Pam Carter – Mariposa Folk Festival

How did you first get involved with the Mariposa Folk Festival?

Well, many years ago at the gym, two of the four Wise Men – the Wise Men were the group that had the vision to bring Mariposa back to Orillia – were joking around and thought I should stand for election to the Board of Directors. So as the conversation went on, they finally convinced me to do so and I did, and I wasn’t successful in that year so I moved on to other things.

But my partner at the time was the lead for Performer Shuttle and he was short of drivers one year and he convinced me to be a shuttle driver, and I did so reluctantly, I said “fine, it’s one weekend I can do that”. Well, that just led – you know, here I am.

So I did that for a couple of years and then my friend was a Volunteer Coordinator and she was looking for help so, “sure, I’ll give you a hand doing that” and then the Festival Coordinator resigned and I was asked to take on the festival coordination.

And it was pretty intimidating because even at that time a number of years ago, 12 years ago, it was a big festival and it was very different to my paid work that I had done for many years, although a lot of the concepts were the same. So I agreed to do it, the Board of Directors at the time felt that the festival Chair should be on the Board so they could have more open communication and keep tabs on what was happening, so I joined the Board of Directors, became Vice President, and in 2013 I was elected President and I’m currently organizing my 12th festival.

Wow! All right, so just be careful what you volunteer for.

That’s correct.