I'm Bob Nisbet, I'm the founder and producer of the Ottawa Grassroots Festival.
So the first year was a one day and one evening and it was great.
The goal of the festival is not to earn a profit exactly, the goal of the festival is
to benefit the community in all kinds of different ways and it does.
Looking back every year, it's not just about doing the festival, it's also about being
part of the community that puts on the festival.
So these people are not just people that I do the festival with, they're my friends.
I like that it seems to be a real community event and everybody is involved all ages and
I like that it's accessible and I like that they're doing different kinds of community
things like building two string ukuleles.
The festival is really keeping it, it's a community festival, it's something that everybody
who's part of the festival has something to do with the community.
I think this is awesome, just meeting so many contacts and seeing other local musicians
is awesome.
We never intended the festival to grow big, that's not the object, we want it to be good.
And if it's good though, it grows by itself.
You know Bob Nesbitt is such an enlightened and such a skilled team builder that there's
an amazing team here and they're all on the same page in terms of what the vision is.
I think we're trying to blur the difference if there is any between those who are disabled
and those who are not.
I think just saying, you know what, this is a continuing spectrum of people and they're
all capable of contributing to the arts and I think that ultimately is the goal of this
festival.
In this festival, accessibility is not just an afterthought or an add-on, accessibility
is an attitude and it's built right into the festival so that when somebody with a disability
shows up at Ottawa Grassroots Festival, it's not a big deal, it's already taken care of.
It was always meant to be an inclusive festival and it becomes a little more inclusive every
year when we are another, you know, so it's kind of neat and I like it like that, so we
all like it like that.
One grade nine, which was two years ago for me, I was trying to volunteer at a music festival
and this was pretty much the only one in Ottawa that you didn't need to be 16 and you were
able to volunteer at, so I volunteered at that one.
And then just recently at our school, we were having this little event and then Robert Nesbitt,
who runs this festival, got three performers to perform at our school and so in return,
I got a bunch of my friends to volunteer at this festival this year again.
This is our first year at the South Miss United Church.
It's a gorgeous location and very central, easy to get to for people.
The room in itself is such a great room so I'm really looking forward to hearing how
it's going to be.
And even though I'm not part of the Francophone night, but it's nice to have it, you know,
bring in more people that are doing either French or just both.
This really is a place where you're going to feel the sense of community.
This seems to be on the right path to me, it just feels really, really great.
I mean, we just did the workshops all the time.
Tonight's the sort of main stage show, so I'll have a better feel for it at the end
of the night, but it seems like it's really well supported and really well organized and
everybody's just nice and great sound, everything just really friendly.
I think it's pretty, I think it's going to be good.
I'm really glad to be part of this Grassroots events and I think that Grassroots Organizing
is the future.
It's nice, it's really casual, it's fun hanging out all day, you know, not up to your
knees in the mud and that's a big deal, trust me.
You know, it's challenging to grow and evolve and still stay true to the original vision
and stay true to your roots, which, you know, in this context of folk music, we think it's
important to actually acknowledge roots and to literally be true to the roots of the music
in a very dwindling way.
