Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
REVFW
J1UJIC TIRADE
VOL. LXXIV. No. 10
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
March 11, 1922
8ln I
* £.£ > SS
Make the Good Work Permanent
W
HAT will be the ultimate effect of the transcontinental trip of President M. V. DeForeest, of the
National Association of Music Merchant s, and the members of the Jubilee Convention committee
who are accompanying him on the tour that comes to an end next week in St. Louis? There
can be no doubt of the current success of the tour, for Mr. DeForeest and his party have been received
enthusiastically by the music merchants in every locality visited. It has not only succeeded in bringing together
large groups of retailers, but has actually brought a substantial number of new members into the Association
ranks.
The tour has demonstrated that music merchants generally are sold on the advancement of music and
organization ideas; that they realize the benefits which accrue from getting together and working for a com-
mon end and in most cases are waiting only for the stimulus to crystallize their interest and have their ideas
put into practice. The main thing now is to devise ways and means for maintaining the interest that has
thus been crystallized and welding it into a permanent factor in National Association development.
Some few years ago a representative of the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce made an extended
tour throughout the country and succeeded in arousing great enthusiasm at practically every point visited.
The tour was well arranged and well advertised, and resulted in the formation of a goodly number of new local
associations, which started out full of energy and promise. Unfortunately, however, for some reason or other
the interest in a majority of cases was not maintained and after a few meetings a number of the new associations
either became dormant or died altogether.
With this experience before the Association officials, close and immediate study should be given to
the problem of making permanent the good effects of Mr. DeForeest's tour. It has been made at considerable
expense to Mr. DeForeest and his associates, both in time and money, and represents one of the finest moves
ever made by a trade Association official in this industry, but if the enthusiasm aroused is but for the moment
then much of that time and money has been wasted.
There is no need to draw a pessimistic picture of the possible results of the tour, bill there is need for
remembering the lesson taught by past experience and endeavoring to formulate some definite and permanent
campaign for the benefit of local trade bodies that will give them concrete programs upon which to work—
programs that are calculated to be of continued interest and to keep the local bodies in active operation.
It is not to be expected that through Association work there can be found a panacea for all trade ills.
The getting together of the men of the industry in trade organizations will not likely have any direct effect upon
sales nor will it have an immediate and definite effect on the turnover of musical instruments, but organization
unquestionably will serve to preserve the strength of the industry and represent a force that is calculated to make
an impression not only upon business men in other lines of trade but upon the public at large.
A national Association lives and continues to grow, not because a big convention is held once each year,
but because the national officers by one means or another keep in contact with the membership, directly or indi-
rectly, throughout the year. There is something tangible programmed each year and the work is carried out
according to program, and it is what is done during the fifty-one weeks of the year lying between the convention
period that makes for Association success rather than the addresses and reports that are made annually in the
convention hall.
The same plan of contact will probably work out very successfully in connection with local associations.
Tt can't be expected that men of the industry, even though they be trade Association executives, can afford
the time or the cost of even an annual pilgrimage throughout the country. Having created the enthusiasm for
Association work, the next move is to formulate a definite plan for keeping that enthusiasm alive. Upon the
success of such a plan depends the real success of the tour.
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