Looking Back on the February 2nd Chapter Meeting

The weather took a hit on us tonite, but even that didn’t discourage everyone. We had a good crowd of singers. In fact, the stage was full again of guys working on their stage presence with Chuck McKeever.

Will Cox did the vocal warm ups which included some practice on Singing Valentine songs. Dean Rust gave a testimonial about his experiences singing in quartets and making Valentine deliveries.

Tony Colosimo had up front duties tonite as Director Joe was not back from Hawaii. Tony gave McKeever a chunk of time to drill and rehearse the moves for “Hello My Baby” while the front row worked on their own to drill their part.

After that, the chorus was dismissed into sectionals to work on their music. Then they reconvened and worked on putting it all together.

As the snow continued to fall, the plan emerged to end early. Dan O’Brien reported we have 111 men signed up to sing in Philly, but that our goal is still 120!! There were no guests tonite, but YeEd noticed the new guys were all there!!

Past President Brad Jones reported that his team is considering the weather this weekend and how it will effect the Presidents’ Ball, currently scheduled for Sat. nite at Durant. BUT stay tuned – it might be moved to Sunday at 1 pm if the Rec Center gets closed by the city officials.

There are tickets left, so email Jack Pitzer editorjack@aol.com to get a space for yourself, and a guest if you wish. Just $15 each. You can settle up that nite.

This year’s Ball, tho being held at the Rec Center, will feature several touches to make it special and still affordable. Guest speaker will be Mark Hale from the often-gold-medal Masters of Harmony in California. He is thrilled about coming to give us all a message of cheer, motivation and inspiration.

The main course will be catered. Other food items will be brought by members –
Last Name A-C bring hors d’oeuvers to go with the reception;
Last Name D-J bring salads/veggies;
Last Name K-P bring sides like vegetables or starches;
Last Name Q- Z bring desserts.
There will be a cash bar during a reception period from 6 – 6:30 pm in the lobby of Durant.

Then at 6:30 we will go into the banquet room (it won’t look anything like the usual meeting hall!). Member Pete Frank is coming down from PA to do the DJ honors for the last part of the evening. Mike Kelly’s new quartet, ENTOURAGE, sing for us as well.

This traditional event also will be our nite to honor men from our ranks and set the goals for next year’s team of chapter leaders. (Former members and chapter friends are also welcome to buy tickets, as well as our many brand new members.)

This Thursday nite is the first stage presence review session at Lee Center, at 7 pm, for stage right. Stage left in next Thurs, Feb. 11th, same time and place.

Tom Kern offered to help anyone who needs white tails for Valentine gigs. And he pleaded for more guys to get him their sizes for the new uniforms for Philly. Members should give Tom their current suit size, dress shirt neck and sleeve length, waist size. He would prefer to get the info via email (tkern@caci.com).

Bob Rhome insisted that those men he asked for credit card info for Philly reservations must take action to contact him.

Eric Wallen stressed that we need a crop of singers to fill the many requests we are getting for Singing Valentine gigs. This is a major fundraiser for the chapter and is as important as a big singout. We need about the same number of singers to contact Eric and help.

Terry Reynolds yielded to early closing and will get out more details about evaluation standards. He alerted us that there will be new self-evaluation forms for both singing and visual uses.

VP Klostermeyer closed the meeting about 8:45 or so. Since the roads were bad, we called 815 Southside and alerted them that we would not be there this week.

We sang “Keep The Whole World Singing” and packed things away. But the early closing did not stop some quarteting in the hall nor a group of guys from singing the new ballad.

Guest reporters Kennett and Buechler gave YeEd some info about the recent Mid Winter BHS convention in Tampa. This International event is “more fun and less hectic” they report. It features a Senior’s quartet contest and one of our members, Mike Wallen and his buddies in YOUTH RECLAMATION PROJECT, came in 9th; and Darryl Flinn was in the fifth place quartet, LIGHTLY SEASONED.

Alan Durick, John Adams and Scott Werner were there as past seniors quartet champs. Alan Wile and Chris Buechler were there for the Society Board meeting. Other Harmonizers noted among the attendees include Tom Gannon, Chuck Harner, Bob Hirsh, John Hohl, Ross Johnson, Keith Jones, Sam McFarland, Phil Stern and Bob Thames.

Some former members there were Dwain Chambers, Larry Deters, Joe Kane, Bill Ward, Paul Wietlisbach and Jim Gammon.

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.)