The Association of
Public Relations Officers
and Bulletin Editors
of the
Society for the Preservation and
Encouragement of Barber shop Quartet
Singing in America, Inc.

ADVISORY BOARD

Herb Bayles W.Grant Carson Dick Girvin Mike Jones Brian Lynch Waldo Redekop

Escondido, Calif. Dallas, Texas Hemet, Calif. Louisville, Ky. Kenosha, Wis. Hillsburgh, Ont.

Oct. 4: Oct-Dec

_____________________________________ Thanks to the foresight of those who established PROBE and made it what it is today, we are well organized, have a set of bylaws, a treasurer who is bonded, make annual reports to the Society, plus a few other thing.

I am happy to report that PROBE is alive and well. We have a new PROBEmoter editor, John Petterson, who is producing our quarterly publication regularly. If any of you want to submit an article, John would be happy to consider it. It seems that very few of the members actually send in articles. Also, please send him a copy of your bulletins.

At the last meeting in Atlanta, I asked if anyone would like to be the Webmaster of a PROBE page. Thanks to Arnie Wade, we now have a page that has more useful information than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. There is a lot of material to download and useful in chapter publications. The PROBEmoter is there, many other articles and we are starting to add clip art.

If you have not recently checked it out, please visit the site again. Thanks to Grant Carson for supplying most of the materials. If anyone else wants to submit material, Arnie would be very happy to consider it. We are looking for someone who is willing to supply new cartoons and clip art. If anyone is interested, please contact Arnie Wade, the Webmaster, or any of the executive.

Our secretary/treasurer, Brian Lynch, reports that we have sufficient monies in the bank to undertake some new ventures. Of course, I need your input as to what it is that you want us to do for you.

Our vice president for marketing and public relations, John Sugg, has reported on his activities and the results of the forum, so I won't repeat the news.

Our vice president for bulletin editors, Grant Carson, again ran the BETY contest for the districts which was very successful. He has had four new judges certified and I will be presenting the certificates shortly. He has also, with the assistance of the category specialists, revamped the score sheets for the contests and proposed some slight changes to the rules for the contests. They have corrected a lot of the things that had been bothering editors and judges for some time. The news score sheets were used during the past contests and a motion to accept the new rules will be submitted under new business.

All judges were recertified this year before the judging sessions began. It is planned to do this on a regular basis to maintain a standard of judging that we can be proud of. A number of new judges have been certified thanks to Grant and the category specialists. These new judges will be receiving their certificates at this meeting. There still are a number of new judges who are working on becoming certified and a few who are working on becoming recertified.

Our IBC chair, Dick Girvin, again ran a successful contest, the results of which you will hear shortly.

This year we are again recognizing the long-serving judges with a certificate. All judges who have served five, 10 or 15 years will receive a certificate. Thanks to Buddy Meyers for creating and printing the certificates.

We have created a new certificate for the district contest coordinators thanks to Bruce Anderson, and I will be presenting them in a few minutes. The district contest coordinators are the gentlemen who run all three contests within the districts and do a lot of work behind the scenes to allow the contests to function at all. We again have some inductions into the PROBE Hall of Honor, which Lowell Shank will do shortly. Each year after someone is inducted into the PROBE Hall of Honor, a name badge is sent to them shortly after the induction takes place and I will have this done as soon as I get home.

We still do not have an historian to preserve and record that PROBE existed. If there is anyone with an interest in being an historian for PROBE, please contact me. We do not have any official archives that I know of. But, with a volunteer, I am sure that we can get some of the longtime members to help you with their interpretation of what happened. They may even part with some of their mementos.

PROBE has accomplished a lot this year and I am proud of where we are going. If any of you have any ideas that you would like to see PROBE develop, feel free to contact any of the executive with them. Even though PROBE is doing a lot, we still could do more, especially if someone is willing to help out. We are looking for any suggestions. Where do you want us to take PROBE for the turn of the century? Let us know how we can help, not only you in bulletin editing and public relations, but also how we can help set an example for the rest of the Society to follow.

Remember, PROBE is the most influential fraternity in the Society.