Should Orchestra Musicians Leave The AFM?

Adaptistration People 102

Yesterday’s post on the recommendation by the American Federation of Musicians’ (AFM) International Executive Board (IEB) to give officers an unaudited $10,000 discretionary spending account has generated a considerable amount of feedback throughout social network sites and private email messages. One item that repeatedly pops up is whether or not orchestra musicians would be better served by staying within or leaving the AFM. Consequently, let’s find out what readers thin Sorry, …

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Things That Make You Go Buh?!? AFM Leadership

What do you call a $10,000 discretionary spending account over and above existing annual compensation, travel expenses, and departmental budgets? Oh, and did I mention that each executive with the mad money privileges will not be required to make an accounting of what or how they spend those funds. If you’re the current leadership of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), you call it Recommendation #24 for changes to the Federation bylaws

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Happy Memorial Day

Whether you’re home enjoying the day with family and friends or your orchestra is putting on a performance today, try to take a few moments to remember the reason for the holiday. Also remember that the single largest employer of full-time professional musicians is the United States Armed Forces and get this: the Armed Forces spend more on music than the government allocates to the NEA. What sorts of conclusions can …

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Who Else Doesn’t Like To Wait?

The good news is you don’t have to wait until June 7 for the 2010 Orchestra Compensation Reports; they’re available right now at Adaptistration Premium. The great news is the new and improved data management tables that were designed especially for the compensation info are in place and fully operational. There is no bad news. If you already have a subscription to Adaptistration Premium, you should have received an email announcement this morning about the updates and if you don’t have a subscription (yet), you can still take a sneak peek…

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Michael Kaiser Couldn’t Be More Right

I have to fess up and admit that I haven’t been keeping up with Michael Kaiser’s blog at Huffington Post even though I know it would be for the best. But that’s been turning around as I’ve been wading through Michael’s archives and one item that caught my attention was a post from 1/4/2010 titled Why Ticket Prices Must Change. Regular readers are already aware that this has been an ongoing topic at Adaptistration for years now and Michael’s outlook mirrors nearly everything covered here in all that time…

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