Member Spotlight:
Board Secretary Marie Walters

Marie was asked to join the board as Secretary in June of 2019 and was elected to the board to serve in 2020 and 2021. She comes from a background steeped in both music and community service, having worked in non-profits and government throughout her career.

Besides doing all the usual ‘Secretary of the Board’ type things like keeping Minutes, setting up meetings, sending out notices and distributing agendas, she also monitors the CBA voicemail, contributes to the Blues Notes, is one of the administrators for the Facebook Group and the CBA Facebook Page.

She took advantage of last year’s downtime to develop additional web-based skills including graphic design, non-profit management, marketing for social media, and UX design. You can see evidence of these skills in fresh graphic contributions in the Blues Notes, Facebook and the member newsletter.

Like many of our board members, Marie has also been involved in several projects and committees for the CBA, including the Performance Venue Project that partnered with Portland Parks on their Free Lunch & Play Program. She set up the GoFundMe that raised funds to allow us to provide 21 musicians with some income during the most extreme Covid restrictions last summer. She also took on most of the work of scheduling the many musicians within an ever-changing framework dictated by Portland Parks and Covid restrictions.

One of the first things she did as a board member was to introduce Roberts Rules of Order to the Board meetings. This has been a huge benefit, making our meetings more productive.

Marie is a longtime champion of diversity and social equality. Having worked within the BIPOC community in her homeland, she was involved in bringing about diverse representation and gender equity to each of the boards and committees she was part of. She brings the same energy and enthusiasm with her to this organization.

Aside from her very active role in the Cascade Blues Association, she occupies her time with fostering and transporting rescue animals. Although she hasn’t done it lately, Marie has been known to intentionally drive over cliffs, paddle through walls of water, and ‘live with the locals’ in far off places.

Most recently Marie was a beginning student of social blues dancing until classes ended abruptly last spring. When you see Marie at any live music event, chances are she’ll be on the dance floor. And if you have patience, and maybe steel-toed dance shoes, she’d love to practice social dancing with other blues dancers.