Looking Back on the December 16^th

Amidst the holiday preparations, it was great to have over 90 singers present for this week’s meeting.  Some came to be present for the special election, as previously announced.

 

The Chapter Nominating Committee selected the following four individuals from the community to stand for election at the chapter business meeting on December 16, 2014, to serve as at-large members of the 2015 Board:

 

S. Elizabeth (Liz) Birnbaum

Ms. Birnbaum has extensive leadership and management experience in both the public and nonprofit sectors. She has served as staff director of a congressional committee, staff counsel to the House Committee on Natural Resources, and was director of the Minerals Management Service, a federal agency within the Department of the Interior that (although since reorganized and renamed) employed over 1600 people. In the nonprofit world she has served as vice president and general counsel of American Rivers and counsel for the National Wildlife Federation. Liz is married to Harmonizer Dave Kohls.

 

Paul D. Dolinsky

A repeated major donor to the Harmonizers, Mr. Dolinsky is an historical architect and landscape architect and is the Chief of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and Historic American landscapes Survey (HALS) of the National Park Service. His undergraduate degrees in architecture and landscape architecture are from the Pennsylvania State University and his Master’s Degree is in Architectural history from The American University. Paul has lived in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for 35 years and is involved with many non-profit civic organizations, in particular, Federal Lodge No. 1, the oldest Masonic Lodge in the District of Columbia. He is a 33rd° Scottish Rite Freemason. An organist and pianist with more than 50 years of experience, his life-long avocation has been in the field of music and as such has been a strong supporter of cultural and other arts program in the Washington metropolitan area.

 

Steven Sutton

Mr. Sutton is a friend of Mark Klostermeyer and fan of the Harmonizers. He has now assisted with our Silent Auction for the last two years and this year brought in over $3,000 from over 90 sold items. Steve is Vice President of Development (fundraising) for a $12 million a year non-profit. Prior to his non-profit career, he worked as a Chief of Staff to four freshmen Members of Congress over a 14 year period. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and coincidently is a classmate of Harmonizer Shawn Tallant.

 

John C. Roots

Mr. Roots is the father of Harmonizer Josh Roots. Both a licensed attorney and a decorated Marine (Col, USMC (Ret)), John served in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot and a Forward Air Controller at the Battle of Khe San. He retired from the military after 33 years of service. Outside of the Marine Corps, John worked for several major corporations in DC as a vice-president of government affairs. Additionally, over the past 15 years, John has served on the boards of both the national USO and the Armed Services YMCA. Now retired, he lives in Virginia.

 

For the 2014 Nominating Committee

Alan Wile, Chair; Scipio Garling; Troy Hillier; Mark Klostermeyer; Bob Rhome

 

President Terry Reynolds conducted the election. All were elected to serve on the board next year.

 

When folks arrived at Durant, there was the usual buzz of sales for White House Ornaments, scrip cards for holiday gifts from the FRIENDS IN HARMONY, payments for Pittsburgh registrations, and lots of work with uniform “wranglers” for Pittsburgh.

 

Choreographer Carlos Barillo began the chorus warm ups and associate director Tony Colosimo continued them.  Tony was in charge for the singing portion of the nite as director Joe Cerutti was in Nashville at headquarters. President Terry invited comments from the chorus to celebrate the successful holiday show and many men reported great customer reactions.

 

Tony introduced us to the new contest uptune and helped us wade thru some of the more difficult sections. After a chunk of time working on that, Carlos taught a new presentation plan for “Thriller” which will be used for our show later this year.

 

We did have to sing farewell (“There Will Always Be a Place on the Risers for You”) to Bob Griesemer who is relocating to another state.  He was a great member of the Harmo truck driving team.

 

The announcement period was a busy one, since there won’t be another chapter meeting and rehearsal at Durant until Jan. 6^th.  NOTE – we will sing at Inova Alexandria Hospital on Tues. Dec. 23^rd. Meet in the lobby at 7 pm.

 

Chris Huber shared news and communications exchange with our friend Peggy Harris who we sang to in France.  He read a poem she sent to the chorus.

 

Calvin Schnure prompted guys to plan ahead to help with Singing Valentines Feb. 13 and 14.  We won’t be selling these gigs, but making appearances throughout our community for public relations such as the city council, major donor stores, youth groups, senior groups, major shopping areas.

 

Craig Kujawa reviewed his recent email blast about plans for Pittsburgh, and especially the need for guys to pay for their registrations – to Ian Poulin.

 

Terry also reported the successful shows by our guys in TBD last weekend.

 

Brad Jones is wrapping up the auction and had a few unsold items on display.

 

Secretary Chris Buechler presented membership renewal cards to Vince Cazenas for 28 years and Chuck Harner for 47 years.

 

Membership vp Jeremy Richardson welcomed folks to the afterglow at LaPorta’s tonite.  And then Rich Hewitt introduced and welcomed our guests for this week.

Operations vp Bob Blair welcomed guys to take a break – there were goodies from our friends at Pride of Baltimore SIA chorus. And several homemade platters of goodies from our guys.  Thanks to all for sharing.  [By the way, YeEd (also the holiday show cookie monster) was asked to try to find out who brought the almond gluten free cookies to the show.  People want the recipe. Let YeEd know.)

 

Chapter historian Martin Banks brought another interested display for all to enjoy about our chapter.

 

After the break, we were released early this week.  Several front row guys worked in the lobby while other men put things away.  And some guys who will do a special performance in mid December, worked on their song list.

 

In other news, about two dozen guys were able to make it to the Francis Scott Key Middle School on Monday, Dec. 15^th to help Joe conduct a youth harmony presentation about  barbershop singing.  We conducted the session twice – once with the boys’ chorus and once with the larger mixed chorus.  The students were great.  It was fun.

 

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 during the 66^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.