[Community] New President, New Agenda
I recently read that CASA elected a new President. Apparently the CASA Board of Directors holds elections annually, although the leadership doesn’t change every year. That’s something I didn’t know and will be watching in the future!
Dave Brown, a long-standing member of the Board of Directors and newly elected CASA president, has been involved in CASA for quite some time already. In an interview with Marty Gasper, Dave discussed some of his action items for the year.
Briefly, what are some issues you want to tackle this year?
- Survey the a cappella community more effectively to learn how we can help them.
- Increase advertising for our existing programs, so people can take advantage of our resources: awards, training, blogs, reviews, arrangements, a cappella radio, mp3s, discussion forum, info databases, podcasts, etc.
- Build a greater network of volunteers to help us carry out our programs to benefit the community
- Update old programs, make them more relevant
- Improve the ambassador system
- Introduce new benefits for our members
- Increase our outreach to younger people and others who aren’t familiar with contemporary a cappella
Honestly I’m not sure if the a cappella growth has been steady or somewhat of a boom, but in the Southeast it certainly feels like a lot of groups, both collegiate and semi-pro, have sprung up within the past 5 years. Previously, the Southeast wasn’t very well connected to the rest of the a cappella community, and the new groups have been slow to catch on due to no fault of their own. Certainly the addition of a CASA ambassador for the Southeast a few years ago was a huge improvement.
I don’t know if any type of rapid growth in the community was resonsible for CASA not keeping up with the times, but I think that Dave’s goals seem to tackle those kinds of obstacles. I’m glad to see all of these issues on his list! CASA has always been a valuable resource, but it’s nice to see it plans on becoming even more so.
Former presidents Jonathan Minkoff and Deke Sharon are still highly involved with the continued effort to reach more of the community. In fact, Deke will be serving this year as Dave’s VP.
Read the full interview: Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of CASA!
Tags: casa