As of January 17 Catskills Folk Connection has its own 501c3 designation as a no-profit organization. Thanks to CFC's friend, Cary Goodman, we were able to navigate the application process, first for an EIN number and then the non-profit designation. No longer will CFC be a fiscally-sponsored project, dependent on another organization's non-profit status. We are very grateful to the Roxbury Arts Group, and before them the Manhattan Country School, for serving as our fiscal sponsors. They provided pracitcal support as well as esssential advice, and they referred to us to important organizational services.
Our transition to being a free-standing organization will be gradual, because at least one of our grants was applied for while we were still a project of Roxbury Arts Group. Plus we are finding that there are other organizations eager to work with us. For example, the Catskill Center for Conervation and Development has offered to rent us desk space, and eventually a room, to serve as CFC's office with access to the library for storage and for Board meetings
New York Folklore, the statewide organization for folk heritage, is at present including Catskills Folk Connection in its appplications for far-reaching grants to promote traditional arts and artists in the Southern Tier of the state. These initiatives range from designing interpretive wayfinding on the region's waterways, to studies of communities' and artists' resilience in the face of climate change, to digitization of local archives. We will hear about those later this year.
For now, Catskills Folk Connection's Executive Director, Virginia Scheer, is getting the new non-profit corporation registered with a number of state agencies and funders. The Board of Trustees is meeting to finalize corporate policies and the board structure (committees etc.). This year's program is falling into place. In 2023 our program will look like the project we have always been and hopefully in 2024 will shed its project skin and will begin to develop the programmatic characteristics of a full-fledged organization.
In May Catskills Folk Connection will sponsor its first in-person square dance of the year, featuring the Tremperskill Boys with caller Dane Scudder, and guest caller Earl Pardini. It will take place on Saturday, May 20 at 7 pm at the Halcott Grange, 264 Greene Co. Route 3, Fleischmanns NY 12430. (Note: the Halcott Grange is in Halcott Center, north of Fleischmanns, reached by Del. Co. Route 37 that becomes Greene Co Route 3. Use Fleischmanns for the town address on GPS or mapping services.)
June 10 & 11 Catskills Folk Connection will be at the Meredith Dairy Fest with information about our programs, and demonstrations that may include local foodways and possibly a guest appearance by a local musician.
June 17 at 7 pm is CFC's second square dance, this one at the Walton Grange. on Stockton Avenue in Walton.
In July, on the 15th in the afternoon, the dance will be held at the Catskills Visitor Center on State Route 28 in Mt. Tremper ,
In August, the Catskills Folk Lyceum, CFC's lecture series, plans to present a roundtable with a panel of Native American language instuctors to discuss increasing their nation's fluency in their native languages and to engage the audience in a bit of language leearning. Tentative date is August 13 and tentative location is the Bovina Community Center, Bovina Center, NY.
In September, CFC plans to host another festival booth, this one at the Cauliflower Festival, where we hope to feature demonstrations of regional ethnic groups' foodways.
Dances are being planned for August, September and October. Watch this space, your e-mail Inbox, your postal mailbox, or your local newspaper for announcements of time and place. All events will be announced on our radio program Catskills Folk, alternate Tuesdays at 7 pm (for example, May 9 and May 23) on WIOX, broadcast at 91.3 FM and streamed on wioxradio.org.
See you at a square dance, at a festival, or at the Lyceum!
For more information consult this blog, or contact Ginny Scheer, 607-326-4206, or gscheer.mcs@gmail.com. Use this e-mail address to ask for e-mail announcements of programs.
Catkills Folk Connectio is supported by the Roxbury Arts Group, and is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts Folk Art Program, by Gov. Hochul and the NYS Legislature, by Action & Vision Grants from Humanities NY and by the O'Connor Foundation.
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