November 15, 1995

THE SCHEDULE

Nov. 15: Brahms 7:00-8:30,
Beethoven 8:45-10:00
Nov. 22: Thanksgiving Week Off
Nov. 29: Brahms 7:00-8:30,
Beethoven 8:45-10:00
Saturday Dec. 2: Dress Rehearsal
Brahms 10:00-11:15,
Beethoven 11:30-1:00
Sunday Dec. 3: Concert
3:00 PM, 2:30 PM Call

This concert will be taped for community access cable.

Meeting with Marie Rosenwasser

I thought I would fill you in on a meeting we had with Marie Rosenwasser, President of Cañada College, at our Board Meeting on Tuesday October 24. First of all, I think it is important to improve our relationships with a number of organizations. The meeting with Marie focused on expanding and improving the relationship with the College.

Here are the people we have been working with at Cañada (not sure of exact titles, but you get the idea):

Marie Rosenwasser -- President
John Friesen -- Director of Humanities
Mike Walsh -- House Manager for the Humanities Building
Terry Kreswell -- Publicity

We want to contact:

Sandra Mellor -- Community Education
Janet Hancock -- ???
Jane Weideman -- Project Read Coordinator
Dave (someone) -- ???

It is very important for us to be affiliated with the College for a number of reasons. Some of the most important reasons are:

Cañada College does not "charge" us for the use of the performance hall-we just need to register for the class and then we get access to facilities and equipment (percussion, seating, lighting, sound, performance/rehearsal space, etc.).
We get insurance through the College--liability insurance purchased independently by the orchestra would be very expensive.
We get services from Cañada that are at special rates--photocopying, bulkrate mailings, publicity, etc.

These are all things that have been happening behind the scenes. I thought you would be interested to know that Cañada is providing us this type of support. Now we have the chance to take the relationship further.

As the new president of the College, Marie knows who we are and is very interested in developing the relationship. Her main charter is Economic Development. An educated populace creates a good small-business environment that brings about the need for continued education (you get the picture). These are people who pay taxes and are able to contribute to the tax base of the area. Marie's focus is on getting more FTES--Full Time Equivalent Students--to choose Cañada College.

Marie needs to reach a number of goals, including:

Increasing Enrollment--Over the last couple of years she has seen a decreased budget and decreased enrollment.
Community Development--She is talking to leaders of communities such as Woodside, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Atherton, etc. She is also in touch with the RWC Arts Center.
Special Activities--Did you know that Cañada actively participates in Project Read and other special programs surrounding their landscape, architecture, and clothing design departments?
Minority Recruitment--Strong latino recruitment is required to meet the needs of the community surrounding the college.
High School Recruitment--Marie has a Recruit Crew that is building interest in Cañada attendance
Post-Graduate/Continuing-Education Recruitment--outreach to more classes like ours to get people coming back up the hill to take classes.

We talked about common goals. They translate to:

Better "community relations"--local government, local musically involved people/organizations, leveraging our mutual strengths in creating events for people to attend.
Audience recruitment--should we have special events targetted at certain audiences (younger people, more focus on ethnic music, post-graduate students, faculty, students)?
More interaction between faculty and "student" events--special rates or a special event for Cañada faculty and students.
Understanding our audience better so we can server them better.
Leveraging the strengths of other organizations through relationships--avoid duplicating the wheel--improving communications will help us make better use of common resources.

At the College there are the following resources we can share:

Center for American Musical Theater--the library is housed at the college.
Peninsula Master Chorale.
Summer College For Kids--would coordinate nicely with our summer kids concert.
Community Education/Corporate Education--pools resources of all of the local community colleges like Skyline, Foothill, Cañada , CSM, etc. to organize events.

We currently can make inroads by:

Special Ticket rates for Faculty and Students.
Cañada College Liaison--interface to Student Body groups and Faculty Organizations.
More exposure in the Cañada College Course Catalog--list concert dates.
Registration Marriage Mailing--include our season brochure with the college registration handbook.

I know there's more we can do. All of us on the Board left the meeting feeling like we were really making some progress. I was quite impressed with Marie's vision and her willingness to include RWS in her plans.

In order for us to make this all work, we need to find people who are interested in stepping forward to take on these challenges. If you are interested in what I have written, please consider coming to our Orchestra Council meetings.

RWS Council Meetings

Please help us by coming to the Orchestra Council meetings! Our next meeting is Thursday, Nov. 30, 7:30 pm at Claudia Herzog's house.

Thanks

Thanks to Tom Diskin for writing all our Press Releases. Tom isn't even playing this set, yet he prepared all the Press Releases for the entire season.

Stuff...

We will have a children's concert next summer. The next two concerts will be difficult--with pieces by Charles Ives, Lukas Foss, John Adams, Bartok and Prokofiev--so remember to practice over the December break!
Help! From the Conductor's Wife

One of our son's schoolmates is learning trumpet. Is anyone interested, or does anyone know of anyone who is interested in giving private trumpet lessons to a 10 year old boy in Los Altos Hills (at the home)? If so, please let me know--you can call me at 415-366-6149 or e-mail me at VSarfaty@aol.com. Your help is greatly appreciated!

This is a Web version of text from the newsletter "Redwood Symphony Notepad" which is distributed to members of the Redwood Symphony at rehearsals. The newsletter and this online version are edited by George Yefchak.