Looking Back on the Oct. 13th 2020 Virtual Chapter Meeting
This was another busy chapter meeting for the Harmonizers. Director Joe Cerutti launched this week’s Zoom session with a welcome for out-of-towners this week. Then he thanked all those singers who have worked to record both singing and performing in the correct costume for the virtual holiday show.
He stressed that if any member is having trouble with the recording process, please reach out to him or to associate director Tony Colosimo. They will help everyone.
But several times Joe confessed how much he misses all the guys and of course singing live!
Tony conducted a vibrant warm up session starting with a reminder that he hopes guys will do some physical warm ups before 7 pm – stretching especially. (He was truly remote this week – from a rental property at Bethany Beach in DE.)
After warm ups, the attendees were sent to sectionals where they worked on “Carol of the Bells,” “Gloria,” and “Caroling Medley” for the virtual holiday show on Dec. 20th with Northwest Sound chorus.
Those sessions were important to clarify special spots in the songs and to emphasize the plan to “base all recordings on the learning tracks!”
For this week’s check in via small groups, the topic was “What is the most useful non-musical app on your phone?” One guy confessed he didn’t have a cell phone! There were a lot of app that you would guess – GPS, Google Maps, Google search, Waze, WhatsApp, gas buddy, Uber, Map My Walk, Amazon Smile, and My Scrip Wallet (Randall Elliason gave a quick promo for guys to add this one and help the chapter raise money via its Scrip program. Ken Ivesis the guru to help you learn more.),
During the brief business meeting, Randall reported good news that the Alexandria Arts Alliance (which our chapter belongs to), is having a virtual fund raiser on Oct. 24th and has accepted our two-minute video created by Dean Rust and Joe Cerutti with help from Mike Kelly that tells about our chapter and chorus over a background of a “Circle of Life” live performance.
Chairman of the Harmonizer History team, Jack Pitzer, gave a brief update on that committee’s recent work to add a large collection of things from Wilbur Sparks such as original Echos, show scripts from the original Spring Tonics, and many years of board minutes. These additions and the materials recently donated by Terry Reynolds, and materials expected from Steve White causes the committee to purchase new shelving for the history storage unit on Dove Street in Alexandria. They are also working to update the info in Documents on Groupanizer such as the Memorial Roll of men who died while members of our chapter. If you have materials that would help tell the history of the chapter, contact Jack.
There were two electives to wrap up this week’s meeting. The first was part two of Alexander Koller’s recorded session on “Embellishments” He is a member of Barbershop in Germany and a music judge candidate for BHS.
The second elective was “Community Outreach” presented by Joe Cerutti. It was a thorough look at how a chapter can provide specific services to a community without expecting anything in return. Joe was able to use a ton of examples from our chapter to show how it can work. A few examples included our variation on the Singing Valentines idea with us presenting them for free to community audiences, our collaboration with Alfred Street Baptist Men’s Choir for choral fellowship, and adding inner city school music groups to our holiday show.
Next week’s Tuesday meeting will be via Zoom again at 7 pm. Watch for email details. The individual break out session will be a time for members to share “Describe an ideal afterglow on a chapter meeting night after we start meeting in person again?”
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)
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