We meet once per month
In order to carry on our mission of promoting and preserving bluegrass and acoustic music, the W.M.B.M.A. meets every month of the year for a membership meeting and jam session. Sometimes we combine our meeting & jam with what we call our Hot Bands Fundraiser, and sometimes it’s strictly a jam session. There are two months of the year when we hold a bluegrass festival, but aside from these two months we have regular monthly meetings. New for 2010 we’ll be meeting two or three times in some months. Our latest meeting is coming up on Dec. 19, 2010, and we hope you’ll join us.
Board meeting, jam session, fundraiser
You can find the W.M.B.M.A. indoors from October through April at various locales, usually centering around the city of Lowell, MI. We adopted the tradition early in the history of the association of meeting on the third Saturday of the month for our events. If you ever wonder when some event you’ve heard of is going to take place, you can almost always bet it’s going to be third Saturday of the month it’s occurring in. Of course, when there is more than one event in a month, then you’ll have to check our event calendar over on the website to see the date.
Our usual schedule of events at our regular, third-Saturday-of-the-month meeting is: board meeting at 5pm for the elected officers and board members (non-elected members and non-members alike are free to come sit in on the board meeting and observe what goes on) followed by open jamming at roughly 7pm. At approximately 8pm we stop the jamming and have a short membership meeting where the officers of the association make presentations to all that are attending, then we go back to jamming! If the event is combined with a Hot Bands Fundraiser, then it’s board meeting, stage shows, and jamming afterwards! We try to always include the jamming. Our events typically wind up about 10pm, but depending on the venue it can stretch much longer into the evening.
Click me! Click me!
Forget Uncle Sam…the W.M.B.M.A. needs you!!
You’ll hear a theme from ol’ Bluegrass Paul repeated many times as I blog for the association: membership is the lifeblood of our organization. Our dues-paying members help us to further our mission of promoting and preserving bluegrass and acoustic music in west Michigan. We appreciate all of you who are members and we look forward to many more people joining this year.
Having said that, we warmly and whole-heartedly welcome all observers and attendees, members and non-members alike. We hope that even if you aren’t a member of the association that you will consider coming out, listening to the music, taking part if you pick or sing, and in general just checking out what we’re all about. Our Hot Bands Fundraisers cost $5 a head to get in, but our regular monthly meetings are completely free!
Come on out to Lowell, Mi. on December 19
The third Saturday of December is approaching fast, and we’re looking forward to getting together for some picking and singing! We hope you’ll consider joining us. The board meeting kicks off at 5pm and then the open jamming starts up at about 7pm. This is one of the regular, free events. If you have an acoustic stringed instrument, please bring it along. If you’d like to just come and listen to some great local picking talent, you can do that too! Here’s the location:
Lowell United Methodist Church
621 E. Main St.
Lowell, Mi.
Hey previous attendees, how about some comments?
If you’ve been to our events before, perhaps you’d consider chiming in with some comments below? What have your experiences been? Did you come to pick or just listen? Would you encourage pickers of all ability levels to come to the event?
Thanks everyone. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the jam session, and as I always say: pick ‘em if ya got ‘em!
Bluegrass Paul
Social Media Director
The West Michigan Bluegrass Music Association
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