Hi DonD. Welcome to the Mudcat! Thanks for pointing out that there are many newcomers here, including yourself, who may not have read previous discussion threads on NOMAD and the Getaway, and various other recurring events.

Another acronym you'll run across in the current batch of threads is NEFFA -- the New England Folk Festival, held each year at the end of April in Natick, Massachusetts. This year's featival is April 19-21. Many Mudcatters perform there each year.

I don't know where you are, but NEFFA, NOMAD, and the Folklore Society's Getaway are all great places to meet fellow Mudcatters, and to put friendly faces with the unfamiliar names. Hang in there. We were all new once.

Jerry's absolutely right: if you stick around, and send personal messages ("PMs" -- see the "Quick Links" box at the top left of this page) to folks you'd like to get to know, you're likely to feel far more comfortable in short order. One other thing you might want to do is go to the "quick links" box and select "Member photos and info". That link will take you to, among other things, a listing of Mudcatters by geographic location, so you can find folks who might live year you (or just figure out who we all are and where we come from, in case we fail to identify ourselves).

Welcome, DonD. Kathy Westra(who lives in Maryland and is a Board member of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington and a regular performer at NOMAD, NEFFA, and the Getaway)