Operating Support

We use surveys with audiences, students, student parents, and the community to gauge what we are doing, how we can improve, and then distill the results down at board meetings to find meaningful ways to implement changes. We meet at least monthly as a board to address both short- and long-term goals and strategies. We also will have a board retreat with a paid consultant in January 2024 to assess long term goals and strategies and to try to formulate a long-range plan that is both realistic but aggressive in securing new funding and expanding our efforts in reaching more students in remote locations.; We are the only professional strings instruction of this caliber in north-central Minnesota. Grand Rapids is a relatively big city in this region, but outside of us and Hibbing, it's nearly 75 miles in any direction to reach a city of comparable size, so our net is broad. That is both an opportunity and a challenge, but we focus on the opportunity--to find and serve small communities, in addition to our own, and bring them all in under one roof for performances that reach and benefit anyone that wants to participate. Likewise, we draw in volunteer adult orchestra players from all over with similar impact and benefit for north central Minnesota and beyond.