Washington Blues Society Internship

Posted on October 15th, 2009 in Internships

The Washington Blues Society has an Unpaid Internship/Volunteer Opportunity. The Washington Blues Society (WBS) is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote, preserve, and advance the culture and tradition of blues, Americana and roots music as an art form.

Beginning Date: November 1st, 2009
This is a non-paid 12 month internship position
Position Title: Newsletter Editor
Training: The current WBS newsletter editor will train an intern to take over the position of editor
Hours: Flexible, with a once a month 2 hour meeting (1st Thursday)

Blues Letter Editor Duties and Responsibilities:

Attend monthly Board Meetings on the first Thursday of each month at the Salmon Bay Eagle’s Club in Ballard.
The deadline crunch session each month that entails proofing and preparing the newsletter to send via electronically to the printer for mail distribution to members (group effort amongst key board members- president, director of merchandising and promotions and director of advertisement)
Willingness to become involved in a local organization that promotes local blues, American and roots musicians, events and venues.

There are 3 essential skill areas for this internship/volunteer opportunity:

Skill Set 1: Experience preparing a 20+ page Newsletter for a nonprofit in Adobe In Design for PC, report to an Editorial board, and have layout, ad design and production, and meet all publishing deadlines for a monthly newsletter. Experience with Illustrator, Photoshop and Dreamweaver also is desirable.

Skill Set 2: The basic skeleton of the Blues letter does not change. In other words there is a set framework and template and it does not require ‘reinventing the wheel’. The editor checks all submitted articles for spelling and grammatical errors; having good writing/proofreading skills is essential and equally important to being skilled in using Graphic/Web Design software.

Skill Set 3: It is essential that applicants be aware of the social commitment that being the Washington Blues Society newsletter editor should entail. At a minimum the blues letter editor should attend monthly board meetings. Board meetings take place in establishments that serve alcohol. The meetings are organized (have an agenda) and do have serious business to attend to, but also are not A-typical of ‘the board meeting’ one envisions. The board members are serious about their individual responsibilities and their commitment to the Washington Blues Society mission, but also are a social group that loves to have fun and listen to good live music. Having a love for music will help applicants tremendously!

This could be a fun internship for the right person! Check out the Washington Blues Society Website at www.wablues.org

Send your resume and a brief cover letter addressing the qualities that you possess that you think would be a great addition to our board and editor position. You can send your submissions to president@wablues.org.