Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America

# Sharp Notes #

Publication of the Regina Golden Harvest Chorus

Golden Harvest Chorus meets most Monday Evenings, 7:30-10:00 at

Knox Metropolitan United Church, corner of Victoria and Lorne, Regina, Saskatchewan
Guests always welcome!

October 1999

Email

Gentlemen,

Hello there, from the thriving metropolis of Caronport, Saskatchewan! I just wanted to send you Barbershoppers an e-mail and let you know what has been going on in my life.

Well, I always said that once I graduated from high school and got over that stress, I was going to come back to sing. Obviously, that didn't quite happen.

For most of high school, I didn't know what I was going to do afterwards until about the spring of grade 12. I thought to myself, "I have this gift of music, why not develop it and use it for the rest of my life as a career." So, that's why I'm now at Briercrest Bible College in Caronport, Sask., about 15 minutes west of Moose Jaw. The school has a population of about 700 students.

I'm planning on coming to Briercrest for 4 years and get a Bachelor of Music and Worship degree. My intentions right now is when I have completed my degree is to go into the ministry. I would like to be a Pastor of Music & Worship in a church somewhere. I love my gift of music and want to use for the Man who gave it to me.

Also, I would like to thank you for sending me the newsletter so that I can still be informed of what's going on in the group. I read through every newsletter. You can send me the newsletter here at school or send me any letter at: Box 608, Caronport, SK S0H 0S0.

Best wishes to the group. Let me know when the annual show is and I'll try and get into town to attend it.

Keep the world singin'!!

-Jared :-)

"Jared G." <loves_guitar@hotmail.com>

Its good to hear from you, Jared, and we're glad that you're still involved in music. If you or any other former members are in town on any Monday night, we'd be glad to have you come out and sing with us.

Bingo Dates

We have upcoming Bingo's scheduled for Tuesday October 26^th and Tuesday November 30^th, 5:30 pm to midnight at the Silver Sage bingo hall. Please check your calendars and be ready to say yes when asked to volunteer.

Santa Claus is coming to Town

I'm sure many of you are still recovering from practicing Christmas carols at our September 13^th meeting – talk about rushing the season – but the Regina Santa Claus parade is just around the corner.

We're planning on entering our float in the Sunday November 20^th parade. We'll be doing much like we did for the Buffalo days parade, using a sound system and singing along to a pre-recorded tape of our own music. But – this means that we need to get our Christmas music into shape soon enough to make a good tape, and have it ready in time for the parade.

If you have any of our red Christmas music books at home, please bring them out so that we can work on them.

We also expect to participate in the Rotary CarolFest (Monday Nov. 29^th).

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Membership / Chapter Development

by Bill Coulthard

Hi guys! Welcome back to another year of singing. I must say that I’m happy to take on the role of Membership / Chapter Development VP for the coming year. Lynn cornered me on that front shortly after hearing that I was returning from Ontario.

As you could tell from the articles I submitted while living in Ontario, I did get some opportunity to look at other chapters. Out there, you don’t have to drive 2.5 hours to get to another chapter meeting.

The chapters I visited were varied indeed. I’ll describe two of them for you:

One was a group of guys getting together Monday nights to sing barbershop, but not terribly interested in taking it all too seriously. They had no desire to compete or even perform outside of the occasional nursing home sing-out. They didn’t do an annual show and had very little going on beyond Monday night. Many of these guys were retired and some had sung with more serious chapters years earlier. All seemed to be enjoying belonging to their chapter – but there were only about 15 of them all told.

The other extreme was the Barrie Chapter, which consistently places in the top 5 in Ontario, is quite serious about performing, performing well and competing at every opportunity. They produced a quality sound and consistently had 45 to 50 guys out to a meeting. In fact, several of the members of this chapter were guys living in the city where the chapter described in the previous paragraph was located (about a 40-minute drive away).

So, as Membership / Chapter Development VP, I have to ask myself – what can I learn from those observations? Well, I guess I learned that there are many different types of barbershop chapters, each with its own character, priorities, successes and failures. Guys will migrate (in areas where they have options) to chapters that meet their level of interest.

I think the Regina Chapter has to look at what it is and what it has been in order to determine what it can be or wants to be in the future. You know the old saying, "if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else".

Next, the chapter has to get the message out to people who want and need the same things in order to entice them to get involved. The best method for this is through personal contact. I think most of us were introduced to the hobby by someone bringing us out – not by an ad in the newspaper.

I’ll develop these ideas further in subsequent articles as well as through chapter meeting "announcements" (brief ones).

Peg O' My Heart

Want to hear a complete version of Jerry Murad's Harmonicats' famed hit of 1947, "Peg O' My Heart"? check it out at the SPAH website – members.aol.com/harmonica.

And what is "SPAH" you ask? – why it's The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica.

Articles in this bulletin do not necessarily reflect the views of the chapter. Unless carrying a byline, they are those of the editor. Items received may be referred to the executive before publication. All chapter officers and members are encouraged to submit articles to the Sharp Notes. Submissions will be credited to the author. Please address any comments, suggestions or submissions to the editor – Bruce Fish, 761-2503 / bfish@cableregina.com. Current and back issues of the Sharp Notes can be found on our chapter website at www.gpfn.sk.ca/culture/arts/gharvest.

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