All in all it was a great time had by all who attended. We had a great set; Mike Celia on guitar, Sway on bass, Dan on keys and Ekow on the drums. Gabriel who incidentally did a post on the Flashjam the day before hopped on guitar just before Mike Celia showed up.
This FlashJam was sort of thrown together and we wanted to actually do one without a ton of planning and organization, so it was really an experiment from which we hoped to learn. There many lessons but these are 3 really big ones we thought of for the next FlashJam.
Have Some Darn Signage
Seems simple enough right? We could have done a lot better on the signage, here is what we actually had (see above) – nothing, it’s fair to say that we forgot how important that would be given the fact that we were actually doing this in the middle of the Parkdale Village Fair. Our dear friend Cynthia Innes from Edelman was kind enough to drop by and see us early in the FlashJam, this PR maven’s first question – where’s the signage guys? You’re right Cynthia, we’ll have that prepared for FJ#3. She was thrilled we decided to keep the momentum going from the success of FJ#1. Thanks for the support Cynthia!
Get A Lead Vocalist Or Include A Karaoke Component
Need I say more?! This guy just came from across the street and asked if we had a mic. We did! Frank proceeded to sing some old favourites from Otis Redding, Elvis, Rolling Stones etc… Thanks Frank for making this such a great and fun event. Definitely having a lead singer is a great way to draw people in but it would have been better – as suggested by Alicia’s Mom {Jo-Anne} to have a karaoke platform where regular folks could come out and sing with the band. Definitely going to try to implement this for the next one!
Get A FlashJams A-Team Van
Now that is a really bad rendering of the proposed Flashjams A-Team van but you get the point. This would have saved us a bunch of time and hassle. I’ll tell you why after FlashJam #3. Anybody with a van that we can use, let me know.
Although we were only able to raise a small amount – very small amount – I think it was a great working experience and allowed us to introduce the program to a lot of folks in the community; like Michael Erickson {high school teacher} running for Councillor of Ward 14, he has some interesting ideas about the community. We also got a chance to see Councillor Gord Perks, whom Sway and I met with earlier in the week, it was great to “see” him out in the community.
I also had a great chat with a youth volunteer worker at a local community centre who said that she had a great place for us to run our programming with separate rooms and some storage, we are going to take some time to actually check out the space this week.
Another successful FlashJam! Thanks everyone that came out to support us!
About FlashJams.com
The FlashJam is akin to a flashmob – a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse. The FlashJam is a group of musicians getting together to jam in a public place. The point for this particular gathering is awareness and fund raising for, at first, KUPE Arts Society and then other neighbourhood arts related non-profit organizations. The location of the FlashJam is kept a secret until 24 hours before actual event when a notification goes out to this list. To get on the list you can sign up at www.flashjams.com.
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