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Actually, over the years, we've gained the most members via Roadtrips and the desire to perform at a showcase. The awards only happen bi-annually so though we do get most of our International members that way (and frankly I would do the awards for that reason alone since we have no other way to really reach those folks, especially in diverse genres).

If Aaron really wants to help JPF he needs to do so from within. If he doesn't want to become part of the existing family, then it's just words. JPF does wield a lot of power for a grassroots entity. We are regularly the "go to" source for major political battles supporting writer and artist rights to represent the grassroots community. Our awards are the largest in the world and give many deserving (and amazing) artists and writers the most unbiased and sincere acknowledgement possible (which is what the true purpose of awards are for right?). Many awards have become calculated sales tools for commerce. That's fine to a point, but I like our approach better. For me, both of those are better approaches than simply doing it to make a buck. For me, that serves primarily the owners of the awards/contests and I think those goals often over-ride the real mission. We have intentionally avoided advertising except from the sources we personally endorse fully. And we are VERY picky when it comes to that. In my opinion that is no small thing. Few if any other entities are as careful with who we endorse. We also are among the best places to check out just about any company or deal to see if it's good, bad or ugly. We've exposed tons of long time scam artists and put some totally out of business. They threaten us often, but the truth is a 100% defense in court and they know it.

In addition, I have met over 25,000 of our 50,000 members face to face in their own hometown (i.e. it wasn't just an audience at an event), I have lived among our members directly and have dozens of surrogate families around North America because my frequent tours allowed me to become like a visiting cousin or uncle. So no offense to John and Marc, but our 50K members are more connected than they realize. By the way, we don't even count many folks in that 50K. For example, unless someone chooses to sign up for our newsletter and maintain an active account, they aren't even considered officially as JPF members. (DonnaMarilyn learned that this morning as she was never signed up and those folks have little access to what else might be going on with JPF).

Right now JPF is unfortunately in a holding pattern where very little is going on. My health troubles are to blame. But we are getting ready to exlode things again. We have a new awards process coming up, we have a new outreach program that I think is unique in our business and we're going to start agressively reaching out to the 50K members on the email list as well as the 18K registered on these boards (and maybe even the 30K additional folks who have wandered off over the years) PLUS the band members who aren't even counted in our numbers (i.e. a band or symphony count as 1 member.. we want to reach out to all of them) and increase their involvement. We also plan to relaunch many of our Chapters which I have always believed are the single best tool to build real and lasting professional and personal friendships and the best way to help local music communities. all of this combined should represent our 2010-2011 strategies (with a few surprises I have saved up). If Aaron wants to see JPF thrive, there's plenty of work to be done.

As for our message boards, in a way they are a musician/songwriter's facebook. Only in our case, we predate the entire social network movement by many years. The first incarnation of Just Plain Folks turns 25 years old this month. = )

Brian