The American Federation of Musicians Southern Conference of Locals

Hello!  This is a report from the first day of the southern conference convention in beautiful and exciting Las Vegas. The Southern Conference will be followed by the International Convention. 

Dena and I arrived in Las Vegas Friday night, and thanks to our niece Hannah who lives and works here for Cirque du Soleil, we were able to see the show “Mad Apple” at the New York New York Casino Friday evening. It was a great show with fantastic music. 

The Southern Conference began Saturday morning. We started out with a welcome to all the delegates. There are 29 delegates attending from 31 locals in the southern conference. Shortly after the meeting started, we were broken into groups to discuss community relations with the locals. I was placed in a group with two international executive board members: Dave Pomeroy, from Nashville Local 257 and John Acosta, the delegate from the LA Local 47. Also in that discussion group were delegates from DC, Houston, Atlanta, & Chattanooga. It was interesting because I was looking for ideas for our Local; ideas that they had that could be scaled down to our membership. Surprisingly, they were interested in some of the things we were doing -- such as our online calendar and the use of “Jisti Meeting” as a video conferencing software. 

There was a lot of discussion about the American Music Fairness Act in Congress. There are monies being held in foreign countries that are due our performers, however, because Congress has not passed the AMFA those monies have not been paid to our members. There is a strong lobbying effort underway to get the American Music Fairness Act passed in Congress. 

There was much discussion about the music performance trust fund and the benefits that it can bring to a local. We, as a local, exceeded our allotment last year by about $6000. However I was surprised to find out that some large locals had exceeded their allotment by more than $100,000! It is recommended that when applying for funding in the future, to apply for the money even if you have exceeded your allotment. Your applications will be judged on a case-by-case basis. 

This is what I will do.