IBMA Problems In the Light

Every week in our newsletter to subscribers we publish a little editorial comment about something topical from the week’s news or events.  This week however, we feel that this topic is so important to the bluegrass community at large that we’ve decided to reprint it here.

 

Thoughts on The IBMA !

It was with great interest that I read David Morris' article this week: IBMA at the Crossroads. I encourage every IBMA member and bluegrass fan to read it. It is well researched and well written regardless of whether you agree with the points made inside the text or not.

So, too, are the points and suggestions made in the numerous comments David's article has generated. Whether or not you agree with the individual commentators, the fact remains that we're struggling and almost fighting amongst ourselves over what we are as an organization and what we want to be – what Bluegrass Music was, is and will be. Is is going to take an Abe Lincoln to keep this Union together?

Reading between the lines in David's article one has to come up with numerous questions that still go unanswered. The first question should be, “how did we as an organization get in such bad shape financially and how did we erode so much over the first 25 years of the organization's life without anyone knowing it?” The next question should be, “who was minding the store?”

On the surface, I still have great hopes for the current IBMA leadership. On the surface that leadership looks good. It seems as if someone is minding the store. IBMA leadership has continuously surveyed members and non-members and published the results. However, I don't see evidence of change created by those survey results which makes me wonder just what is lurking beneath the surface.

The IBMA has continuously asked for suggestions and set up mechanisms to receive them. However, I wonder if all of the suggestions received are met with the same level of enthusiasm as those I've submitted. Each suggestion submitted by me was met with polite indifference. “That's a great suggestion, but here's why we can not do that” is basically what I've been told each time. Now I don't suppose to have all the answers and I know a few suggestions don't add up to a “quick-fix” but it seems to me that what we need most is a leadership with a CAN-DO attitude rather than what we seem to have now.

Is the IBMA leadership like the patrol car parked on the side of the road with the mannequin behind the wheel – making us THINK someone is there? You know once the public discovers the truth behind the dummy officer in the car the speeders are no longer deterred. As long as we think someone is in control at IBMA we happily go forward at the speed of choice – until we get a summons in the mail from the photo sensor.

That's pretty much what David's article is. It's that summons that says we have to appear and show cause. The next step is that we have to go before the judge, plead our case and take our sentence.

In this case the judge will be the public. It's not what WE want that is going to make the difference in the bluegrass world. It's what the public will buy and how much of it they'll buy. When no one is buying widgets anymore, only a fool would profess that widgets are the end-all, be-all while he slowly starves to death from lack of sales.

What I haven't seen from the public is a clear direction of what they want. And the public is fickle. What they want today may be totally different tomorrow. There's an old adage that says, “What the People Want is Not Always Right and What is Right is Not Always What the People Want.”

However, it is what WE want in an organization that makes the difference and when the collective WE can't seem to agree on what the IBMA is or should be we have the classic Mexican Stand-Off or in other words, a NO-WIN situation. The leadership I want in my IBMA is the one that stands up and LEADS rather than follows – first this way, then that based upon what this week's survey results reveal.

Growth is change. Without it – sure death. But change for the sake of change can lead to the death of an organization as well. I don't want a steady diet of Bill Monroe's “Uncle Pen”. Too much of anything can cause a burn-out and eventually a dis-like. But neither do I want to see a degradation of the music because of waffling over what is or isn't “Bluegrass” and the eventual wearing-down of the soldiers attempting to “hold the fort”.

IBMA leaders, I urge you to take a stand - one way or the other, but get off the fence. We can't survive by trying to be all things to all people.

Hat's off to David Morris for opening the door to shed some light. Hats off, too, to the IBMA for taking any positive steps toward solving this dilemma. But shame on the board for letting it get this far in the first place.

Have A Great Week!

-Brian McNeal