in recognition of the life-work of Pete Seeger
an encouragement toward a nationwide
establishment of poetry & folk music coffeehouses
for peace, health, justice, and the common good.

Clearwater Coffeehouse is a project of
The Unitarian Universalist Poets nationwide

BACKGROUND ON CLEARWATER COFFEEHOUSE
a national coalition of liberal church-based coffeehouses.

Minimum of 5% of the door & concessions (not profits, the gross!) goes to The Clearwater Foundation or an environmental effort of the congregation’s choosing.

The first Clearwater Coffeehouse opened at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Athens Ohio on May 6, 2000 with featured poet/emcee Jennifer Bosveld, founder of the UU Poets Cooperative (1996)--the national organization of poets who happen to be UUs. In honor of Pete Seeger, Jennifer & Sonja Coble opened singing Seeger’s well-known Where Have All the Flowers Gone and audience joined in. We had two featured poets and two “co-stars” and two featured music acts. About ten read at Open Mic. Michael Bujega and Jennifer Bosveld were featured. Bosveld had been invited to present a Sunday Service for the Athens congregation and she and UFA liaison Kathleen Evans-Romaine turned the visit into a weekend with Saturday night coffeehouse being named after the sloop Clearwater efforts to clean up the Hudson River in New York--a project replicable many places. Bosveld asked that the Athens coffeehouse name itself Clearwater in honor of the socially-conscious folk singer/songwriter Pete Seeger who has worked hard to attract volunteer help on the sloop used for the clean-up project in New York. Seeger, now 80 years old and a UU, has never sought celebrity for his name, only for the cause which has long been headed up by others.

A former director of a disaster research center, Bosveld has studied a library full of reports on emergent citizen group activity and results of popular outcry-to-action on ecological crises we can do something about. She has also worked for environmental projects and academic earth sciences departments; her husband, Jim is in the seminary to become a UU minister; his ministry is “intentional living.” For 15 years Jennifer Bosveld has earned her living as a poet and president of Pudding House Writers Innovation Center which includes a workshop facility and Pudding House Publications. They are currently producing a large anthology,FRESH WATER: Poems from the Rivers, Lakes, and Streams, scheduled for release in 2001. So all of this comes together to contribute well to the founding of this national UU coffeehouse effort.

START A COFFEEHOUSE--WE'LL HELP!
UU congregations nationwide now have help for sponsoring and drawing attention to monthly or weekly coffeehouses on their sites. The UU Poets Co-op is offering start-up assistance: marketing and technical support. About 15 years ago Bosveld and UU minister Don Rollins started The Otherside Coffeehouse (now managed by The Columbus Folk Music Society) at 1st UU in Columbus Ohio. Bosveld has been on the founding boards of over 20 nonprofit organizations.

Clearwater Coffeehouse Guidelines
Position statements and recommendations:

Clearwater Coffeehouse is totally independent from the sloop Clearwater organization in New York and uses the word “clearwater”, which is merely a word and not solely copyrightable or a registered trademark, only to honor the work of that organization. Neither the Clearwater organization nor Clearwater Coffeehouses are in any way officially connected nor are they responsible for the actions of the other.

All Clearwater Coffeehouses are independent of one another and solely governed by their managers on site with ultimate authority from the sponsoring UU congregation providing the space. The UU Poets Cooperative, the UUA, nor any other UU congregations or Clearwater Coffeehouses are responsible for the actions or content of any of the others. Clearwater Coffeehouse managers are editors in a sense and should exercise “editorial rights” to not choose for display any work that is not in keeping with UU Principles and Purposes or that does harm to anyone.

These guidelines are offered with the spirit of the best possible advice we can give but are just that, guidelines, not rules. However, years of studying audience and participant reactions and experience, including what wears people out or discourages them from coming back and conversely what grows into a “healthy habit”, is behind these suggestions.

How to Start and Sustain a Poetry and Folk Music Venue that Serves the Common Good.
Here is a list of recommendations for operating a church-based coffeehouse event open to and serving the community.

1. 2 featured poets and two featured music acts a night, (or one and one) plus plenty of time for open mic. Featured poets should be from very different places artistically, geographically, and in performance style. This helps assure a larger audience and makes for a more interesting stage each night.

2. Open Mic should be a tight ship. Nothing keeps audience from coming back as much as beginners, excited about their own work, permitted to go on and on. DO NOT ALLOW a third poem. Make a joke of it and take people off stage every time this happens so that people will get the message, take it seriously, and won’t feel singled out if you “choose” to say something one time but not another, which is not fair to anyone. This goes for haiku as well. Hard & fast rule and my most important advice: 2 poems or 5 minutes whichever is less. You can always go back around again if there is time.

3. Inclusiveness. It is not good enough for Clearwater Coffeehouse to “try” to be inclusive; this must be evident among featured readers and performers at Open Mic as well. Ways to assure an inclusive venue: Invite minority featured performers. Distribute flyers exhibiting a welcoming attitude in nontraditional places and in every neighborhood of your community. Invite two representatives from each of these catagories to serve on your advisory committee: gay/lesbian/bi..., African Amercan, Native American, Asian, Central American, people with disability. Won’t THAT be great! Struggle to make sure there is representation for at least three of these categories all the time. There should be no aesthetic discussion about “that’s not poetry!” based merely on cultural practice/differences, for example, rap should be invited into the venue as part of the mix as long as it doesn’t violate UU Principles and Purposes or encourage violence against women, ANYone, earth, building a caring community (in otherwords,no ganstarap). The seated coffeehouse manager is the equivilent of a book editor and has editorial say for the contents of his/her stage and can make these decisions. Frankly, we’ve never had an issue over any of this in any of the coffeehouses I’ve been involved in.

4. No hate or violence messages from presenters. To continue with ideas expressed in #3. This isn’t censorship. She who runs the stage gets the say and only life-affirming work will be given voice at Clearwater Coffeehouses. This is a stage for ideas consistent with the principles and purposes of Unitarian Universalism if they are to use the name “Clearwater Coffeehouse.” This allows for a broad range of poetry and music.

5. Invite plenty of non-UU poets and musicians for both featured and open mic spots. Warn the UUs not to tell “inside jokes”, not to bad-mouth other religions/beliefs, not to OWN the place. Let everyone feel like they own a piece of the stage, a piece of the opportunity, and they’ll all want to invest in this idea.

6. Be welcoming, not snobbish. Build enthusiasm for poets and musicians beginners thru advanced/wildly publishing professionals. Welcome all styles and encourage academic friends to support this effort for a long list of reasons, including how others can learn from them. Concessions might be delegated to another committee (such as youth group or gay/lesbian/bi or diversity committee) to enable them to be involved and to give them a chance to make money.

7. Decide IF this is an intergenerational event. If so, be ready to deal with the fact that coffeehouses are often seen as opporunities for adult themes, hot politics, risky topics. Children,if they come, should attend with “parental guidance.” Think about providing child care in another part of the building. It is difficult to read some poetry if children are acting out,chattering or running around, crying. Personally, I would promote this as an adult (including teens) event and try to provide childcare for young ones.

8. Dates should remain consistent all year--like 3rd Friday of each month, 1st Sunday, etc. Avoid Saturdays because of conflicts with wedding receptions and preps for church the next day.

9. 7-10pm or later, or minimum of 3 hours. Enough time to make the drive worth it for out-of-towners and for people who have given up other options for the evening. Do not design this for those who don’t have a passion for poetry and folk music. Let those people leave early. Create an event people can feel like they can sink their teeth into for an entire evening. People who get tired easily, or don’t have a tolerance for hours of listening can just leave early. Let them. Additionally, however, CC managers can assure a more interesting venue by offering incentives and many ways to be involved. Spice up the action with audience participation activities and incentives.

10. Incentives and Audience participation activities:

A) Book raffle. For every $1 donation into the passed hat (mid-evening) they get a raffle ticket. About 4/5 into the night a featured poet draws and presents the book prize which has been donated by an independent bookstore or by a publisher. (Thanks Poetry Forum at Larrys/Columbus).

B) Group Scrabble. Tiles face up in a pool, allow each person attending to play ONE word. (no prizes, just fun, something to do.)

C) Poetry/CD/tape Swap. Everyone brings a book/cd/tape for the swap table. If you bring one, you get to take one. Bring two, take two. It might be best to limit this to three from each person. Some people might especially look forward to the coffeehouse because of the swap.

D) Sales table. Your local UU Poets Co-op members could run this if you have representation in your congregation, or the coffeehouse management, or the church in general. Whatever you decide on. This should be only for music and literature sales. Define those terms broadly (like bumberstickers are literature too!). Feature for sale UU’s work and the work of the featured acts or people who have come out of their way. All attending might be encouraged to place their publications for sale as long as they agree to the terms of placement. Here are some reasonable guidelines:

1) 30% to the sponsor/coffeehouse (this is easier to figure than the standard 35% and not the huge bite that bookstores often want--up to 55%. Make this percentage be a gift as well. You might go for less: 10-30%.

2) All products must be marked with price and vendor I.D. Any item placed without being appropriately priced/identified is removed from sale.

3) Aesthetics. Sales table manager decides on display/placement. No vendor signs. Products and their tags speak for themselves. Actually get checkered table cloths for tables--do have tables--and candles if fire code will allow.

4) Sales only if present. Products are placed only as long as the performer is present. Items left are considered abandoned and become the property of the coffeehouse or may be discarded.

5) Sales thru Cashier. All sales go through the one central coffeehouse cashier, the same person who is taking donations at the door. However, concessions should be separate.

6) Take checks, cash, and if your church has it, credit cards. I never worry about bad checks. Make checks payable to the church or the sponsor who has an established reputation. Our cashier runs a long columnar pad for posting itemized purchases from the cover charge to individual vendor sales. In otherwords, “JamzzzSection” would have their own column, Mary White her own. Be prepared to issue receipts for people who need them.

E) Collaborative poem. Post a long Kraft Paper roll for each patron to write a line for the audience collaborative poem for the evening--maybe on a theme for the night. Give poeple an excuse to get up, stretch their legs.

F) Word Jar/Bowl. Emcee draws 10 words for the night, posts them, and the audience member who makes the best and shortest poem (or song) using all ten of the words wins--something: book, $5, funky certificate, you decide. The last 15 minutes of the coffeehouse could be “The Soon To Be Famous Already Hilarious Word Jar Readings” for example. People told to line up in a row. Audience votes. You tweak the rules/process.

G) Other poetry/music games: Each person is a word, wears their word, then they sort themselves into a poem. Name that poem/tune.

H) Sing-along-set. Offer one set for this. Some people attend church just to sing. Some people WILL come to the coffeehouse just because they know they’ll be able to sing folk songs and new songs in a group. Make it clear it’s only for this set. Some performers can’t perform if people start singing with them. Once sing-along starts in an audience, and clapping to the music, it is difficult to get audience to stop that. Maybe sing-along comes late, right before the word-jar set. Make the evening escalate with excitement. As people are winding down, wind them back up.

11. Televise. Think about televising your event on your local or closest cable access station. Contract for the right to produce and edit your own film. Edit it well, it represents UUism,Clearwater Coffeehouses nationwide, poetry and what it has to offer, that folk music is still alive,that people are writing and reading and singing about things that matter, that there is a place to go and be with people who aren’t all like you, and more.

12. Handouts welcome re: poetry & folk music events/opportunities. No handouts on sales table. Operate a table specifically for handouts for: other area venues, literary announcements,UUPC membership forms, kula, Inc, UU district arts/lit events, Beacon Press poetry info (flyers/bookmarks from Beacon), other publishers of UU poets (Pudding House, Skinner,Aurorean, etc.), GA Poetry announcements, SUUSI poetry events, sloop Clearwater information, local UU church newsletter, any other information your local venue leaders think relevant, and information on your local project should you choose that option. Share the community; don’t think you are in competition. You are in cooperation.

13. List your events with the upcoming Clearwater Coffeehouse Calendar on the web at www.puddinghouse.com keyword clearwater. Encourage use of the Clearwater Coffeehouse Calendar when they travel--show up for each others’ coffeehouses. Venue managers, give special attention to UU Poets breezing through from far away. Allow them 3 poems or seven minutes maybe.

14. Advertise your event in arts datebooks and entertainment columns serving your area, in poetry and music calanders on the web. Make up quarterly flyers to put in windows or on tables in: libraries, your church and others, poetry venues, music coffeehouses, other places where such things are picked up. Try to get printing donated. Keep costs LOW.

15. Email newsletter might be a good idea. Send once, with a request that anyone not interested in this remove themselves from receiving future announcements.