We are a 100 % volunteer organization with a small “hands-on” board of directors. We’re looking for some more help from our enthusiastic fans who’d like to get involved as we continue to rebuild our series post-pandemic. With the closure of some venues such as Coffee Gallery Backstage, it is more important than ever for us to keep live music coming.
All our volunteers and volunteer board members have occasional travel plans and important family obligations, and we seek to build a team that can work together to keep the music coming and keep the (fun) volunteer work moderate so that it fits into a well-balanced lifestyle.
Here’s an overview of the help we’re seeking as we move into 2025. If any of this sounds interesting, we’d love to hear from you so we can arrange a way to delve more deeply into what these roles entail and explore how they might fit well with your life. As a first step, we’ll arrange a zoom meeting for interested volunteers, so we can meet, and ask and answer questions.
If you’re interested in learning more about any of these roles, or in being a concert night helper (usher, CD sales), please click here for our interest form! We look forward to hearing from you!
House Manager
We are looking for a volunteer who would love to get involved, work closely with the board, and take responsibility for some of the duties we think of as “house manager” functions on the concert nights and in preparation for concert nights. We envision that this person will work with a team of volunteers. The House Manager function would involve being present (early) for concert nights, liaising with sound personnel, venue personnel, and the artists as they arrive for the concerts, and depending on what venue we use, it could involve arranging sound personnel in advance for the concert dates. At our traditional venue, Beckman Auditorium, we arrange for professional sound personnel. Sometimes when we use another venue, we must use the professional sound personnel employed by the venue, and then there is a little less to coordinate.
House Team
We’re looking for volunteer coordinators to be on the team with the House Manager. Some examples of roles: coordination of ushers and CD sales volunteers, advance coordination of sound personnel, venue coordination (parking, restroom locations), arranging dinner for the artists. If we have a few House Team members, then each one can focus on one area of coordination, but also be able to occasionally switch roles to help each other, and sub for the House Manager on occasional concert nights.
Volunteer Coordinator
As a separate function from the House Manager and House Team, we are looking for someone to act as an overall volunteer coordinator. You’d need to be computer-comfortable and able to work with simple google forms and spread sheets for volunteer interest surveys (or learn how). More importantly, we’re looking for someone who loves our music and our mission and who really enjoys people. Our volunteer coordinator will be the person who monitors new volunteer inquiries and responds initially in a personal way, such as by phone or zoom chat, and then refers to the volunteer to the correct person in the organization, i.e. House Manager, Publicity, etc. to get them started with their volunteering.
Email Inquiry Director
We need someone who can respond promptly to the various email inquiries we receive, and then direct them to the right person within our organization. We don’t get a high volume of emails. We just need someone who can check email for a few minutes daily (usually five days a week), provide an initial prompt response, and then forward the inquiry to the right person, or answer the inquiry yourself as appropriate in accordance with our policies and procedures. Friendliness is a top quality for this role.
Concert Night Helpers: Ushers and CD Sales
We usually use around 4 ushers and 1 CD sales helper per concert. Concert night volunteers receive one free ticket for the show. We’ll ask some weeks before each concert who would like to usher, and it’s first come, first served.