the following podcast is produced or sponsored by a community member the content views and opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not reflect those of b m c or the town of belmont p m c welcomes your comments call us today we begin the rd year of the community conversations podcast here at the belmont media center and i am pleased to welcome as my guest mary bradley who is organizer of belmont's upcoming ports fest festival in our conversation today we hope to peek behind the curtain into what goes into making such a community event really occur welcome to community conversations marian thanks for stopping over thanks for having me roger i'm glad  here before we really start can you give us an introduction to yourself who are you sure so my name's mary bradley and i've been member of the belmont community since two thousand and twelve when we moved here from seattle and about a year and a half ago i started playing music with a group called school of honk in the cambridge area and discovered the joy of honk music street honk bands and what do you play i play the trombone oh very badly but it's a phenomenal group and anyone can show up and play and they teach you how to play a couple of songs and then we go out and we parade around cambridge and it's so much fun so that's become a big passion in my life and last may i believe we played it the arlington port fast and it was such a blast that i thought belmont needed that and and so i came back and talked to some community members and a lot of people shared this feeling as well and so here we are today so now when you say ports fast and when i say ports fast i think we probably both have in image in our mind can you convey that image to our listeners sure so well ports best started in two thousand and six and seven in the can new york and what it is in different communities reflects the community so you're right that we have an image but it's going to have its own flavor in each community what the arlington porch best takes place on people's porches in their yards in their backyards their front yards their driveways and  it's often the person who lives in that house playing music but not necessarily always for example our band of one hundred and twenty people i think sixty people were there that day were playing on this backyard porch but not everybody but not every band played knows someone on the parts and yeah and then there's a series of bands playing on different porches over the course of a day not everybody plays at the same time exactly yes indeed people fall do people move from one porch to the next that legally that's exactly the idea and so in belmont the way we're doing is we're focusing on small areas of town for two hours at a time so people can walk around that area and see different different performances so they can go to one house on cross street and then go to another code and on cowden street to see different performers perform and then move to a completely different region of town so every region in town is represented for two hours now it's sounds like you had two choices to make one i mean you had multiple choices but two big choices number one who's going to perform right and number two is what porches right we're going to be  affiliated could perform and we just wanted performers we didn't want any organizations performing so it's just someone who works in belmont lives in belmont knows someone in belmont volunteers  belmont somehow affiliated with belmont and who just wants to perform and then they're welcome and then how did you choose the portraits people in a question behind the question there did people volunteer their porches and then you match the performers that's exe well so people had a choice to volunteer their porch or to sign up their porch and say no i'm going to play on my porch and just me or i'll play on my porch and someone else can join my porch so so how about half our porches are people performing on their own porch and the other half are people who said yeah put someone on my porch i don't know who it's going to be i don't care who it is just play the fun it'll be fun which i you know i am just so thrilled by that attitude that's exactly the porch best attitude and then when we sat down to actually match the performers with the porches we you know in the back of my head i was thinking oh i'm going to come to something i'm going to end up with you know a porch that i don't know who to put on or perform or i don't know who to you know i don't know where it's a good fit never happened every single match was a thrill i was like oh i can't either they were two people who know each other and are good friends in the community and already know that or they're two people who should know each other  i had i put a good friend of mine from school of honky place trombone and but in a different band he plays a different instrument and he is just he's so fun and so charismatic and man offered her house and we all know she's fun and charismatic so i put the two of them together and then a couple of weeks later they each wrote me that day and sit in bay had been introduced and they each wrote me and  asked a question about electricity you know how am i going to have access to electricity and road should i get all like trisha now to so i said hey how about you guys talk to each or so i gave them each other's never and they started you know they had a conversation about three or four days later i ran into and she said i love your friend steve he has so much fun you know so it's just i knew that would happen and so it's just i know that those kinds of things are happening all over town where the connections are being deepened or being made or being happened so yeah and was witnessed struggle maybe struggle overstates it a challenge to get the same number did you end up with more performers than porches or more per porches  performers it's or did it yeah happened to work out in the long run it's worked out there has been we close the registration on august th although i've been contacted up until last night by people saying can i get in last night i close close that our door hard and we have one issue that we're still dealing with but i think we're like ninety nine percent finished with the map in the porches  but there were there were some porches that dropped out there was there were some people who wanted to move there were some performers who dropped out just they had other things come up between the time they signed up or now so had to write notes everywhere as like what time would zone what precincts you know how did they all match up but but for the most part it it lined up perfectly now some people signed up and said i have no preference when i play some people said i can only play at this time they were like lots of there are a lots of little things that we had to make sure we were getting right i need electricity or i can't have a loud band because i have young children so there were a lot of details so how did you find time in your life to do this and this sounds like a full time job maybe even a full time plus it's a whole time plus i up it forty five in the morning because something wakes me up and i'm like i need to go to the computer and deal with this thing and i don't move for one thousand and twelve hours it's pretty bad my my twelve year old would come home and say mom what's the i'm like i don't know you know  in belmont and we've been talking about the individual porches but overall do you have a number in mind how many people and how many venues so how many performers how many so i think we're  so sixty in bell in you know on belmont's porches yeah saturday the eight to september that's right you can listen to music right on sixty porches right and also see some dancing there three dance performances and there's one book reading that's going to be at the library and so that's really exciting to watch and i'm hoping next year will have even more diversity i would love to get circus acts involved in soliloquy  just whatever people want to do getting out there to be creative and express themselves and the connections are amazing if you want to talk about growth rate before we go there ok you mentioned next year though and i had a specific question about next year it seems like and you can tell me this is not an answer book question but it seems to me that organizing something like this could find you going in millions of different directions and there would be some things that you would have to say we just can't deal with that and we'll we'll try it next year or we'll we'll put it in my job i call it the parking lot right but we call it you call it the idea vault and you have ideas that vault oh yeah it would be so much fun to have a petty cab and especially for people who are differently abled who maybe can't get to as many venues we want to make sure that  it's it's accessible forever to everyone in the community that's that's one that would require a do not grant so that would you know have to take place that would have to start sooner and in organizing that so yes that's one zero boy i'm not my i'm so focused on getting this out the door right now that the ideas will come up and they'll be fantastic and i'll be like oh throw it in the idea of all i've got to tell you one thing that has driven the rest of the team crazy is they'll say merry no throw that night and i will and then you know four o'clock in the morning and i'm up and you know i don't have any males in front of me and i look in the idea vault and i'm like i got to do well yes yeah she has yeah just get me through right and then talk about next year right i think that we have a plan to get together a couple of has ended we actually want to write a survey and send it out to people and get feedback also but we're going to get together to about how to do this next year this this started off slowly last september and it was something i would spend a couple of weeks on or a couple of hours on once a once a week and then about i don't know three months ago four months ago it became a full time job and now it's just exploded into something else we have a lot of people who are saying let us help let us volunteer and a lot of them are some people spontaneously just throwing things out if you go to our facebook page you'll see that a woman made a map that people could see there's one on our website now belmont porch best dot org that has all the listings and it's it's completely current and up to date as i said there may be a change coming in a couple of hours but but just just jumping in like that people from the community just jumping in and helping so to be able to mobilize these people next year in a smarter fashion and really use all of our resources so it's and some people maybe many people would assume then an event like porch fast has paid staff person but there really isn't it's an all volunteer effort on the part of some dumb residents that's right that's exactly right we have one person who was given like a ridiculously small amount of money to make a website for us but other than that yes it's been all volunteer and as a matter of fact the majority of volunteers have donated quite a bit of money to get this going so there's that ok we've been talking about the porches but in fact there is a grand finale  in the day and at seven o'clock it starts at five o'clock and five o'clock right at grove street park and it'll start with the high school marauders marching band which is going to be a blast they've been practicing for the last couple of weeks for this upcoming season so they're going to show up and they're going to play from five until six and then we're going to have pizza there for them as well as every other student who's performed or volunteered for porch best stonehearth pizza pizza is giving them pizza they'll also sell pizza to the rest of us so a so i envision that people are going to bring their blankets they're going to kick back they're going to end everyone in town is invited to join in one song together either dance sing watch because that's participating till or bring an instrument i might have just said that twice  but play a song called we've got that fire it's there's a link to it on our website there's a link to it on our facebook page it's on school of honks website which is school of honk dot org if you look at her music and you look for we've got that fire the music that she likes there and also school of honk learning how to play that song so everyone can have the experience of learning how to play a song in a honk band fashion or street band fashion so is it appropriate to say if you can't make any porch in your neighborhood the place to plan to be on september th is at the grove street park at five o'clock that's absolutely right and we'll also have big water ju there and we have water bottles of people need water bottles the one thing about grocery park as you throw in this just kind of a bookkeeping kind of thing is that when we started talking with the town about this because we've been working with the town we want this to be something that is positive for for everyone and having the expertise to the town way and was was very helpful in that they said if you're going to have that many people you might want to have police detail and ambulance beat detail  we did we didn't buy just for that so we are we do have shirts in water bottles for donations that will go to help fund the detail to just to keep this you know a safe and and positive experience for everyone and speaking of safety you would prefer my guests there when you would prefer that people go to as many of the venues as possible absolutely right on foot or on bike yes yes but you would prefer that people also walk or bike during the day rather than driving because driving might creates its safety issues absolutely also amber making this is green as possible that's why we have the water jugs and we have water bottles because we don't want people to use plastic bottles we would prefer that they use refillable and belmont coat composts is also going to be a grocery park to encourage people to compost their pizza waste and any other waste that they have so and will have to middle schoolers they're helping out to to keep it clean but people you know back in pack our well let's talk about kids i'm always curious as to whether there is a specific role for that has been carved out for kids that you said at the risk of high school students not wanting to be called kids you know there's a role for the the belmont high marching band right and so there's a role that you've carved out for middle schoolers are there other places where kids are being fit in oh absolutely i have a story along these lines there's no question behind a question but you know ok stay with my question folk a so yes we definitely we reached out we wanted the youth to be part of this whether they wanted to perform or they wanted to volunteer which is why we talked to stone her piece about providing the free slice of pizza for any kids who did but you and i thought oh we're going to learn them in with the pizza of course they want the pizza and they're grateful for the pizza but i found that they're really passionate about performing so we have quite a few kid performers we have the high school jazz quintet performing and it's funny i put them on one porch and they said well you know we want to be in another time so i found a different porch for them in a different time and they said no no we already found the porch for ourselves you know they were so they were go getters they were just they were so inspired to do it we have i can i yeah i tell you stories if if you haven't heard the belmont hi almost a decade so i don't even have a horse in that race but there's something to right here right when the septet is playing as well organize them so they're going to play then we have middle schoolers who are playing i think three or four groups who are playing and they're playing like this range of music just it's going to be so much fun to go see i'm i'm not going to say who i'm going to see but i definitely have a couple of the youth bands are like start on my list actually all of them are well my my story is that our next door neighbor blues grass type of group range in age maybe from sixty to their mid seventies but we have a neighbor kid who is in middle schools a trombone player and it's a pretty good trombone player and the sober home has given him a role to play with them airport's fast get me his name because he gets a piece of pizza that's fabulous that's wonderful i love that i'd like to talk about the administrative side it's not quite as fun but i think people might have an interest in it there are thirty people involved with helping to organize this right yeah about thirty yeah and does the town have a role did you have to get a license or permission or we didn't have to we we brought this to the board of selectmen back in february and they said that's great thank you we'd love to do it then i made the mistake of asking a question about insurance and the next thing i knew it's just a group of private volunteers who said this would be a good community event absolutely yeah yeah do you work with other community initiatives the the one that comes to mind of of we've talked to the belmont gallery of art about cross promotional and the belmont live public library is hosting powers music has been very supportive yeah so we've reached out to a number of the different organizations in town just to try to to build our network and cross pollinate but also just we're all excited about it so as soon as i've talked to any organization about it they want to be involved and help in any way that they can so it's been really the positive response has been overwhelming we have time for one more question and there is a young person who i don't want to do this show without give me an issue out about two i think your logo is just incredible and when i think that the logo was drawn right by a th grader contest because we needed a logo and we thought that that would generate some interest in the town and we got a number of really phenomenal logos and at the very last day here at davidson she's a fabulous musician and if you look at the logo the instruments are precise but it's a whole area slow go as well you have a fish playing a trombone and a panda playing a little cornet it's not a trumpet it's a cornet i mean it's just you know the big animals are playing let's zero in there so much when z enjoying it just to me it captured ports fast immediately but i recused myself and sent it out to our committee to paint it really wasn't something that we could transfer to t shirts easily which was something there have been many things i've learnt along the way doing this which was something i learned along the way so i also learned how to use illustrator and another adobe program but not very well and it was a struggle for about a week and a half to get the t shirt design going and i happened to go to the belmont gallery of art and i  happened to meet a woman named dean store who is on the board of the belmont gallery of art and we were talking about porch best and i brought up my experience with illustrator and the logo and she said i would love to help you you know what i had to do i know how to do that and i said fantastic well she is now so all the yard signs that you see in the banners that you see are her adaptation of kira's logo so and the prop the logo proper is on our original shirt and it's on our facebook page as well and on our website but all the different adaptations were done by a dean who is just lovely and wonderful and we couldn't have asked for a nicer person or more talented person to run in to randomly but you know that this is been the story of porch best i have a one thousand if we had more time i would tell you multiple stories of people just stepping up and giving their talent or their you know their their time their energy their thoughts it's just it's been i think that that's the understory in the administrative story of por best is just as powerful as the music on the porch is i think for me personally belief well thank you for coming today we're out of time i do want to push people towards your website which is belmont porch fast org that's right no dots no underscores just dhamma porch fest dot org that's right and also we have the face facebook page with the same name where people can ask questions well thanks for stopping over we have been speaking today with mary bradley who is the organizer of the belmont porch faust which is belmont's community music festival to be held on september th i would like to think mary for stopping over i would think like to thank you the listeners for tuning in you can access community conversations on the b m c podcast network at belmont media dot org or you can also find community conversations on i tunes all you have to do is search for the b m c podcast network you've been listening to community conversations i'm your host roger colton i will talk to you again next time