Looking Back on the January 12th Chapter Meeting

That excitement was still in the air tonite!!

Fun thing YeEd noted was that black hats were appearing everywhere – guys wearing them, piled on tables, being tossed to each other. Found out they were gonna be used as training hats for the front row’s work on the new uptune. Ken White had put out a call for guys to bring in a supply of the “Happy Feet” hats for the guys to use.

Treasurer Howard Nestlerode arrived with a handful of paperwork and checks or receipts to deliver. Another important Harmonizer job that is done outside chapter meeting.

Mark Klostermeyer alerted early arrivals to check for the new riser line up (on the nifty magnet chart he has made) so everyone could be set in place for the 7 pm kick off.

Tony Colosimo did the warm ups and worked the singers hard to be prepared for good singing. Right away at 7, the front row went to the lobby of Durant to work with Cindy Hansen who was in town to teach the chorus the uptune staging plan. (YeEd heard that she also worked with the Pride of Baltimore chorus on Monday.)

During the warm up period, Tony used “Heart of My Heart” so that guys would get some review in preparing quartets for the Singing Valentine program. Before the 7 pm start, Chuck McKeever had another large class of guys on hand for stage presence review up on the stage at Durant.

Director Joe stepped up to direct and used his time for a review of “Great Day” and “New York New York” that will be sung at the Guest Nite on Jan. 19th. Joe made a heartfelt plea for every guy to bring someone and spread the word -- not just to depend on the membership team to do the work. We are all on the team including those members who have joined in recent months, or those who have been members for a long time. Members who are not active are certainly welcome to visit and/or bring a friend or neighbor who likes to sing.

Then Joe welcomed Cindy to great cheers from the chapter. She set the stage about the dual team of her and Geri working on a first class contest package. She and the chorus worked hard until 10 pm!!! It was awesome. What a plan. And the guys were able to dig in and learn it and perform it pretty darn well. Cindy had met with chapter visual team leaders over the weekend to brief them, so they could help with the training. Director Joe also was in on the visual planning and so he made sure it all worked well with the music. He particularly made certain that the rehearsal of moves was done at a tempo close to his plan for performance.

At 10, we had our chapter meeting period. Secretary Buechler gave new member materials to Andrew Plocher and renewal member materials to Myles Glancy. He gave a 13-year renewal card to Brian Miller and a 36-year card to Rick Savage.

Steve White, assisted by other Harmonizers who are members of the DELA honor club, welcome newest DELA member from our chapter, Joe Cerutti. Congrats to Joe. BTW, Steve is 2010 president of DELA.

Terry Reynolds reminded front row that they would be having practice at 6 pm next week. He also reminded vocal evaluators of their duties. This group has worked to be certain of consistency in their work.

Membership guy, Dan O’Brien, reminded all of the Jan. 19th guest nite and the useful promotional tools for guys to use. Then he welcomed several guests and new applicants Jeremy Richardson and Bruce Roehm.

Josh Roots is chair of the Singing Valentine program this year. He announced his needs for staffing help, and especially pushed all to consider forming a quartet. The chapter can handle the marketing and paperwork well, but we need a lot of quartets!

Before closing for the nite, Cindy thanked all the men for their hard work, dedication and support. She also reminded us of the Cruise she and Director Joe are organizing for July 18-25, 2010. It will be on Holland America. Sam McFarland will be a contact person for t his event.

So—after a long nite of hard, fun, work, we sang our closing song and packed things up and headed to the after glow at 815 South Washington.

Many guys stopped by to buy their tickets for the Presidents Ball event, Feb. 6, 2010, at Durant this year. Happy hour starts at 6 pm, dinner at 6:30 pm. Tickets are only $15 per person. Tables of 10 are available to arrange, so ask your pals about sitting together and see YeEd next week.

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 of the great things going on each week at an Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter meeting. —Ye Ed.)