Ten years ago I was a founding member of a community bad that was organized in our small town. A retired music teacher agreed to be the conductor. As the band evolved, she began to have aspirations of providing a higher level of musicianship to the audience and began dismissing lesser players from the band. She also became very nasty during rehearsals and brow beat / scolded people for mistakes made. I'm sure that in her mind, she felt that she was 'motivating' people.
The night that she chased a high school girl off the stage in tears for playing her Bassoon out of tune was the last straw for me...I called the director after rehearsal and told her that I was leaving the band and why I was leaving, that I couldn't participate in an organization where volunteers were treated poorly. It was a MUCH longer conversation (and a lot of it was ME getting yelled at) but my comment above kind of sums up my feelings.
Anyway...after 10 years of leading the band, this director announced last weekend that she is 'retiring' and the band will be no more.
Some of us have discovered that there were never any kind of documents generated to govern the band...the 'board of directors' were four of her friends and there were no regularly scheduled meetings. We believe that anything that was done was simply the director telling her 'gang of four' this is what we are going to do and they all nodded in agreement.
So a 'cattle call' has been put out for past and present musicians to meet next Tuesday with the goal to resurrect the band, but to do it in an organized manner with a constitution and by-laws, an elected board of directors, and some kind of provisions for removal of the director should it ever become necessary in the future...so that we don't get stuck with a tyrant again.
What I am looking for is anyone who has gone through the process to help set up a community band to correspond with me about the process that they went through...possibly some documents that could be shared...advice about how to handle musicianship levels...auditions...stuff like that.
If you have anything you are willing to share, please PM me.
The night that she chased a high school girl off the stage in tears for playing her Bassoon out of tune was the last straw for me...I called the director after rehearsal and told her that I was leaving the band and why I was leaving, that I couldn't participate in an organization where volunteers were treated poorly. It was a MUCH longer conversation (and a lot of it was ME getting yelled at) but my comment above kind of sums up my feelings.
Anyway...after 10 years of leading the band, this director announced last weekend that she is 'retiring' and the band will be no more.
Some of us have discovered that there were never any kind of documents generated to govern the band...the 'board of directors' were four of her friends and there were no regularly scheduled meetings. We believe that anything that was done was simply the director telling her 'gang of four' this is what we are going to do and they all nodded in agreement.
So a 'cattle call' has been put out for past and present musicians to meet next Tuesday with the goal to resurrect the band, but to do it in an organized manner with a constitution and by-laws, an elected board of directors, and some kind of provisions for removal of the director should it ever become necessary in the future...so that we don't get stuck with a tyrant again.
What I am looking for is anyone who has gone through the process to help set up a community band to correspond with me about the process that they went through...possibly some documents that could be shared...advice about how to handle musicianship levels...auditions...stuff like that.
If you have anything you are willing to share, please PM me.