LITTLE CURRENT—As with so many who volunteer, George Williamson has been giving his time to groups and causes for most of his life. These days his volunteering always involves music.
“Now, pretty much all I do is music,” he said. All winter he did the coffeehouse at the Little Current United Church on Friday nights – George Williamson and Friends, but who those friends would be was always a mystery. The open mic on Friday nights in Memorial Park in the summer are also a surprise in terms of who might show up. “It’s come to the point now where they know they can come. I’ve encouraged some new people. Sometimes people don’t feel comfortable at the start, but the whole intention is to give musicians an opportunity to play, have an opportunity to perform. I feel it’s important to be able to play in front of people. I always say, ‘When you practice at home, play like you’re performing in front of people.’” By encouraging young people to come out and perform, he’s helping them build confidence and, “once people know who you are… well, I’ve gotten gigs from volunteering,” he said.
Mr. Willianson admits it does take a lot of time. “I treat it like a business. I rent a mixer, a better one than I have, that’s my contribution to the thing.” This is tenth year of open mic (if you count COVID, it would be the 11th year). The donations of perishable food items and money go to the foodbank. “We’ve raised a lot of money, but it’s mainly about $5 or less that people will donate, seniors mostly come out, but boat people will sometimes join us too. I’ve seen people dancing on the docks. It’s a nice comfortable atmosphere – come as you want, go as you want. I did try to get the cruisers – the old cars in Gore Bay to come and join us – the atmosphere would be even better. It would be nice too if I could get some of the shops to stay open till about 9 on a Friday night, like they did for Ladies’ Night in the fall. That would get more people out. A lot of people don’t even know there’s music yet.”
The original idea for the open mic came from Joan Sagle, Mr. Williamson’s sister, who saw an open mic in Florida and mentioned it to him. He researched it and figured out how to run one and now it’s going on 11 years of operation.
Mr. Willianson’s first volunteering experience came in his 20s. It was with the Heart and Stroke Foundation – he didn’t know in what capacity he could help, and in the end, he found he was helpful in chauffeuring people around, guests who made appearances at the various events put on by Heart and Stroke.
His thoughts come back to music once again, “I’ve gotten so much out of music, so many friendships, so many opportunities, and it’s good for the island, live music. I try to encourage people to pay for musicians, on top of the volunteering. The open mic is an opportunity for musicians to play, and musicians love to play! They love to have people listen. It’s rewarding to have people say, ‘I really love your music.’”
“I was a boating instructor too, with Canadian Power and Sail Squadron in 79 I took the course. After the 3rd course they asked if I would teach the courses. By the end he was an executive officer, and through that experience he met a lot of interesting people. Having been with the organization for over 20 years, he is a life member of Power Squadron. This was all before getting into music in such a big way.
“The biggest hurdle to get over, when you’re volunteering is that you’re doing it for nothing ‘Why am I doing this?’ A person should never look for money.” Mr. Williamson’s advice for those looking to volunteer: “Just come up with something you think would be neat for the community – ask permission first, if that’s needed. Whatever you think of – just do it. We need to talk about it more in the schools,” he said.
George Williamson’s experience has made him a huge proponent of volunteering – the many benefits that come from it personally — friendships, experience, confidence and purpose, for the community the benefits are endless. He would like to see the schools get kids involved in interacting with their elders, interviewing them about their lives; he’d like to see businesses create job descriptions for volunteer jobs. He has endless ideas as to how these things should be carried out, all stemming from his love of and his belief in volunteering.
by Margery Frisch
