9/1/12
Welcome to our new website! The new format will allow us to maintain and update it regularly, and we hope folks will keep us up to date on calendar items we should cover. Please explore some of the new features. We are particularly excited about showcasing affiliates and linking to their websites and social media pages that are just a click away from any page on our site. We have begun developing short summaries about the music of each affiliate county and we look forward to contributions of more details and links to videos of musicians, historic and present, of whom each county is especially proud. The information about each area’s music and links to videos will be on each JAM, Inc. affiliate’s webpage. We also look forward to linking to student videos and hope students will take an interest. Our discussion forums will be open to any teacher/ administrator of traditional music education programming (JAM affiliate or not) and we hope that they will provide an avenue of sharing and community building to help everyone in the quest to get mountain kids playing music. There is no finer calling! There are also forums for JAM Kids , too. All content will be monitored on a regular basis.
The website comes at a time when we are going through other changes as well. Not coincidentally, it comes as we expand our staff to include Brett Morris Martin. She came to us highly recommended for her technology expertise, experience working for professional grant writer and prior stint teaching in Grayson County Public Schools. She is a fine old time musician, and comes from a notable family of Grayson County, VA musicians, researchers and educators. We are so happy to have her! She joins our dedicated book keeper/ administrative assistant, Betty McDaniel (NOT the one from SC YAMS) who, though only with us a few hours a week, is remarkably efficient at spreadsheets and keeping us legal.
And, we have moved! With the hiring of Brett, we officially outgrew our “executive closets” as a friend once lovingly referred to our prior home. We are now in Independence, VA. We’ll get a photo up once we do a little exterior painting. Our space is modest but meets our needs while keeping our overhead low. Thanks go to the City of Galax and the library there for so generously housing us for the first few years of our existence. They were lovely ‘closets’ with great windows and big trees we will miss.
We also want to acknowledge Lee Ryan who has served as our webmaster from the beginning and set up the basics of this new site. She and Mike Morris (of www.fedesign.net) are now supporting Brett as she has taken over the details and management.
Always keeps us posted if things don’t work. It is technology, after all.
Wishing everyone a great fall JAM lift off!