Special guest Nancy Nygren CEO, Girl Scouts of Orange County joins me on Monday!

If you missed this week's show featuring Nancy Nygren, you can listen to the entire interview here.

About Nancy Nygren CEO, Girl Scouts of Orange County 

As CEO of the Girl Scouts of Orange County, Nancy is focused on ensuring life-changing experiences for girls across Orange County and advancing the community’s understanding and appreciation of the value, importance and relevancy of Girl Scouting. Serving as CEO since 2005, Nancy champions leadership opportunities for over 23,000 Girl Scouts and training for more than 10,000 active volunteers across every zip code and neighborhood in Orange County. 

She has achieved extraordinary growth and increased revenue during her tenure, pairing an entrepreneurial spirit with a culture of discipline to build a constructive and collaborative culture where staff members are aligned around a clearly defined vision: to create the best leadership development experiences for all girls in Orange County.

Nygren has effectively implemented strategies at Girl Scouts that address a changing market, including cultural, systems, and process analyses. Her forward-thinking philosophies have shaped an enhanced business model that optimizes both the quality and quantity of leadership opportunities the Council’s Girl Scouts receive. Nygren was recently honored as one of the Orange County Business Journal’s top Women in Business. 

Nygren came to the Girl Scouts of Orange County with a vision that non-profits must embrace and integrate corporate best practices to thrive. Nancy’s career began in the aerospace industry where she was responsible for business development, project planning and operations, including the development of a winning proposal that yielded tens of millions of dollars of contracts. Prior to joining Girl Scouts, Nancy effectively led the design, construction and financing of OCEAN JOURNEY, a $93 million aquarium facility in Denver, Colorado and developed a regional center for science, art and culture as CEO of the Naval Training Center Foundation.

Tracy Newman and Beth Fitchet Wood joined on the Get the FUNK Out Show!

Today on the Get the FUNK Out Show, two very talented ladies joined me! First up, TV writer and producer, and accomplished singer/songwriter Tracy Newman and then at 9:30am, another very talented, creative lady...singer, guitarist, composer and producer Beth Fitchet Wood joined us to talk about their up-coming gig and more! If you missed the show, you can hear it here.

ABOUT TRACY NEWMAN
Tracy Newman is a TV writer and producer. She started as a staff writer on Cheers. In 1997, she won an Emmy and a Peabody Award for co-writing the groundbreaking “coming out” episode of Ellen. In 2001 she co-created the ABC comedy, According to Jim. Tracy has been playing guitar and writing songs since she was 14. Her band is called Tracy Newman and the Reinforcements. Her first CD was “A Place in the Sun,” (2007.) Her new CD is “I Just See You,” (2012.) For more details: www.tracynewman.com.

ABOUT BETH FITCHET WOOD
Beth Fitchet Wood is a folksinger from Phoenix with Long Island, New York roots, who cut her teeth on the Sons of the Pioneers and Rodgers and Hammerstein, with Harry Belafonte and Georgia Gibbs thrown in. Beth sang and played guitar in Honk, a rock 'n roll band that ranged from Mahalia Jackson to Cream to Freddy Hubbard, who landed several major record deals in the early 70's and toured with Chicago, Loggins and Messina and The Beach Boys. In the 80's she began writing, and all her influences melded with her own voice into an indescribable yet familiar expression. 

Her songs are very personal and intimate, and though the folk idiom is strong, her harmonic structures betray her jazz roots. She has made 5 CD's on her own, has appeared as band member on 5 others, and has sung on countless other projects of every description, in most languages. "Shared stages" with a phonebook of the most influential musicians from the '60's through the present. 

She won first place songwriter at the Tucson Folk Music Festival in 2009, and in her home town, Laguna Beach, has hosted (for 7 years!) one of the best Songwriter's Showcases anywhere. It's gotten such a reputation throughout the United States that touring songwriters stop by from all over the country, providing a different musical adventure every single Tuesday. The atmosphere gives musicians a rare opportunity to stretch artistically to a very appreciative audience. She also played a main stage set at the Far West Folk Alliance conference in 2009. Played main stage sets at folk festivals and conferences throughout the west, and in 2011 was one of three nominees for Artist of the Year by the Laguna Beach Alliance of the Arts. 

Laura B. Whitmore founder of Mad Sun Marketing, Organizer of the first annual Women’s Music Summit joins me on Get the FUNK Out!

Laura B. Whitmore and Orianthi NAMM 2013

If you missed Laura B. Whitmore on today's show,
you can listen here.

Laura B. Whitmore is a graduate of Hofstra University with a B.S. in Music Merchandising and an M.B.A. in Marketing. As the marketing manager for Korg USA for 20 years, she was instrumental in marketing, PR and artist relations for the iconic Korg, Marshall, and VOX brands. She was also editor of Korg’s ProView Magazine. Prior to that, she worked in the Direct Marketing department of CBS Records.

In 2008 Whitmore left Korg USA and founded Mad Sun Marketing, a boutique agency that specializes in marketing, PR, artist relations, event production, graphic design, and more for music and audio companies. Past and current clients of Mad Sun include 65amps, Academic Superstore, Acoustic Amplification, Agile Partners, Colby Amplifiers, Dean Markley USA, Jammit, Korg, KVRaudio, Muse Research, Music First, NewBay Media, Notion Music, Peavey Electronics, SIR Entertainment Services, SIR Stage37, SoundTree, Sterling Audio, and more.

A singer-songwriter herself, Whitmore is the creator of the GuitarWorld.com featured blog series, Guitar Girl’d. Whitmore has hosted and moderated several workshops and panels at events such as NAMM and SXSW on the topics of marketing, PR, apps and music making, songwriting, and more. She is the co-host of a new open mic series as part of the West Coast Songwriters Association in her town of Lafayette, CA.
In 2012 Whitmore launched The Women's International Music Network, better known as The WiMN. As the umbrella organization for a variety of events, and a blog, news feed and event info site, The WiMN's mission is to promote and unite women in the music and audio industries.

As the first official event of the organization, Whitmore hosted the first annual Women's International Music Network breakfast and the She Rocks Awards, which took place during the NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA, on January 25, 3013. The event honored industry luminaries such as producer/songwriter Holly Knight, guitarist Orianthi, Tish Ciravolo from Daisy Rock Guitars, Mary Peavey of Peavey Electronics, Laura Taylor of Guitar Center, and more.

Whitmore organized the first annual Women’s Music Summit in 2012, which took place in Upstate New York. She is currently working on the 2013 Women’s Music Summit, which will be hosted at Musician's Institute from July 26-28, 2013 in Hollywood, CA.
Find out more at thewimn.com and mad-sun.com

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King today...think of ways to make the world a more peaceful place.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King

http://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-king-jr-9365086

"At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love."

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Two special guests on today's show...Bryan Golden and Jeffrey Briar!

Two special guests today on Get the FUNK Out on KUCI 88.9fm (streaming live on www.kuci.org)...first up, Bryan Golden -- a highly rated professor, speaker, author, and nationally syndicated columnist. He is listed in Who's Who in America. His popular column is enthusiastically read by a nationwide audience.
Bryan is also a recognized self-development and motivational expert. For more information,  visit: www.bryangolden.com. 

Second half of the show, Jeffrey Briar, Champion of Laughter for Health. Jeffrey Briar is the Director of The Laughter Yoga Institute based in Laguna Beach, California.

Jeffrey is the Founder, Laguna Laughter Club
First Laughter Club in the western world to meet seven days per week
They have welcomed more than 20,000 laughers since June 2005
www.JoyfulB.com

If you missed the show, you can listen here.

Amanda Gresham, Barbara Hammerman of United by Music and Julie Jenkins joined me on Get the FUNK Out Show!

If you missed this week's show, you can listen here.

ABOUT UNITED BY MUSIC

Imagine a world in which no prejudice exists based upon race, creed, color—or intellectual capacity. That is the world that we at United by Music North America, and our growing support base, envision. In our case, we have turned to the power of music to bring people together.

United by Music North America is a U.S. based 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Its mission: To further the scope of United by Music in Europe by providing programs of study and performance in blues, swing and jazz music for muscially talented people with intellectual disabilities in North America. We aim to improve the quality of life for members of our company and challenge public attitudes about people with an intellectual disability showing that we are more alike than we are different and profiling the exceptional talents of our company members.
United by Music North America is a direct offshoot of The Netherlands-based United by Music, founded in 2006 by Joris van Wijngaarden, a Netherlands health care industry executive. Entertainer Candye Kane worked with van Wigngaarden to hone the concept behind United by Music, and today she serves as musical director of the organization.

The Movement Expands:
The Founding of United by Music North America

When United by Music founder Joris van Wijngaarden expressed a desire several years ago to plant the seed of United by Music in North America, his musical director, Candye Kane, knew just who to turn to. She referred him to Barbara Hammerman, President of Hammerman Philanthropic Partners, and Amanda Gresham, CEO of Delta Music Experience. He reached out to them, encouraging them to bring United by Music to the US and Canada with backing from the Netherlands organization. And of course they agreed to take on the launch of the North American program.

Amanda and Barbara worked with Joris’s team in The Netherlandsand with Candye to discover the core of the program and to shape it so that it could be replicated in North America. They created a rough draft of a business plan and put together a focus group of Barbara and Amanda’s colleagues to review the plan and to share their thoughts with Joris' team from The Netherlands.
Those individuals met for a three-day retreat. Arthur Steinhorn, a Portland musician employed by Special Olympics Oregon who had considerable music festival experience, was invited to join that group. From that gathering, the business plan was refined to reflect certain cultural differences between North America and Europe. The decision was made to create a way to demonstrate this program to live audiences in order to cultivate an awareness of United by Music’s mission. What emerged was the first Showcase Tour in 2010.

This two-week tour, with support from the European-based United by Music, took an ensemble composed of musicians with and without intellectual disabilities through nine cities in the U.S. and Canada. The tightly scripted 60-minute program of entertainment and information concluded with a Q&A session. The only "ask" was whether audience members felt this program would have value in their community. If they agreed that it would, they were asked to consider working with United by Music NA to develop a team in each of the nine Showcase cities.

As United by Music NA moved from the Showcase Tour phase through a methodical follow-up with the local teams, there was a natural evolution of communities that exhibited more initial strength than others for what was required to take United by Music NA to the next level.

Due in large part to the relationship that United by Music was able to develop with Portland through Amanda's involvement with the city’s signature Waterfront Blues Festival and Arthur's expertise and interest in the project, Portland was selected as the site for the first United by Music program development in North America. The other communities that participated in the initial Showcase Tour are still being cultivated.  Each will come "on line" with a training and performance program as soon as they are strong enough to sustain such a program.

United by Music NA , by choosing Portland as the pilot program city,is building upon the established European program of selecting musically talented people with intellectual disabilities and engaging them in a program of education, rehearsals and performances right here in North American communities just as United by Music has been doing since 2006 in Europe. This program is, in fact, not new, but has been proven a success in Europe. With this foundation for success, United by Music NA is destined to fulfill its mission here of raising awareness about how connected we all are through music, community and our universal aspirations to lead inspiring and fulfilling lives.

Sheldon Abbott, from Cure for the Blues, joins me on this Christmas Eve special!

HOLIDAY SPECIAL!

Sheldon Abbott joins me on this Christmas Eve special! Also, took a little trip to Norad Tracker to see just how Santa does it each and every year :D Happy Holidays everyone and a very Happy, Healthy, Peaceful 2013!


If you missed the show, you can listen here.