Thursday, April 8, 2021

Looking Back on the April 6th 2021 Virtual Chapter Meeting

 Looking Back on the April 6th 2021 Virtual Chapter Meeting

 

This week’s virtual event was laced with comments, quips and jokes that artistic director Joe Cerutti was more successful in predicting March Madness winners that sports enthusiast associate director Tony Colosimo.  But Tonyaccepted the teasing well and didn’t seem to retaliate!!

 

It was a jammed packed chapter meeting with a few surprises.

 

The music team thanked all those members who took a few minutes to complete the first monthly pulse survey. The team also thanked the good number of guys who submitted the self-recording of “Chorus Line.” Late submissions will be accepted this week. Note that the next recording deadline is April 11th for “Never Fully Dressed.”

 

As part of the evolution of getting more and more of our guys singing on Jamulus, there will be another Jamulus Night on Fri. April 9th at 7:30 pm.  It will not be on Zoom but only on Jamulus.  Tony will be the leader/speaker.  There will be tag singing and encouragement on using this tool. If you need one-on-one coaching to get set up, talk to Tony in advance.  The Fri. night event will not be designed to teach or help you with major technical issues.

 

Joe announced that next week our guest speaker will be chief development officer for BHS, Jeff Fincher.  His remarks will lead into our discussion about our individual skills at “making the ask” for financial support.  The timing is important since we will be participating in our chapter’s major fundraising day – Spring2ACTion – on April 21st

 

Also next week Brandon Guyton will share his ideas on “How to be a Great Baritone.”

 

Tony conducted an all-important warm up session and asked again that guys come to the Zoom meeting having already stretched and worked to get the body ready. He was happy to report he had gotten a Covid shot today!

 

Next there were sectionals to work on “Sing” from Sesame Street. It will be a sing-along for our future shows. Singers should note that a revised annotated version of the song was released on Groupanizer a few minutes before the start of tonight’s meeting.

 

Work continued on “Sing” with a Jamulus quartet of Doug White, Tony, Paul Grimes and Steve White. Guys on Zoom were encouraged to sing along with the Jamulus quartet. Next week anyone on Jamulus will get to sing. Members of the quartet sang duets with various combinations of parts.

 

We changed to work on  the introduction to “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” in small groups. Leaders of those groups invited volunteers to sing and listeners to make comments.

 

Executive director Randall Eliason conducted this week’s business session.  He thanked Steve White for his dedication and hard work to prepare an annual fiscal report for 2020-21. 

 

As a reminder, the burial for John Adam’s wife, Jean, will be at Arlington Cemetery on April 9th at 10 am; and don’t forget to reach out to Mick and Sandy Stamps.  Cards, notes, letters are welcome since verbal visits are not possible. Their mailing address is 12305 Strong Ct., Fairfax, VA 22033. His email is mick.stamps@gmail.com.

 

News was also shared that former chapter secretary Martin Romeo died in February at age 69.  He joined the chapter in 1981 and left the chapter when his wife, Gloria,  died and he was a single father in 2011.  His career included retirement after 21 years in the Navy and then a glowing term as physics teacher for 26 years at Madison High School in Vienna.  Students honored him for his enthusiasm as a teacher and coach and positive spirit leader for their school community.

 

Randall reminded everyone that we will conduct another all-out effort to raise funds on April 21st during the spring2ACTion event.  This one day project is hosted to help local arts groups in Alexandria to raise much needed funds.  Last year we had a great success and so we will all be asked to contact people and “make the ask.”  There will be sectional competition again this year too.

 

Our special guest this week was Brian Lynch who serves as public relations manager on the marketing staff at BHS in Nashville (although he lives still in Kenosha WI). He was generous in his comments and reminders of successes of the Alexandria Chapter. He started with acknowledging early founders of the chapter such as Wilbur Sparks and Dean Snyder. His comments were aimed to help each of us to have our own special message of pride and enthusiasm as a Harmonizer. He has been a long-time cheerleader for our chapter at the Society level during his 30 years on staff.

 

One of his major points was that no chapter has shared as many leaders, teachers, communicators, administrators, or coaches for other all levels of barbershop. Another good point Brian made encouraged each of us to be comfortable saying good things about our chapter.  We might not have a fame problem but a frame problem – how do we frame our comments about chapter successes.

 

Our next  Harmonizer Tuesday meeting will be via Zoom again at 7 pm on April 13th, 2021. 

 

Until next time – editorjack!

(This message is prepared for your review if you were there, for your information if you had to miss, and as a historical record for the great things going on each week during the 72nd year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. - YeEd)