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Sigh... what is more annoying than applying for grants? Well... I would say that doing the grant acquittal at the end after the event is right up there!

Sure, getting the extra grant money is really really really nice! But as a musician, when the concert is done... the concert is DONE! And for most of my musician life... well, that means that you walk off stage and move on to the next project!

But since founding a small music ensemble and arts organisation with my wife... well, the concert is the most pleasurable part of the whole experience... but it is not finished with the concert. There is the administrative, financial, and logistical wrap up of everything... to mention the last trails of publicity... reviews, donor contacts, and audience and volunteer thank you emails.

It usually takes about a week to finally wrap everything up completely... and to get it all out of our heads.

... and the bulk of that work has fallen to me, but my wife handles a good chunk of the prep publicity... and she is starting to learn the post-concert wrapping as well.

But the grant acquittals is still on my plate... as I'm the one who generally does the complete submission (with input from my wife... ) and so, I'm the most familiar with the whole process... and especially the budgeting side of things, which my wife is really not so good at!

And what I hate about the acquittal process is trying to state and present all the outcomes in the manner that addresses the funding priorities from the funding body... and quite often, I will have written the application several months ago... and I honestly won't remember what I have written, and so I have to re-read and re-familiarise myself with all of that before starting the acquittal proper.

... and I sort of know that pretty much everything won't be read at all... but I like to be comprehensive about it and do it properly. And thankfully, learning how to write on HIVE has given me so much practice in trying to order my thoughts into a coherent written piece... although, given the state of this particular post... you probably wouldn't know it! On the other hand, we have had the very enviable record of 4 from 6 grant applications being successful... so, something seems to have stuck, even if I don't know what it is!

Anyway, I'm hoping to have tied this one up in a day or two... in between other concerts.

... and then we can move to the financial wrapping and reconciliation of the past two weeks of concerts and mini-festival! These are definitely NOT skills that we were taught in the music conservatorium...

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