Musicians For Musician’s First Chapter: the MFM Hudson Valley Chapter in Kingston

A Report by Dawoud Kringle

In August of 2019, a turning point in MFM’s history occurred.

Sohrab Saadat Ladjavardi (MFM President and founder) attended the Hudson Valley Music Summit in Kingston NY on August 9^th, 2019. He shared the MFM booth with MFM member Stephen Johnson. They networked, and made MFM’s presence known to the music community in Hudson Valley.

After the convention, Saadat and Johnson discussed the possibility of expanding MFM’s presence into upstate NY. Johnson agreed to found the Hudson Valley (HV) chapter of MFM. His position as the chapter head would be entirely voluntary. The chapter would conform to MFM’s Bylaws, Mission Statement, and Code of Ethics (www.musiciansformusicians.org/about). The activities of the Hudson valley chapter are documented and reported to the president of MFM, and all data (contacts, event videos, etc.) which the Hudson Valley chapter collects are owned by MFM.

Johnson’s tasks as the leader of the Hudson Valley chapter will include generating membership, maintaining membership engagement, encouraging interaction, and sharing knowledge in the musician community. He may resign from this position at any time by submitting his resignation in writing.

The objectives the chapter is working toward include the following:

1. Expanding membership two-fold his October 2020.
2. Maintaining membership engagement by hosting quarterly meetings with Saadat co-administering the MFM Hudson Valley Facebook page (including creating event invitations and writing a minimum of four posts a month).
3. Interacting with other musician’s projects, and using this to promote MFM.
4. Organize a music and talk event and / or fundraiser, presenting three or more HV member’s band projects.
5. Organizing workshops and talk events locally.

As of this writing (owing to low membership), MFM has no budget to use to support the HV chapter. Saadat suggested that a percentage of all HV membership dues and merchandise sales generated by the HV chapter could be used to subsidize the chapter expenses. An important part of the chapter’s goals is recruitment.

This is an important step in the MFM mission, as it is the first time MFM established itself outside New York City. The founding chapter of MFM welcomes our new friends in Hudson Valley, and looks forward to a long, rewarding, and successful pursuance of our mission!