Dear Brian, wishing you the very best of health.

Thank you for starting JPF, I find it a really valuable resource for songwriters--I have learnt a lot since joining. I was thinking, it must be expensive keeping the JPF forums running. I was sad to read about the JPF chapters that have closed in recent times.

I would like to see JPF do well and continue on as a valuable songwriter's resource for many years to come. And to do this, I feel that you need to bring in some revenue from somewhere, without needing to depend on donations.

My understanding is that there used to be a JPF song contest, pls correct me if I'm wrong. I would therefore like to propose the following:
  • Hold a JPF songwriting contest.
  • Only JPF members can join this contest.
  • Registration fee of each song entry is USD10. The registration fee also acts as the ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FEE, so sending in a contest entry also makes the person a JPF member. :-)
  • Each member can submit a maximum of 5 song entries, to ensure only the best songs are submitted.
  • Winners are chosen similar to a Grammy Awards process, where JPF members vote for their favourite songs in the various categories, after a screening process.
  • For prizes, I feel that as a songwriter a valuable prize would be a one-song publishing deal with a reputable music publishing company (for each winner) + a year's membership to Taxi would be cool too! :-)

I hope that you and the JPF team will seriously consider this idea. I believe it's a win-win for everyone, especially for songwriters. I would also like to hear feedback from other JPF members on this.

I think that JPF has the brand and the connections to build up a really cool songwriting competition that every songwriter would want to join, knowing that it is being run by trustworthy people. Again, such a contest would be win-win for everyone. If I can help in any way to make this happen, pls let me know.

Cheers, ian

PS OK, I just saw this article :-) Pretty cool! Wish I had known about JPF earlier. The time, energy, and money that went into the JPF Music Awards must have been enormous. I'm thinking of a songwriting competition much smaller in scale that can be run without too many headaches.