President’s Message

By Liz Benjamin

We are really excited to ring in 2016. The Board Committees have been at work setting goals to ensure a diverse and expanding membership that will sustain CMN over the next twenty-five years and beyond. To this end you will be hearing about a number of new and engaging activities as the year progresses. And for sure we will be asking for your help in many ways.

The Membership Committee (Lisa Heintz and Kim Wallach, Chairs) has an aggressive goal of adding seventy-five new members to our community. To do this we need to better understand our current members and what aspects of CMN they most value, so we developed a short questionnaire that many of you responded to. Your input will guide these efforts.

We’ve also created a new buddy program to make sure new members are feeling connected from the beginning of their membership. How can you help? We have a few members ready to be buddies, but we would love to have forty more, so don’t be shy! Let Jane Arsham know you would like to sign up, now or anytime.

The Marketing Committee (Ellen Allard and Jane Arsham, Chairs) is planning many new programs, including launching new social media programs, reaching out to new subsets of possible members like home schoolers, adding new song books to our great Song Library, and more. How can you help? We will be reaching out for new people to work with us on projects as they come up. Please re-tweet, “like,” share, and tag our social media as often as you can, submit blog articles, and pass out flyers wherever you go.

The FUNdraising Committee (Katherine Dines and Susan Salidor, Chairs) is working to roll out a number of fun new programs throughout the year so we can lessen our dependence on our one big fall fundraiser. We had great success with our special Valentine’s Day chocolate promotion from Equal Exchange and are planning similar ventures in the future. Coming up, keep your eyes open for a screening of a terrific film about an African children’s chorus. How can you help? This one is clear—participate any time and in any way you are moved!

2016 will be the first full year with our new online Pass It On! Team: Brigid Finucane, Ginger Lazarus, Kim Arden, and Carl Foote. Our journal continues to be a vibrant, informative way to highlight new songs, read about issues of importance in the world of children’s music, and be entertained.

We’re so glad you are here with us. We look forward to hearing from you and working with you to make CMN the best it can be.