. But this the business. is not as black and white as it may seem. Last year our legal fees were higher The local has attempted to address this younger demographic by spending than normal, mostly because of consultation in dealing with a very recalcitrant thousands on its website. We started a FB page and have hired a person Stampede negotiating team. This didn’t translate so much into a dollar return to administer that page. Unfortunately this hasn’t translated into them as a complete turnaround in how the Stampede team was behaving at the joining. So, improving our revenue stream means a number of scenarios: bargaining table. Sometimes an investment needs to be made that establishes increase annual dues; increase work dues in some or all areas; charge a a more equal footing and respect in negotiations. This has a value that can’t be higher admin fee when we payroll through the office; be more aggressive put into dollars, though one would hope that a healthier bargaining environment in our investing strategy of the members equity; create more stability by will pay off in hard currency in the end. adding to our number of collective agreements; internally organize by I realize that this is a lot to absorb. This reflects the sort of topics that the board getting members directly involved with convincing non-members to join. deals with at meetings and brain-storming sessions. What we need from you is History has shown that, when we increase annual dues, our membership input and most of all, to share that input at our general membership meetings. drops. You’ll see from the work dues chart that we are low in comparison We haven’t had a quorum in years. Change is coming - do you want to have your to other locals in the area of electronic media. A few conventions ago, say in that or take your chances? the Federation instituted an increase in the area of symphonic dues. Your ROB MCCOSH, PRESIDENT local absorbed this increase instead of passing it on. Other locals have [email protected] not. Keep in mind, however, that the CPO already represents 50% of the 403.475.7531 total work dues that come in on an annual basis. The members equity is currently in GICs. We could certainly take a part of this equity and invest it in higher risk instruments such as stocks, bonds, etc. but with market volatility at an all-time high and returns lower it doesn’t make sense to take on this added risk at this point in time. On the expense side we know that we are looking at retirement in our office in a few years. Should the local still have 2 staff? Should they be hired instead of being elected? Board members are paid to attend meetings. This reflects the cost of parking, gas and time spent. It was also done to improve board attendance. Parking is no longer an issue at our current location. But our rent is among the highest of all locals. Should we consider a virtual office? This could save the local thousands of dollars but would be less convenient for the staff and board members or anyone who wants to come to the office and has to pay for parking. Or should we calgary musicians association musicalgary editors #5 - 606 Meredith Rd NE Doug Kuss/Karen Martin Calgary, AB T2E 5A8 TOLL FREE: 1.888.796.8742 executive committee Rob McCosh president 24 hr/fax 403.264.6610 / 261.0783 Kit Johnson vice president [email protected] Doug Kuss sec treasurer www.calgarymusicians.org association hours Jeremy Coates,Jeff Fafard, 9am - 4pm Monday-Friday Tricia Edwards, Matt Heller FEBRUARY 2019 PAGE 3 2019 RICHARD COWIE MEMORIAL Know Your Worth!!! With the beginning of 2019, came an SCHOLARSHIP AWARD increase in scale for all Stampede gigs.