Starting in the Shortest Month...

Hi Loggers & Bloggers,

I've been noticing the increase in followers and it's great to have you all.  This is a good month start a log.  It's four weeks with nothing extra tacked on.

Looking at January's total, I was a little surprised.  I logged 73.5 hours.  That was a bit more than I thought (I expected an average of about 35-40 hours) but there were some regular projects for this time of year.  In St. John's, it's the City's Arts Jury deadline.  There's also the Women's Work Festival (WFF).

White Rooster Theatre was co-founded with Sherry White ten years ago and operates on a project basis.  No sustaining and very little administrative funding but the admin duties-government filing for workers comp, HST, taxes, as well as grant writing and sometimes producing/directing the shows- are usually performed for no pay.  For five years, we've co-produced the WWF with She Said Yes! and RCA Theatre.  The prep work happens in January for a March festival.  Due to guidelines, only one company can apply for funding. The other two companies squeeze the work in alongside other projects and donate time as their contribution.  This festival has workshopped 10-12 plays to date with close to 50% getting a production following the festival so it's a good investment of time.

Besides that, there were Board meetings (as chair of Neighbourhood Dance Works), film projects (a short for Rozalind MacPhail's Painted Houses project), auditions, and some other works-in-progress.

A few notes on  Month Two:

Now is a great time to log for one month.  It takes one minute a day.  (I didn't count that minute!) I keep the posts to a minimum but I check them from time to time.

These logs aren't competitive in any way.  When I posted my hours last night on the facebook events page, one of the artists joked that she hadn't volunteered enough.  Of course if I post my hours it'll look like some kind of benchmark!  But I was a little shocked at my total and it may cause me to pull back a bit (that wasn't the idea either) because I do have personal projects and a family that needs attention.  So perhaps that's a question.  Should I post the total hours each month or not?

Sophie Meyer inspired a good idea- for visual artists to log the dollar value of donated works.  An hourly log doesn't work for all disciplines so if you have another suggestion, please share it.

Until March,
Ruth