REGINA GOLDEN HARVEST Barbershop Chorus

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!

April 2001

Whistlestop Barbershop

Henry K Holiday is on the campaign trail with his campaign manager, Fast Freddy, right there by his side – and the Harmony Party supporters are there to cheer them on at every stop as they take their message of music and harmony to the people across Canada.

We have only a couple weeks until the show – and lots of work to be done – learning music, learning lines, building stage sets, putting up posters, selling tickets, selling afterglow tickets, …

We have the script; we have the people; we have the talent; – and we’re gonna have a great show.

We’re behind you all the way, Henry!

Wet Your Whistle Afterglow

Immediately following the Whistlestop Barbershop show on Saturday evening, you and your guests have the opportunity to relax, Wet your Whistle, and enjoy the fun, music and fellowship at our afterglow.

The afterglow is being held at the Regina Inn and should be a great windup to the evening. Tickets are $10.00 and available from Stuart. The afterglow is open to all members and guests as well as the general public so spread the word – the more the merrier.

Whistlestop Café Brunch

A new event being added this year is our Sunday morning brunch.

Come and join Downstate Express at the Regina Inn for Sunday morning brunch. The Regina Inn serves a wonderful brunch, and we’ll have the opportunity to spice it up with some great four-part harmony.

p.s. My previous chapter in Oshawa held a show brunch each year and it was a favourite annual event with the entire chorus. I’m sure this will become an annual favourite for Regina as well.

Extra Show Practices

Thursday March 29^th

& Thursday April 5^th

7:30pm in the Church gym

Show Weekend Schedule

• Friday noon – Downstate Express arrives at Regina airport. Be there to greet them if you’re available. The press has been invited.
• Friday evening meet-the-gang at the Regina Inn. Join us for some refreshments and singing with Downstate Express. Everyone welcome.
• Saturday morning – set-up at Darke Hall; all helping hands greatly appreciated.
• Saturday afternoon – sound check and chorus run-through on-stage
• Saturday evening – arrive early for warm-ups, makeup, last-minute instructions.
• Saturday evening – 7:30pm SHOWTIME!
• Saturday evening – 10:30 or so, Wet Your Whistle – afterglow back at the Regina Inn. Tickets are available from Stuart.
• Sunday morning – 10:30 Brunch at the Regina Inn. Everyone welcome to join us.
• Sunday afternoon – quartet coaching
• Sunday – tear-down at Darke Hall; all helping hands greatly appreciated.
• Monday all-day – school visits by Downstate Express
• Monday evening – 7:30 – regular meeting night and membership open house. Let’s give Downstate Express a great sendoff.

We’re Going…

… to the LO'L District Spring Convention to be held in Fargo, North Dakota May 4-6, 2001.

The contest will be held at the beautiful Festival Concert Hall on the campus of North Dakota State University and our headquarters hotel will be the Radisson in downtown Fargo. The House of Delegates meeting will be held at 1:30. The quartet contest, which will feature division and International Preliminary contest competitors, will begin on Friday evening at 6:30. The chorus contest will be at 11:30 on Saturday with the finals of the quartet prelim contest to be held at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening will be the first ever LO'L District Show of Champions featuring the host chapter chorus, Great Plains Harmony, the qualifying quartets, and lots more wonderful entertainment.

This promises to be a fantastic weekend. The Show of Champions ticket is included in your all events packet. It will be a terrific weekend of fun and harmony.

The Hotel Radisson in downtown Fargo is the convention headquarters. Room rates at the Radisson are US$72 per night. Rooms are also available at the Quality Inn just a couple blocks away for US$57 per night. Convention registration of US$30 includes admission to all events.

The travel distance from downtown Regina to the convention headquarters is 882.7 km.

Yahoo?

You may have recently received an email in your inbox from YAHOO egroups inviting you to participate in a new eGroup. No, this isn’t another of those get rich quick schemes. What it is is your zealous bulletin editor / webmaster starting yet another means of communicating with you.

You already receive this SharpNotes on a monthly basis – either at chapter meeting, or mailed the following week.

If you’re a regular SharpNotes reader, you should also know that we have a chapter website that has a plethora of chapter information as well as copies of back issues of these SharpNotes and links to other District and Society information.

If you are a chapter member, you should also be aware of our Talkmail list that Rod uses to send out voice reminders about singouts and other timely announcements.

Well, this new Yahoo eGroup is yet another way for us to get information out to you. The eGroup is sort of an email party line. You send one email to the group and the message goes out to everyone on the line. Participation in this group is totally voluntary – I’ll likely send out tidbits of interest to this group on an occasional basis – for instance – things which may have come up at chapter or executive meetings that might be of interest to members who weren’t in attendance.

The eGroup is also an opportunity for friends of the Golden Harvest Chorus – both near and far – to keep up with the comings and going within the chapter.

The SharpNotes will continue to come out on a monthly basis and we will continue to use the phone reminders for urgent notices or reminders that need to get out to everyone in the chapter.

There are a number of other barbershop eGroups that you may be interested in participating in. There are groups for various chapter officers within Land o’ Lakes. SPEBSQSA_YMIH carries info of interest to those promoting the Young Men in Harmony program. LOLnet carries info on happenings within the LOL district. HarmonetLite is a ‘lite’ version featuring extracts from the mother of all barbershop eGroups, the Harmonet. These are all easy to join and all carry a wealth of information.

Happy Easter!

Easter means resurrection – new beginnings – Spring! I think it also means taking a look at what has been, with a view to improvement. For instance, it is my job to get a card ready to send to one of our group in time of trouble or whatever is appropriate, like to say Merry Xmas when December rolls around. I can’t do it properly unless I can get help. When Bruce was ill with shingles, I didn’t know about it until he was nearing the end of his illness – too late to get a "get-well card" and have you all sign it. If chapter members would tell me when there is illness, bereavement, or something happy to celebrate like a birthday, anniversary, engagement or a wedding, I can shop for an appropriate card, and if there is time, bring it to our next meeting for everyone to sign. That would be an improvement. It would be an Easter thing. This simple act would give new meaning to the term brotherhood, because the bonding in our chapter would be deepened.

The positive attitude of looking out for the welfare of others, once adopted, unintentionally grows. After while it becomes second nature to look around for things that need doing. An example is that when we took on the Early Learning Centre as our Canadian charity, and members of the chapter visited the Centre, eyes were opened to a new and important thing that was going on, and a feeling of kinship occurred. Now it has become second nature to think about how we can help them.

Dave Pearce and I went to the Centre the other day to talk about our forthcoming Singathon, and they were delighted to be part of an event that is bigger than the sum of its parts by a long way. Anne Luke and her staff are looking forward to having a table where someone will be ready with a receipt book for anyone with a deep pocket, as well as having people circulating through the crowd asking for loose change. It promises to be an important day in terms of advertising not only for us but also for the Centre.

I was having coffee with some guys last Friday and spotted a man, and what I took to be his wife, at another table. He looked over at us once in while in an interested way. I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d be interested in our parade. So I took our brochure and a handful of tickets over to him. The first question the woman asked was "do we travel around?" I told her we did, but not as much as we’d like to do. They said they needed some time to think about whether they would be free on our date, and the woman asked if she could take the brochure home. It turned out that he is a retired Mountie, and they were in town, from Yorkton, to celebrate their 32^nd anniversary. I don’t know whether I’ll succeed in selling some tickets, but I would not be surprised. I mention this incident for two reasons: to point out that communities outside Regina would be delighted to have us come to entertain them (something we should be working on), and to demonstrate that if we do something a little surprising, like talk to strangers, there is no telling what will come of it. It might well turn out to be a new beginning – an Easter event.

Jack Boan,
Community Relations,
Services & Brotherhood

Harmony Week

The Mayor will be proclaiming the week of June 3^rd to the 9^th, Harmony Week in Regina, our goal being to raise public awareness of and otherwise promote barbershop music. This also coincides with our 40th anniversary as a registered chapter of SPEBSQSA.

We are planning a week of musical festivities, culminating with a 12-hour barbershop sing-a-thon at City Hall on June 9th. Another promotional highlight we would like to explore that week would be live performances at all the shopping malls in the city to spread the joy of music and help keep the whole world singing. The week will start with our annual trip to Mini-HEP in Clear Lake Manitoba on June 1^st to 3^rd.

Spring titles for Music Premiere

Planned releases for the spring issue of the Music Premiere subscription program include "Each Time I Fall In Love"; "It's All Over Now"; "Young And Foolish"; "Louise"; "I'm Beginning to See The Light"; "Old St. Louie".

To subscribe to Music Premiere, call the Harmony Marketplace, 800-876-7464 x8410. A subscription includes the spring and fall releases (six songs in each release) plus a demo tape recorded by top quartets. Music Premiere prices are US$14.95.

Once upon a time, two women were talking and the one asks the other how many times she's been married, and the reply was four. "Four times!" exclaimed the first woman, "Why so many?"

The other woman said: "Well, I first got married when I was very young, and I married this wonderful man who was a banker. However, one day just a few weeks after we were married, his bank was robbed and he was shot and killed."

"Oh my gosh, that's terrible" the first woman said.

"Well, it wasn't that tragic. Soon after that, I started seeing another man who performed in the circus. He was really a great guy, but he lived pretty dangerously because he performed his high-wire act without a net. Well, a few weeks after we got married, he was performing a show and suddenly a gust of wind came by and knocked him off his wire and he was killed."

"Your second husband was killed too?!!? That's horrible!"

"Yes, it was terrible, but at the funeral I fell in love with the minister and we got married soon after that. Unfortunately, one Sunday while he was walking to church, he was hit by a car and killed."

"Three??? Three husbands of yours were killed? How could you live through all that?"

"It was pretty tough, but then I met my present husband. And he's a wonderful man. I think we'll live a long happy life together."

"And what does your present husband do for a living?" "He's a mortician."

"A mortician? I don't understand something here. First you marry a banker, then a circus performer, then a minister, and now a mortician? Why such a diverse grouping of husbands?"

"Well, if you think about it, it's not too hard to understand... One for the money... Two for the show... Three to get ready... And four to go!"

Calendar of Upcoming Events

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, 2327 Brodie Bay, Regina, Canada S4V 0V1 phone: (306) 761-2503; email: bfish@accesscomm.ca.

Current and back issues of the Sharp Notes can also be found at www.gpfn.sk.ca/culture/arts/gharvest.

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