President’s Report

Festival 2002

Another year has flown by, and another Music Festival has been successfully concluded. There were a total of 398 registrations, with 39 entrants in two or more disciplines. This included guest school bands from Osoyoos and Similkmeen. Eight of the top performers were chosen by the adjudicators to compete at the Provincial Music Festival is Kamloops, B. C. and seven of them were able to attend.

The Festival is a success because of the long hours and hard work expended by our Discipline Chairs and the other members of the Board of Directors. This year we were are sorry to say good-bye to Kelly Smit, the Chair for Percussion, Winds and Brass. Her cheerfulness and dedication will be sorely missed. We also have volunteers who help out during the weeks of the Festival, and their contributions play a large part in the smooth running of the day-to-day operation.

Once again, we were fortunate to have competent, hard-working and dedicated adjudicators. Shauna Kohls-Walters and Ailsa Zenker shared the duties of the piano classes, while we had Grace Chan for Vocal, Toni Stanick for Strings and Robert McLeod for Percussion, Winds and Brass. Each one of the judges was interested in helping each of the performers learn and improve in a positive setting and we feel we made new friends in the process.

Our financial picture remains an area of concern. This year we were unable to present the Credit Union $400 Bursaries because the letter asking them for funds was sent to them too late to enable them to discuss it at their Board meeting. You may be well assured that the next request for funding will be sent to them in January. Our other donors however have been wonderfully generous, and it is thanks to them that the usual prize money was available for presentation at the final Concerts. We now have a tax number, provided by Revenue Canada which allows providing our donors with Charitable Tax Receipts for Income Tax purposes, so we hope this will be a further incentive for people to donate their extra dollars in our direction.

Once again we held two final Concerts. The Piano Encore Concert was a partnership arrangement with the Sunshine Coast Registered Music Teachers Association, and was co-sponsored by the Coast Recital Society. The Festival Highlights Concert was co-sponsored by Wilson Creek Marketplace I.G.A. Both programmes had a fair-sized audience in attendance, but this is something which we will work on for next year.

Board meetings are mostly held at Rockwood Lodge, and we thank Joan Graham and the Festival of the Written Arts for their hospitality.

We have already planned the dates for next year’s Festival and we will be booking venues and hiring adjudicators very shortly. It is a pleasure to work with such totally committed and hard working people as those who are members of the Board of Directors. In spite of extremely busy professional lives with unbelievable work loads, family responsibilities and problems, everyone pitches in and finds that extra bit of energy to spend the time organizing for the two weeks of Festival. Along with the Board members, it is also the performers, their teachers and parents and supporters who help to make the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Performing Arts a community activity in which we can all be proud. We thank everyone for their devotion and enthusiasm.