Edmonton Folk Festival
I've never met Terry Wickham, the executive director of the Edmonton Folk Festival for the last 20 years, but after reading the article about his festival, I want to shake the man's hand. Apparently, there was a glitch on the first day which caused some trouble in the line up. There weren't enough volunteers to deal with a sudden surge of spectators and people waited longer than they should have to get in.
Rather than go into spin control, Terry Wickham came out and said it was their mistake and they would handle the problem with more volunteers so that this wouldn't happen again. I have to say that his honesty was totally refreshing in a world governed by spin and perception.
I've been reading with a heavy heart all the articles about Ron Liepert and how he's been handling the dismantling of regional health boards. Rather than come out and admit that he may have mispoken when he originally was quoted as saying higher salaries were to blame, he's gone into major spin control and blamed the media for misquoting him. Okay, if there's been a mistake, here's Ron Liepert's chance to clear the air and tell everyone the real reason for sacking the public health officials... so far, I've seen nothing that makes sense. In this province, we get what we vote for... and many of us didn't vote, so we got a whole lot of nothing! I did vote and I will continue voting, but I'm starting to lose heart when I see people caring more about what goes on in the rest of the world than in our own backyard.
Apologies... that rant took me off course from the real purpose of this blog entry, and that is to say that this city needs more people like Terry Wickham and less spin doctors. Way to go Folk Fest!
Comments
Amen to that! Terry Wickham is a god in the eyes of many folk festers, and with good reason. Happily, I think this resulted in the line-up being a little more cheerful about the problem than might have otherwise been the case. Around us, at least, there were comments like "gee, whatever they changed for today- they really ought to change it back" made in a fairly good natured tone. I think it speaks volumes that one entry line-up being slower than usual made the news, too. Expectations are obviously pretty high when a few minutes wait results in a press conference and apologies!
Posted by Stephanie on August 12, 2008
Good to know that Terry is heralded in the folk fest community. I guess if someone is around an organization for that long, it must mean that people want him around for that long.
Posted by marty on August 15, 2008