Become a CICO Ambassador! Daytime concerts and important, easy work!
Three questions:
1. Would you like to attend a free, excellent concert once a month?
2. Do you love the idea of helping seniors and musicians come together?
3. Have you always wanted to be called “Ambassador”?
Concerts in Care Ontario’s new Ambassador program began in April, and we now have SEVEN dyamic ambassadors. Coordinated by Board Director Jess Liu, they are music lovers, passionate about aging audiences, and love to help make our concerts smooth and wonderful. They come from backgrounds ranging from business and accounting to philanthropy to tv production and PR. Two of our ambassadors live in the retirement homes they are serving, the other five are creating relationships with a home in their area. And they all LOVE it.
Here are the main elements of this unique volunteer job:
Roles:
• Being the face of CiCO – identified by a Concerts in Care Ambassador Badge
• Introduce musicians (script provided) / recognize donors; Thank musicians
• Be available to help set up chairs / fetch bottled water, other needs of musicians (or venue)
• Hand out (and collect) CiCO post-cards
• Be available to collect feedback (it was terrific; it was too loud!), and relay by email any feedback/information back to Ambassador coordinator
Time commitment – an average of one concert per month for 8 to 10 months
Goals:
• Help develop and deepen relationships with venues and residents
• Help with visibility and branding of CiCO for family members of seniors (post-cards and introductions)
Here are two samples of Ambassador feedback:
Bob Weese
Great concert this afternoon by Colin Maier and Brock Burford. The large crowd was fully engaged with the lively and popular songs they performed
accompanied by guitar, violin, and saw. There was much toe-tapping, hand-clapping, singing along, and many requests. I did my ambassadorial duties with plugs for C in C and its supporters. Cheers, Bob
Laurie Few
I thought I’d share a few notes about my first ambassador gig for Concerts in Care. It took place last Thursday, March 28th. It was a fantastic experience. The musicians, Dexter Sonier and Alex George, were fabulous. Young and vibrant and really engaged with the audience.
Speaking of the audience, the people at the care home – staff and residents – were wonderful. The care workers were really involved with the residents during the concert. They wheeled the residents in and made sure everyone had a good spot to watch and listen. They went up and “danced” with some of them during the concert. They took lots of pictures on the staff i-pad. They were truly great staff.
And the residents had a blast. The ones that could were clapping along. Lots of heads were bobbing. And a couple people even tried out singing the lyrics, encouraged by our musicians.
Dexter and Alex had a very accessible program that focused on Ottawa valley fiddle music. Really fun. But my favourite part was when they asked for requests. “How’s this going to go”, I thought. Well, knock me over with a feather. The residents shouted out requests that included Hotel California, “a Queen song”, and Leonard Cohen. And our courageous musicians did them all. And really well!
I felt proud and honoured to be representing Concerts in Care.
If you are a potential Ambassador, write us at hello@concertsincareontario.com or call Debra at 416-571-6170 for a connection. We would love to meet you!
