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President’s Report

This has been a very busy year for the CSTM and thanks are due to the many people who have been assisting with various initiatives and activities of the Society. In many ways major changes have been afoot at the CSTM, some of which are obvious to members, and others are happening more ‘behind the scenes.’ In this report I will highlight some of the main activities and developments of the Society since I began my term as President in November 2008.

folkwaysAlive! at the University of Alberta

Perhaps the most significant development with the Society is that folkwaysAlive! in Edmonton has offered assistance and support of the administrative activities of the Society, offering to serve as the Administrative Centre for the CSTM. As part of this arrangement they have committed assistance to CSTM in the form of French translations of conference abstracts and the Society website, processing of CSTM mail, maintenance of membership records, and printing of the Society’s publications, among other activities. They have also committed a graduate student position to assist with these activities. Special thanks to Regula Qureshi and Gary Kachanoski for creating and supporting this arrangement, and to the staff, notably Lorna Arndt, Cari Friesen and David Descheneaufor their work as well. It is also important to recognize the help that John Leeder and James Prescott gave to the transition of CSTM headquarters from Calgary to Edmonton, and their sharing of processes and strategies in managing various administrative tasks of the Society. It was exciting to be able to participate in a day-long gathering in Edmonton in April in which Regula, Gary, James, John, Cari, David and I worked together, strategized and shared stories and experiences about the CSTM.

Outreach and Liaising

One of the initiatives I have prioritized for myself this year is to reach out to people who might not be affiliated with, or even know about, the CSTM. In February I sent an email letter to various universities and faculty members to raise awareness of the CSTM and our activities, and I received some feedback from people thanking me for this outreach. Together with the executive we approved and made copies of flyers to advertise the Society at various events, including the Congress meeting in May in Ottawa, and various members have also placed our flyers in strategic places in universities, performance venues and other institutions. Special thanks to Graham Blair for turning our text into an attractive flyer.

This summer was an exciting one for me, as I went to South Africa to attend the bi-annual gathering of the International Council for Traditional Music, where I also gave a paper. I attended the Regional Representatives meeting of the ICTM as the CSTM President (see separate report), where I was elected to the Nominations Committee for the ICTM board. Our group of enthusiastic Canadians, which included a delegations from Newfoundland – Beverley Diamond, Tom Gordon, Kati Szego, Kristin Harris Walsh and Eleanor Dawson – encouraged ICTM participants to come to the ICTM meeting that will take place in St. John’s, Newfoundland in 2011. This may be an exciting opportunity for CSTM to meet with our ‘parent’ organization.

Other initiatives that should be mentioned include the work of Judith Cohen, Monique Desroches, Nathalie Fernando, Marie-Hélène Pichette and Regula Qureshi and the organizational committee at the Université de Montréal in the planning of the 2009 meeting of the CSTM in Montreal in conjunction with Laboratoire de recherche sur les musiques du monde (LRMM), andObservatoire international de la création et des cultures musicales (OICCM).

Publications

An important change this year was the production of our first issue of MUSICultures, the new “face” of the journal of the Society. The new issue came out at the start of October, and looks fantastic! Special thanks are due to Gordon Smith and Graham Blair for their dedication and hard work that brought this new look to fruition!Of course there is always room for more articles in the journal, so keep your work coming in!

In consultation with the CSTM executive and the publications committee of the board, there was general consensus that a priority for the journal (MUSICultures) is to meet the minimum requirements so that we are eligible for a SSHRC grant for publications. The Aid To Scholarly Journals program awards up to $30,000 per year for a three-year period. The last competition was in 2008, and the competition is held every three years, so 2011 will be the next competition year. In order for MUSICultures to qualify for a grant, CSTM must publish two volumes of MUSICultures in a calendar year. This is something we should be able to do given adequate resources (we need articles and reviews!) and commitment on the part of the Society at large.

CSTM has received an invitation to post our publications online at the National Library of Canada, free of charge. We will explore this opportunity this year to determine its feasibility and to ensure it is in the best interest of the Society. This initiative is separate from David and Rosaleen Gregory’s proposal to have Canadian Folk Music posted online at the University of Athabasca Press, an agreement they have been pursuing and for which they are awaiting the outcome of their proposal.

A final but important note about publications is that the CSTM has been named in a class action lawsuit launched by Heather Robertson against ProQuest, the service that makes our journal available to online subscribers. In response to Robertson’s claim of copyright infringement (arguing that materials of artists and others had been made available in different formats than what they originally agreed to - e.g. online instead of solely print form), ProQuest has named all of the organizations (including universities, presses, academic and professional groups, etc.) as fourth-party defendants, which includes CSTM. I have had assurances from David Warren, our parliamentarian, as well as Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences that should this case proceed, the number of named defendants is large enough, and the CSTM small enough, that any kind of repercussions would be quite small, or non-existent for the CSTM.

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A special thanks to the members of the publications committee of the board for discussing various issues, initiatives and possibilities for the Society’s publications, and especially to the editors of the journal (Gordon Smith) and magazine (David and Rosaleen Gregory) for their ongoing work with these publications, the “faces” of the Society.

Constitution

It was determined a few years ago that the constitution of the Society should be updated to reflect

changes in technology (e.g. using email for voting and distribution of information) and to allow for more flexibility on the part of the people serving in various positions. It has been noted by a number of board members, and particularly members of the Executive, that terms of office might give people a sense of how long they are expected to serve in these capacities, and it might also give members a sense of renewal and change within the Society to keep its energy level high. Smaller detail-oriented updates to the Constitution, such as correcting typos, are also proposed in the amendments to the Constitution. Special thanks to Sherry Johnson, John Leeder, Judith Klassen and Leslie Hall for their diligent and persistent collaboration to sort through the constitution and draft proposed changes for consideration at the AGM.

Other initiatives

There has been ongoing discussion at meetings and informally about creating a student prize for the best paper given at a CSTM meeting. A proposal for a student prize will be presented at the AGM, including evaluation criteria and the award amount.

Payment of Membership fees can now be done online using PayPal. This replaces the use of VISA as a payment option, which will reduce CSTM’s bills to VISA. Payment of fees can still be done using cheques.

In response to the announced discontinuation to the Library and Archives Canada’s support of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, a letter was sent to parliament opposing the cuts and emphasizing the importance of such publications to music scholarship in Canada.

Upcoming Meetings

Plans are already underway for our 2010 joint meeting with IASPM-Canada (International Association for Studies in Popular Music – Canada) in Regina in June. Charity Marsh is chairing the conference organizing team, and she has already drafted the CFP and is working on anAid to Research Workshops and Conferences in Canada SSHRC grant for this joint meeting.Discussions have already begun to assess the possibility of CSTM meeting in 2011 with our parent organization, the International Council for Traditional Music, which will be meeting in St. John’s, Newfoundland in 2011.

Respectfully submitted,

Anna Hoefnagels

October 27, 2009