Looking Back on the Jan 6, 2026 Alexandria A Cappella Collective Chapter Meeting
The board room at AlexRenew was crowded and full of AACC members present for the kick off business session of the chapter on Jan. 6, 2026. Members of both Metro Voices and the Harmonizers attended.
Highlights of the night and a complete set of the slides used for the presentations were emailed to all members.
After enough chairs were gathered to fit everyone into the room, artistic director of AACC, Joe Cerutti, bid Happy New Year to all, and welcomed members and guests to the start of another fun-filled exciting chapter year.
He welcomed TJ Donahue from Denver (stranded in DC after two flight cancellations for his trip to Amsterdam), and to Gary Cregan, who was back after several months of missing chapter with family issues he needed to help with. TJ actually was then present to receive his 14-year membership renewal card! And Gary was presented with his past due Meritorious Service Award from chapter president, Craig Kujawa, for Gary’s work in the previous year.
Joe invited shout outs from the members of good news to report: leading off with the exciting news that Sophie Clarke and Lance Fisher were recently engaged; other news bits included reports of pending family additions and grand-children on the way, retirements including Terry Reynolds!, new job start, new home purchase, and Ashley Merryman submitting her new book outline to the publisher. What a year already.
Next, Joe did a year-in-review for 2025 with the addition of congrats to chapter quartet,
INSTAGRAMPS, who won the district Senior quartet contest and are headed to the BHS MidWinter contest in Pasadena, CA, Jan. 13-18, to represent the M-AD and our chapter. Quartet includes Rob Seay, Rick Taylor, Jay Butterfield and Steve White.
The next review was a financial look at the chapter – some major changes to be implemented for 2026 to turn around a negative year-end figure, plus a change in philosophy about raising income: from members, from patrons, from business or outside supporters including grants. Basically, members are encouraged to support the chapter at least once per year at a level they can manage (and at least close to what they might have paid in dues). Some early efforts in fiscal year 2026 have been successful including a Major Donor Pledge effort from long-time chapter members.
Also, the chapter will be working to create endowments for funding the organization in the long term, and to align our efforts with those of other arts organizations.
In taking a look at the music team leadership for the chapter, there are mostly the same members. Christine Pan is the new bass section leader for Metro Voices. Tessa Walker is admin for that ensemble. Sheryl Berlin is admin for the Capital Force youth ensemble. There are two in-house AACC arrangers – Maggie McAlexander and Lance Fisher. Terry Reynolds is admin for the Harmonizers and will take on directorship of the senior, daytime, all-gender ensemble in the spring of 2026. A venue for their meetings is still needed.
Like the music team, the AACC board of directors, which works to manage strategy and high level policy for the chapter, remains the same with one vacancy to be filled in the coming weeks. Already announced 2026 priorities include refining philanthropic strategy, increase community awareness, implement operations team transition, improve fiscal sustainability, and ingrain nonprofit arts organization processes and ethos.
Joe and Chuck Miller from Metro Voices spoke about the operations structure – facing change for 2026. The AACC has grown significantly since the pandemic; has expanded more programs and events and experiences than our current structure can reliably support; relied heavily on a few “hero” leaders which lead to a challenge to find members to commit to major roles; and finally, confirmed the need to implement better management of a hired staff as general manager.
In summary, this change is not about replacing anyone. It’s about replacing an outdated system with something that helps us thrive long-term. Said another way, there will be some challenges and stress during the months ahead of change.
No doubt there will be more explanation about the switch over to triad team leadership – moving away from the ops team system of recent years. Those triad teams will be for finance, culture, membership, community, improvement, and communications. Triad teams are responsible for execution – strategy is still the responsibility of the board. Each of the three members of the triad team will have different responsibilities: one will head day-to-day operations; one will lead planning and pipeline development; and one will lead liaison with other triads.
Another announcement about this whole change is that the chapter has purchased project management software – Monday.com.
The hiring process for the executive director position will begin ASAP.
At this point in the chapter meeting, there was a break and then associate Harmonizer director, Tony Colosimo, taught the fun tag, “Run to the City of Refuge.” Business matters were addressed next starting with membership. Jacob Broude asked everyone to be sure their photo is on Groupanizer and Slack so other members can learn who they are. He welcomed Ben Raja, Logan Glauser, Owen Lyons and Laura Rutledge Assistant director of the Harmonizers, Jason Lee, led the chapter welcome song.
Cy Shuster presented a large batch of membership renewals for chapter members. The ones with the asterisk were not present – among those asterisked, there are many long time members who believe in the chapter and continue to pay dues every year – even though they cannot attend or sing. Thanks to them. (And thanks to Cy for preparing the list for YeEd to share!)
Mireille Kouagou 2 *; Catherine LaValley 2; Marsha Ansel 3; Ryan Mextorf 6 *; Adam Shepard 8 *; EJ Herold 10; Turner Arndt 12; TJ Donahue 14; Cy Shuster 14; Jim Kirkland 16 *; Ernie Doyle 23 *; Bob Rhome 24 *; David Reyno 26 *; Tim Cash 27 *; Scott Kahler 27 *; Tom Berkey 28; Lou Manfre 32 *; Jeff Taylor 33 *; Don Thompson 33; Mike
Geipel 34 *; Bill DePuy 34 *; Jim Lucey 35 *; Matt Kahn 36 *; Sam McFarland 38 *; Ken Ives 40 *; Paul
Grimes 42 *; Terry Reynolds 42; Rick Wagner 44 *; Joe Wagovich 44 *; Dave Ermlick 45 *; Mike Kelly 45 *; Mark Klostermeyer 45 ; Don Harrington 46; Larry Walker 46 *; Bob Bates 47 *; Andy Smith 48 *; Steve White 49; Eddie Allen 50 *; Randy Lazear 51; Chuck Hunter 53 *; Rick Taylor 57; Bob Bowman 71 *.
Joe confirmed plans for the launch of the 10th annual member interview process to be done in late January thru early March, 2026. The process includes each member responding to a survey form before their interview, then a one-on-one interview with a section leader or director. Joe and Samantha will each be part of interviews for all new members. Most interviews will be at Harmo House and are designed for the member to offer his or her suggestions, input, ask questions, and get to know chapter musical leaders better. There is not singing as part of the interview.
The 2026 calendar of events was reviewed and all readers should make certain to post those dates and events in their personal calendars!
Joe and Samantha spoke about the repertoire plans for each ensemble for 2026 – designed to provide songs so that the chapter can adequately recognize the 250th anniversary of the Nation. One of the songs for the AACC combined chorus includes a piece written by member Zak Sandler and arranged by member Lance Fisher – “We Will Be One.”
The big surprise for the night was announcement of a chapter trip to Japan in 2027! The Japanese Barbershop organization invited the chapter to appear at their convention in Yokohama in August 2027. The chapter will also appear at concerts in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. Brad Jones will be chapter coordinator for the trip as he has done for recent international trips for the chapter. Costs are reasonable and members were a buzz about going.
Leah Musico lead off a thank you applause to Joe, Terry, and Chuck for their thorough and exciting report to the chapter!
There was a big crowd of members and guests at an afterglow at the Harmo House – lots of pizza and goodies.
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 77th year of the Alexandria Chapter. - YeEd)
The Chapter Mission Statement: Enriching lives through vocal harmony in the greater DC area.
