About Us
Leadership
Current Board members:
Ed Hilton, President
Hali Hammer, Vice President
Thad Binkley
Charlie Fenton
Bob Helliesen
Daniel Hersh
Phyllis Jardine
Alina Larson
Jerry Michaels
Dave Sahn, Treasurer
The San Francisco Folk Music Club (SFFMC) is a California non-profit corporation led by a board of directors. The board manages “the business and affairs of the Corporation”, as stated in the SFFMC bylaws. The SFFMC articles of incorporation can be downloaded here and the bylaws are here.
SFFMC board meetings (currently in a hybrid Zoom/in-person format) are held on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 8:00 p.m. All club members are welcome to attend board meetings. To find out how to attend a meeting or to contact the board for any other reason, email us at info@sffmc.org or call 510-473-6651.
The San Francisco Folk Music Club, one of the leading folk music organizations in the Bay Area, is dedicated to the enjoyment, preservation and promotion of acoustic music in individual, family, and community life. Our members include singers, instrumentalists, performers, song writers, dancers and listeners.
We have musical meetings in person twice a month and online four times a month. We put on two folk festivals and four multi-day camps or gatherings every year, as well as an annual online event called Spring Harmony Online. We publish the folknik folk music newsletter and we host the Harmony e-mail group and a Facebook page. We’ve been around since 1948!
Musical Meetings. We hold in-person song swaps and jams on the second and fourth Fridays of each month from 7 pm until 11 pm at St. Cyprian’s Church at Turk and Lyon streets in San Francisco. This venue has 5 separate rooms for jamming and lots of easy street parking within one block. We also have online musical meetings on the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays of the month from 1 to 3 pm, and on the 1st and 3rd Fridays from 7 pm until midnight.
Music Camps/Gatherings. On the weekends of Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day we have multi-day folk music gatherings in the Bay Area. Our Camp Harmony takes place over the New Year holiday.
Festivals. We present the San Francisco Free Folk Festival every summer and the El Cerrito Free Folk Festival every October, with performances, workshops and more. Admission to both events is free.
Spring Harmony Online. We host this online multi-day event every year. It draws participants from around the world.
We publish the folknik, the Club newsletter, every other month. It contains a schedule of folk music events in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, original songs, news of Club activities, and articles of general interest.
Our Harmony email group is devoted to discussions, announcements, and whatever is of interest to the Bay Area folk music/dances communities. To subscribe, visit https://groups.io/g/harmony.
Our purpose is the enjoyment, dissemination and preservation in individual, family and community life of that acoustic music roughly defined as folk.
The work of the club is done by volunteers. This keeps membership costs low. Decisions are made by a Board which meets the second Tuesday of each month at a location announced in the folknik. All club members are welcome at these meetings for discussions on practical and policy matters affecting the Club.
We are a non-profit corporation (501(c)(3)).
We were founded in 1948 – for more information, see our History page. Because there are many whose love of folk music causes them to devote a considerable amount of time and energy to the club, it has grown to hundreds of members, has inspired/mothered/fathered some five folk clubs in California and is a solid musical entity in the West Coast music scene. Some members have gone on to fame and fortune, such as they are in folk fields, becoming professional performers.
For further information on the San Francisco Folk Music Club, please write SFFMC, 1609 Woolsey St, Berkeley CA 94703, or email info@sffmc.org
You can now join the club or renew your membership online! If you’d prefer to use postal mail, you can still print out our membership form, fill it out and mail it in with a check. For membership inquiries, (including any issues receiving the folknik) please write SFFMC Membership, 149 Santa Maria Ave, San Bruno CA 94066, phone (510) 473-6651 or email membership@sffmc.org.