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Special
Feature
ABBA 5th
Birthday - 2005
With
five years under its belt and a list of
tremendous achievement behind it, The Australian
Bush Balladeers Association is set to step into
the future with continued commitment – to
preserve and promote Australian Bush Balladeers
and Bush Ballad music.
 The
road has not been an easy one, and there have
been times when the Association had to deal with
the normal knocks a fledgling organization has
to face. But through it all the Association has
remained dedicated to its goal, providing the
members with ongoing news updates, bush ballad
events and an outlet for advertisers to market
their product to not only the members, but to
the media and radio who receive the Bulletin as
well.
The A.B.B.A. Five Year
Achievements include:
THE BALLADEERS BULLETIN
The Bulletin prints news
items/tour dates/and general activities that
artist members send in. The Bulletin is
supported by industry and artist advertising.
The new 2004 gloss cover of The Balladeers
Bulletin has brought some of the major change
with greater advertising and major sponsors.
With the price of preparation at printers quoted
to rise in July 2004 edition, Virginia Coad
A.B.B.A. Publicity Officer began fully
preparing the Bulletin layout including the ads.
This has effectively stablised the Bulletin’s
printing costs per issue.
THE www.bushballadeers.com.au
WEBSITE:
The website currently attracts
approx four to five thousand viewers per month.
Updated monthly by Virginia Coad (A.B.B.A.
publicity Officer), the site contains information on /Compilation
Albums/ Artists Profiles/Star Quest/ etc. Tour
dates/ What’s Happening/ Events etc. There are also a Members profile
pages. For more information on how to be part of
the profiles, members may contact the A.B.B.A.
direct or go to www.bushballadeers.com.au/index.htm
. A.B.B.A.
Bush Poet Rep Merv Webster does
an excellent job of keeping monthly updated
pages on the site pertaining to news and events
on behalf of our many bush poet members. Thanks
Merv.
COMPILATION ALBUMS
Initially the idea was put
forward by Virginia Coad in 1999 to the then
Steering Committee as a fundraiser for the
Association. The first album “The Balladeers Vol
1” was released in January 2000. The Association
started with just “The Balladeers” Series, and
then Buddy Thomson and Peter Coad came up with
the idea of the ‘Balladeers Remembered Series”.
Both these albums are huge sales factors for our
Association and both albums are paid for by the
artists track payments from the “The Balladeers”
compilation album, before they leave the
manufacturers. These albums not only promote the
artists who are part of them, they are also the
major fundraiser for the A.B.B.A. and the album
sales over the year pay for administration,
postage, Star Quest winners promotional costs,
etc. Without these albums, the Association could
not run at the level it does. Therefore, the
Association sincerely thanks the artists who
come forward every year, putting their talent
and money forward, supporting the Association in
this way.
For details go to
www.bushballadeers.com.au/compilation.htm.
The A.B.B.A. is very appreciative
of the radio airplay support the albums receive,
and the Association would like to thank all the
ABC and FM radio presenters who play bush ballad
music, for their tremendous support of the Star
Quest winners singles, and all those who do
regular interviews broadcast nationally with
A.B.B.A. president Peter Coad on a monthly basis
re the A.B.B.A. activities.
THE BUSH BALLADEER STAR QUEST
This has proven to be a great
initiative for young bush ballad talent. Winners
of this Quest receive 12 months guidance in the
industry and opportunity to perform on major
stages from Tamworth, Bungendore Muster, Gympie
Muster, and Mildura festivals etc. It is great
experience and gives them a huge amount of
exposure to the public and media.
“The Quest has been attracting
more and more interest and stronger true bush
ballad entries every year and I think this could
be due to the fact they can see that the
Association is a strong support group and united
industry now,” Peter Coad (President) said.
The Quest is a great achievement
for the Association, but it is hoped it is an
even greater achievement for those who win, that
they may continue into the bush ballad industry
with a solid grounding in media, performance,
and industry knowledge. For details go to
www.bushballadeers.com.au/starquest.htm
2005 INITIATIVE
Another initiative by the
Association in 2004 is to become part of the
2005 Tamworth Camerata Scholarship, wherein a
young balladeer artist is selected and sponsored
to the sum of $1,200. The Association is very
proud to have A.B.B.A. member singer songwriter
David Croser of Minlaton SA as sponsor of the
A.B.B.A. Tamworth Camerata Scholarship in 2005.
Thank you David.
JUDGING GUIDELINES
After quite a few years of being
continually asked for Bush Ballad Judging
Guidelines, the Association put together a
straight forward guideline, which has been
available to the public via the website since
August 2004. This document has cleared up the
‘debate’ of the difference between a
contemporary and traditional bush ballad, and
how to know, the difference as a judge or
contestant.
www.bushballadeers.com.au/bbjudging.htm
ADMINISTRATION IMPROVEMENTS
This year in September, the
Association incorporated a new membership
Microsoft Access Database. The database was
fully designed and put together by computing
enthusiast, Meegan Coad (free of charge) for the
Association with assistance from secretary
Lorraine Pfitzner and Virginia Coad. This
entailed a huge amount of work, crosschecking
information and took a period of quite a few
weeks to complete. The result is the Association
now has a user-friendly database, mail merge,
sorts by states, status, etc. The Association
would like to thank them for this enormous
effort. This has made the membership and
membership mail out system easier for the
secretary and taken out the work of sorting
states and writing renewals by hand.
IN SUMMARY
The A.B.B.A. is a voluntary
committee, and it has been averaged that over a
year that a full day every week over the year
towards, either Membership/Website maintenance/Mailout
Maintenance/Bulletin preparation/and organizing
albums and Tamworth events, but everyone
involved loves to see happy members and a strong
Association, and positive feedback.
“The Association is dedicated to
catering for the bush ballad artist,” Peter Coad
(President) said, “The Association has been
built by our hardworking voluntary committees
over the last 5 years with the support of our
members, media and industry. We currently have
over 600 strong membership, with new memberships
coming in every month. The Association is
continuing to build further infrastructure
through the mediums of internet, radio
interviews, and through our Balladeers Bulletin.
I would like to thank our 2004
Committee, Buddy Thomson (Vice President), Lyn
Seiler (Treasurer), Lorraine Pfitzner
(Secretary), Committee; Virginia and Lynette
Coad, Warren Mahoney, Ron Sadler, Lyn Manning,
Lynne Bennett, and our state reps including
Buzzer Bitter and Jim Welsh, for their efforts.
I know all our members appreciate all the
showcases and other events together by many
members of our committee, incorporating our
members performances at annual Tamworth Shows,
concerts etc,.”
Five years on from it’s official
launch, the Association is a strong, successful,
financially stable organization and one of the
Australian Country Music Industry success
stories, which is still working as hard as ever
to – promote Bush Ballad Music and it’s
artists .
Happy Birthday A.B.B.A.!●
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a member
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