Message from the President
August 31, 2009
Just back home from our 35th annual Santa Fe Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival.
This festival was a huge success. The energy, camaraderie and the spirit of the festival is at a high point. Our musical entertainment responded to the energy of the packed house and elevated their performances to an even higher level. We had 3 stages going all day Saturday, along with the main stage on Friday and Monday. Numerous contests and workshops occurred throughout the day on Saturday as well.
I believe the spirit of the festival will continue through the coming year, attracting many willing participants in next years’ festival.
Our Southwest Pickers Board of Directors worked tirelessly to accomplish their various tasks in order to organize all the necessary components that go into making the festival possible. Steve Morgan, George Butterfield, Ben Prior, Roger Schense, Ron Hale, Eric Carlson, Randy Dupuy, Paige Pinnel, Scott Mathis and Jym Ferril are the Board members. A huge THANK YOU for all you do.
Our behind the scenes volunteers add so much ahead of the festival. Thanks to Phil Vergamini, Carl Seager, William Rotsaert, Peaches Hines, Sheila and Dave McKisson. Don’t know what we would do without you all.
Also, we were able to draw from an extensive volunteer base for which we are very grateful and fortunate. Karen, Paula, Mike and Gordon stepped up and handled so much of the on site organizing and running of the festival.
Old Blue Sound cannot be beat for acoustic mic sound, Thanks Kirk Brown and Joe.
Kerney gave us great sound on the Showcase stage. Thanks Kerney Bolton.
Bob and Nancy Ford did the Contest stage sound. Thanks to you both.
We ran into a couple potentially LARGE snags at the Santa Fe County Fairgrounds in that we had no kitchen for our main food vendor due to construction delays, and the fact that we did not have the Main Stage barn for Sunday. 1 st, I greatly appreciate the effort and willingness to bend displayed by the Smokehouse BBQ from Rio Rancho. Had they not quickly changed their approach to serving food for the festival we would not have had any food vendor. Thanks, Hilda. 2nd, Gordon, thank you for organizing the removal of all the chairs, bleachers and sound system from the Main Stage barn, not to mention your tireless effort throughout the festival.
The Southwest Pickers will have an annual Membership/Board elections meeting coming up soon, some time before November. My hope is that we will get some highly qualified candidates to fill various positions opening up on the board. We are riding a huge wave, thanks to the festival success. Let’s all get on board and keep this phenomena going.
A great BIG THANKS to those of you who know you deserve it.
Steve Morgan
President