Viola da Gamba Society of America

Well, I'll get the ball rolling on all this. I haven't seen notes from anyone else - if there are some, please let me know and forward them to me?

Random thoughts: I would highly recommend Kobey Shwayder as well. I had him in a consort at Conclave - he is everything the recommenders said, and more. A fine player, he was in a consort at least one level lower than he was. He was very patient with this, and I offered him the chance to move out after the second day (I know, I should not have made that offer but it wasn't clear after the first day just how much better he was) and he declined, remarking that he always had something to learn. I haven't had direct experience with most of the others, so it isn't fair for me to make comparisons, but he is a really good prospect for the good use of our $$.

Robert Bolyard: I know and like him. I wish he had asked someone besides Jorg Voss to make a recommendation, as Jorg didn't say anything. Jorg is really nice, but doesn't really know how to write a recommendation for something like this. I'm a little surprised that Robert didn't ask Martha, and perhaps that's a flag. He is an extremely talented musician, but I don't have a lot of direct experience with his viol playing. (I knew him at Mountain Collegium - as a singer.)

Ben Rechel - I'm a little put off by this one. For one thing, he isn't clear about what he's asking for, or how much money he wants. Maybe he's just young.

James Williamson - one thing that impresses me about this is that he has lined up additional sources of funding already. I take this sort of request more seriously.

Over to you guys,

Jack

Wow! Seven applicants, most of whom are asking for at least a $1000. Just to remind you all that $5000 is our year's total, although we might be able to squeak a bit more out if there seemed to be some exceptional people asking for exceptional things. What an impecunious lot we viol players and the young ones we are trying to attract, are. Jack, I also am most impressed by Kobey and James, maybe Robert. And now Hannah has added herself. If her references don't come in, I don't see how we can consider her. A note on Ben Rechel. He has come to me for only a few lessons and those were widely spaced. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he has Asperger's Syndrome.
He is quite clueless, single-minded and very talented musically. At this point, considering his serious interest in playing the baroque bass, I think he is trying to take on too much. I know his family do not have a lot of resources, but somehow he has been able to buy a baroque bass, a bass bow, a bass and treble viol. He is 20 years old but still cannot drive himself perhaps 50 miles to my house from West Hartford. One of the reasons he was unable to make lessons he set up was that one of his parents was not available to bring him. I can't figure out whether they are protecting him or over-protecting him.

Note that Hannah's references have come in on time, and have been posted.

Hey, Gang-

Sorry to keep you waiting. Here are my thoughts:

First, I don't smell anything fishy this time around, as has been the case in some previous periods. Some seem a little more deserving than others (to me, Robert and Hannah seem especially active and useful as VdGSA members), but I don't personally see much point in quibbling. That leads me to start thinking about how to divide the spoils as fairly as possible.

Before that can happen, we do need to answer a rather more pressing question, namely, How much DO we have to play with right now? It's still not clear to me, as the top of the web-page says we've spent $3K of a total budget of $10K- yet Lucy says we only have $5K. Thoughts?

Here are mine:

-If we have $7K to give away during this period, we can afford to fund them all ($6860 total in requested funds). Yahoo.

-If it's but $5K, we could consider funding each at 72% of what they request, since $5,000 is 72% of $6860. That would be as follows:
Robert B: $720 (72% of the $1000 he requested)
Ben Rechel: $1150 (72% of $1600)
James Williamson: $1080 (72% of $1500)
Hannah Davidson: $360 (72% of $500)
Kathy Fleming: $720 (72% of $1000)
Genevieve McKay: $900 (72% of $1260)

Another thought: We give Ben Rechel only $800 (as you pointed out, Lucy, it's not clear what he's asking for, but that was one of his two numbers), and then we'd have a bit more we might pay the others, namely, 79% of what they ask, as follows:

Robert B: $790 (79% of $1000)
James Williamson: $1170 (79% of $1500)
Hannah Davidson: $400 (79% of $500)
Kathy Fleming: $790 (79% of $1000)
Genevieve McKay: $1000 (79% of $1260)
(I did make the numbers a little round, robbing James of $15 to pay Hannah and Genevieve each a bit more)

Is this crazy? Does it make any sense?

Oh- and we need to confirm that they're all applicants-in-good-standing before we give away dollar-one. I believe that's Marie's job... shall I write to her, or is that for you, Lucy, to do?

-DM

Hiya--
All of these applicants are members in good standing (I won't even give them the password to apply if they aren't). Speaking to the funding amounts however, you only have $5000 to play with for ALL of 2013 (I will ask Peter P. to remove the confusing thing at the top of the summary page). So that technically means you could grant all $5000 now, but would have nothing left for your October applications.

My suggestion would be for the committee to use this as an opportunity to ask the Board to increase your budget for the year--you clearly have a lot of worthy applicants, and this is a heavily promoted part of our outreach and effort as a Society. (Just sayin', not that I have any insider knowledge of the matter...There are funds that we raised as part of the President's Discretionary Fund last year that could be used to beef up your year's budget, if you made the appropriate case).

I'm not necessarily advocating that you go through and give a little bit of the pot to each one (thereby not really helping any of them all the way); but as David is alluding, there are a few ways you can cleverly divvy up the funds so you maximize the utility.

Ok, I will stop interfering now!
M


OK, I spent too much time trying to communicate my thoughts so I lost my comment. The gist was that we need to decide on whether we are going to give away our entire $5000 this granting period or halve it as we have in the past. If we halved it, I believe we would have to triage because the amounts for 6 people would be embarrassingly low. We might try to convince the Board that we need more money in October because we had 6 good candidates in April. Maybe we'll have only 3 in October. Comments about the two applicants I know..... Jane and Doug wrote compelling recommendations for Hannah, and I would vote to give her the $500 she asked for. I shouldn't be voting on Ben because he is my sometime student and I did write a lukewarm recommendation. However, at his stage of viol development, he does not need a Begin bow. There are good sturdy Charlie Ogle bows to be had. We have one at Simons Rock. So I certainly would not award him more than $800.
Lucy

Points well-taken, Lucy. I like the idea of giving Hannah the full $500 and Ben his $800 (truly, this is a plenty-big down-payment on a top-rate bow); And I think we should indeed ask the Board for more moolah for the year, since what we do is important and really helpful (and, as Marie has indicated, we probably have the money) AND we've had more good applicants than ever this term.

So how do we ask the Board for more moolah????

-DM


One way would be to spend all the $5000 now, let the Board know why we did this, and hope that they will come up with some more for October if it is needed. Even though I would expect there will be applications in October, I would be surprised if there were 6 (7).
Lucy

That sounds like a plan, but I would feel better if we could contact someone on the board ASAP just to see how feasible such a plan might be. I still don't know who would do the contacting, or whom one could contact on the board.

Should we empty the bank and NOT get more money for the rest of 2013, we might consider posting a "do not apply" notice on the GiA website for the next term.

BTW, I suppose that we would be asking for an extension of funds for this year only, not as a general matter of course. That could make our case a bit stronger. We did just get twice the usual number of applicants, after all.

Marie has been checking in on us from time to time. Maybe she can do some investigation!!!????
L

I think this would be a case in which you'd follow the "mid-year budget changes" process that was sent out to the committee heads a couple of weeks ago (Lucy, I believe you were on that message)....I'd suggest asking for a budget extension now, as opposed to blowing out all the funds and then asking later (that would be a pretty significant departure from what the Board is expecting you, as the committee, to administer, I think).

Perhaps you could ask for a one-time increase of $2,500, planning on making October's granting period technically a "normal" one (and then of course, if you were to get another slew of qualified applicants then, it certainly does bolster your case that your overall budget year over year should be increased accordingly).


I love this idea! Can we do it? Lucy, do you have time at the moment?

-DM


Marie, are you suggesting we don't use the entire $5000 until we get approval from the Board? How long is our deliberation period? Or maybe it is mainly Ken's input and decision rather than the whole Board. I did get a notice about budget projections. But I am concerned about our applicants now, not wanting to have to wait awhile to get some consensus.
Lucy

Speaking as one who was in Marie's position not that long ago, I urge that we keep the Board in the loop at every step of the way. As for nimbleness, there was some sort of Exec Comm when I was prez that could confer on making quick decisions about various things, although I don't remember that doling out a rather sizable chunk of extra dollars was ever something we had to face. (I also don't remember for sure who constituted it - Marie does such a thing still exist?)

I think our grants should give significant help, and as things stand we only have $2500 to play with that we know of for sure. How about we give maybe three (or four) grants now, but tell the others (through Marie) that they are on a waiting list and we are trying to secure more funding. If we can get some kind of dispensation between now and July, fine. If not, these guys can reapply in October and we might decide to move their applications to the top of the list since they had gotten their stuff together already to apply - although personally I think I would rather take all of them on their merits in October. (I could be talked out of this.)

I agree that we should give Hannah her request - for one thing, it's the only time-sensitive one remaining. Also, she and her mom have done about as much as anyone except perhaps Ellen Powers to build a viol community in Boston. After that, I don't know. Robert B. seems to have dropped off the list - do we want to keep him in consideration? But the most bang for buck would be the bow requests, since they are lower; we'd be giving a bigger percentage of the request. Just a thought.

I guess what I'm proposing is, 1) divvy up our $2500 now; 2) decide who else we want to fund (does not need to be all the applicants) and tell them that we are trying to secure more $$ right now; 3) try to secure them, but note in our request that this is prologue to asking for a larger budget allocation at the summer meeting; 4) see what happens.

I think that this program will only grow, and that it will soon be the case that we have this many applicants at each deadline. It's a great place for the Society to be placing its money - this and the various traveling teacher programs.

My thoughts, fwtw.

I agree with much of what you've said, Jack, but I personally feel that I'd like to hear from the board ASAP about the money before we do anything else- especially if there is some kind of executive sub-group capable of making quick decisions.

Aside from that, I do absolutely agree that Hannah should be awarded her $500 immediately for the reasons you state.

If we continue to get this many applicants in future periods, the board will probably have to come up with a plan (either more money or smaller grants), thus I think they need to know immediately that we're facing this problem. Please, can we contact them now? I will do it myself if nobody else will.

-David

Marie, can you funnel this request to the Board, or take it right to the Exec Comm if one still operates? I think that's the best way to start. I anticipate that they will want to wait until the summer meeting to decide about a larger line item for this, which is why I suggest immediate action on what we can do and a request for what we can't, but because this is a good program and pretty straightforward, maybe there can be an email decision in the next few days. - Jack

Say it, Jack and David! This is moving in the right direction.
Lucy

Guys--
A few things to note--Ken will not actually make any decisions on his own about this (he's just the checkbook writer, as he'll continually point out). It needs to go to the whole Board and I'd really prefer if it could come from you guys as a committee instead of me (write up the request, explaining why it's a good thing that the Board should grant you more money, etc.)

I'm not actually part of the GiA committee (and that's a good thing for optics, I think), and if this request comes through me, it really does end up being a different can of worms than if it comes directly from the committee. I don't want to sound like I'm getting overly caught up in process here, but I organized a budget review process (meant to have quick turnaround, for what its worth) specifically to allow for committees like yours to have sensible recourse when you see an opportunity to seize. The procedure only involves a quick, time-bound discussion and voting period (that's where I can actually enforce the rules, so it won't drag out forever. Typically, I'm giving 24 to 48 hours for discussion, and then 24 hours for voting).

Asking for an additional $2500 to cover the October granting period is not a huge line item--that's what you want for now, right? Expanding the budget significantly for 2014 is a different topic and absolutely one that can be discussed at the summer meeting, but I think is a different question than the time-sensitive one at hand.

On the GiA page of the website, it states that you have four weeks to make these grant decisions, so you're in fine shape from the standpoint of letting people know (though agree you should move quickly so that Hannah in particular can be told if she's getting funds).

Beyond that, I'd suggest stack ranking your preferred order of funding (taking into account who could be partially funded and who would only benefit from full funding--this should also take into account the seriousness of the applicant and the likelihood that he/she will actually follow through on securing the rest of the funding in a timely fashion).

From all the back and forth, I'm not totally clear on the details of our progression. From the last comment from Marie, did you get the impression that we should go ahead and use up the $5000? And for me, in writing to the board, I should request an additional $2500 to cover October? Marie seemed to imply that she would try to get an answer from board before too long. If this is the case, or even if we are supposed to work with only $2500 now, I think it would make sense to number the applicants, making Hannah #1, just so we can compare how each of us is viewing each applicant. In my note to the board I would say that, if this granting period is any indication, it might want to consider upping the grant amount. As Jack said, GIAs are an important part of what the board does.
Lucy

Here's an idea. Let's distribute $3000 now and keep $2000 for October. Then we'll at least have something held back (but see below).

We have six candidates - this way we could give them each $500. It would be all Hannah asked for, which I like symbolically. It would be half of what Robert and Kathy asked for - not bad. It would be 1/3 of what James asked for, but since he has already pledged to get funds from elsewhere, this might be enough to prime the pump sufficiently. I'm not sure if it would be enough to help Genevieve, so that's unfortunate. We don't know for sure what Ben is asking for; my hunch is that anything he gets would help him do something that he wants to do. Whether he could supplement it sufficiently to complete any project is another matter. Or, since his application was a little off beam, maybe we turn down his request this time and ask for a better write-up next time, and add that $500 into the distribution.

THEN, come summer meeting, we ask the Board to up the budgeted amount to... $10,000? Seems high for now. $7500? That's what we're sort of talking about. If they do, we're set for October. If they don't want to commit to that right now, we ask for an additional one-time sum to take care of this year - in other words, we'd still be asking for it, but further along the process and only if the budget item didn't get increased.

And if we don't have as robust an applicant pool for October, nothing is lost.

I'm happy to have these figures tinkered with; as Marie notes, we should factor in (somehow) the likelihood of grants being enough to actually enable a project, even if it means (sadly) declining someone. But the starting point for my clever scheme is distributing $3000 now instead of $2500. What say? - Jack

Jack's ideas are very helpful in getting us to think a little differently, and they make a lot of sense. My concern is that in giving 5 or 6 people something, we are not really helping enough. I think Ben could be eliminated for the good reason that his application doesn't give enough information, whereas all the others have written good applications. Could we go through the applications again and rank them, so we know each others' takes on each. If we can agree on four, using the proposed $3000, then we would have only one left out. That person would be funded in October. If we get more good applications in October, more than can be handled with $2000, then we ask for the proposed extra $2500. In the meantime I will inform the board about all this, warning them that we will very likely be asking for more than a one-time $2500.
Lucy

I'm fine with leaving Ben out - it wasn't a very well-crafted application, and he can learn from that.

As for ranking the others - I have trouble doing it on merit going by only what I see here, but perhaps we could look at the Bang for Buck factor for each, as I suggested last night. But I'll go along with whatever you guys want here - no strong feelings either way.

- Jack

Great ideas from both of you, and I wholeheartedly agree with it all. I have thus come up with my own rating-and-reasonings list (below), which you might OR might not read before making your own. Once you do yours, we can add them up or average them out and thence make our report to the board.

Hannah Davidson: Give her full-funding ($500) for Amherst; she's a strong, contributing VdGSA member, and it's not much money, and it will likely make a big difference to her to be able to attend AEM this summer.

Robert Bolyard: Give him full-funding ($1000) for his bass-bow, as he's a great, contributing member of the VdGSA and $1K can help buy him a really fine bow.

Kathy Fleming: Give her full funding ($1000) for her bass-bow; she's already found herself an adequate bass to play, on her own, and a better bow will probably make a big difference to her.

James Williamson: Give him partial funding (say, $750, or half of the $1500 he requested). I'm just not sure... of all the instruments for a strong cellist/ bass viol player to sink money into, the tenor just doesn't seem like a lotta "bang-for-the-buck", as Jack has said.

Genevieve McKay: Give her partial-funding (say, $630 or half of the $1260 she asked for); I reason that because she is already an active, professional musician, this is not her only musical outlet, and not getting a new treble right now will not destroy her.

Ben Rechel: Deny him funding based on a weak and unclear application, and encourage him to tighten it up and try again next time.

That makes $3880.

Next!

-DM

OK...after asking you to rank the applicants by whatever criteria, I'm finding them all to be deserving and that ranking is difficult. Therefore, I've come up with this plan.
$900 to Bolyard
$900 to Fleming
$1000 to Williamson
$1000 to MacKay
$500 to Davidson
Total $4300
If we give everyone except Hannah $900 that would shave off another $200, but I'm not sure that would be that significant since we will be over $4000.
This would avoid making one or two people apply again in October, when there are bound to be more applicants. I think we should face the fact that we have 6 deserving applicants, who will all further the role of the Viola da Gamba not only in the Society but also in the music world. It's time for the Board to face up to their creation, the GIA program, and realize that it, as Jack says, is one of the most important things they do. I'm happy to entertain another way of dividing it up but I am also happy (so to speak) to give the Board some straight talk.
Lucy

A thought I should have added last night.....if we come out with a total in the $4000-$4300 area, we would have $700 left for October, in which case we would be able to ask for and probably get $2000 or even $2500 as a stopgap. With the October applications, we should have a better idea of whether this spring's 7 were an anomaly or more the norm.
Lucy


Hi - OK, here's what I think. Considering Lucy's plan, I'm a little apprehensive about paying down the account so far in the first part of the cycle. I think we will have a good case for getting more of a budget allocation at the summer board meeting considering the robustness of the applicant pool right now; I guess one question is, whether that would apply in October, or not til 2014. Anyway, I'm a little more drawn to David's figures because they don't require quite so much of our balance. That said, it feels slightly strange to be giving some of the people partial funding and some of them full funding. Is there any reason we can find for choosing the full tickets as we have? With James, he has already committed to finding additional funds, which enhances his application considerably in my eyes, even while justifying only giving him half. So that's an irony worthy of a Greek play. I want to revisit this one more time - I'm due some place right now, but promise to have a weighted list before midnight tonight. my time.

More soon,

Jack

OK, I've been thinking more about this. If we are planning to ask for an extension of funds to cover October expenses (once we know what they are) and, prior to that, planning on asking for a bump up in our funding (for Oct 2013? for 2014 onwards?), then why not fully fund all the requests except for Ben's? That leaves us only $260, but if we're planning on asking for more as a matter of course then I don't see why we shouldn't simply grant all the requests and see what happens.

If we do not receive extra funding, it's not the end of the world - people can apply again next year and we'll have a better sense of our limits. If we have tons more applications than money to give out, this will be an indication that the project should be more robustly funded (how do you like my administrat-ese? I've been hanging out with my dean lately).

Since we are having trouble finding reasons to disallow anyone except Ben, it makes sense (tonight, anyway) to either choose a cap and fund everyone according to some percentage until we reach that cap (the reason being to leave a larger amount for October), OR, just grant all the requests.

Executive Summary: let's just grant all the requests (except Ben's) with the presumption that we'll be able to fund October's requests by getting sufficient $$ later on in some way or other.

- Jack

I second the motion- that is, I support the idea of fully funding all the requests except Ben's and asking the board for more money for October.

-D.

By my calculation that comes out to $5260. Do we really want to go over our allotment at this point? That's why I thought it better to shave off some from everyone excepting Hannah (and excluding Ben). Marie indicated that she thought $2500 would not be considered an extreme for a one-time event. I thought that psychcologically, asking for $2000 would be even better. My understanding is that we ask for the one-time extra funding, if we find we need it in October. If that is the case, then we ask the board to consider upping the amount allotted for the year.
Lucy

Yikes! I forgot to add Hannah's request when I was adding them up because I have her at the top of my list in the untouchable zone. So sorry.

OK, new idea. How about we give everyone their request except Ben and Genevieve, who we round down to an even 1000? That looks tidy, and puts her in the same zone as Robert and Kathy. James plans to use other sources in addition to GIA money, so that is an incentive to me to give him a little more.

This, of course, would wipe us out and we would have to ask for all of whatever we wanted to distribute in October. So, we could just give Hannah her $500 and everyone else except Ben an even $1000 and have $500 left over. What about that?

That sounds fine to me, Jack (Hannah gets $500; $1K for everyone else but Ben, who gets encouragement to re-apply).

-DM

That is, indeed, very neat and tidy, and I think fair.
I'll get on with the electronic acceptances and rejection, and also send Marie a heads-up for October.
Lucy

Great, thank you, everyone. With this funding distribution, you are still under budget for the year and well within your purview as a committee to spend the money thusly.
Can you verify for me that you--as a committee--would not change your mind about this funding distribution, even if the Board were to NOT authorize a funding increase for October? If this is the case, then I will actually present your one-time funding request to them at the summer meeting (which will be in plenty of time for the October deadline). But if you were to hear that, in fact, you'll be stuck with just the $500 that you've left in the pot in October, would that make you go back to the drawing board at the present time, and reallocate some funds to the future? (From the discussion here, I don't think it would--and I wouldn't recommend it!--but I'll just ask). However, if this is in fact the case, then I will make the motion and vote happen now over email, so that you can be assured of pre-approved additional funds later this year.
Let me know--and if we're good to go as is, I will draft the letters to the awardees.
thanks!

I will continue to support this distribution even if we are told there will be no additional funding this year.

For people who want a new bow, or a new instrument, it is frustrating but not an insurmountable problem to wait a year and apply again. The one time-sensitive request (from Hannah) was fully funded.

- Jack

Well-said, Jack. I thought we three used our usual critical (I mean that in a good way) deliberation process in deciding that these six deserved what we awarded them. If this leaves us with only a few hundred dollars for the next granting period, then so be it. It would be up to the VdGSA board to decide what the big picture is, and we will all be curious as to whether this last slate is an anomaly or a future trend... in which case, there will have to be action taken. For now, let's stick with this.

My opinion, in any case.

-DM

I think we came up with as good a solution as possible.
We had 5 excellent candidates. Who knows what the future will bring.
Lucy