Ed Bejarana
Guidelines for YMIH school involvement
How we doin’ so far? Our goal was to reach 2003 students this year and introduce them to Barbershop. In the first three months of this year, chapters in the Far Western District have reached 1,352 students with our Barbershop message. Way to go! We don’t need to stop at 2003, let’s see just how many we can reach.
The most common question I get from chapter’s regarding YMIH is: Can we actively recruit these boys into our chapters?
Our goal is to “lead the cause of encouraging vocal music in our schools and communities.” That said, I suggest the following guideline to answer your question:
For schools with no choir, we should seek opportunities to include those boys who like to sing in our program at the chapter level. I suggest you work through the school administrators to help include your regular chapter meeting as one of the supported community arts programs.
For schools with little to no male participation in an existing choir program, we should seek opportunities to become mentors for those boys who like to sing, but for what ever reason are not singing with the school choir. For these boys, we should encourage a rounded vocal education by promoting participation in the school choir as well as our chapter level barbershop activities.
For schools with a successful choir program, we should seek opportunities to promote barbershop music within the current choir program. Active recruitment to a chapter level program should be avoided. In other words, get the barbershop name, and music, out to these boys but we don’t want to steal boys from a school program.
In communities where most, if not all, of the schools have active choir programs with strong male attendance numbers, your chapter might consider running partner type events (e.g. High School Participation on Annual Show, Cabaret, etc.) or promoting barbershop by hosting quartet contests/parades.
Because of the events around the world and the impact they made on travel, we opened up another High School Quartet Contest venue. This increased our district’s prize money award budget from $3,600 to $4,350.
Contributions to the district youth education fund continue to be down. At this point, based on the rate contributions are rolling in, our district youth education fund will reach $0 in about 18 months. This means we will be unable to run a district level high school quartet contests or provide grant money for chapter to run Youth Harmony Camps, Days, or Evenings. Last year, because of low attendance number we canceled the SoCAL Youth Harmony Camp. Because of the financial situation we can not fund either camp as we have in past years.
How much money do we need? $29,000 a year. That’s $24,000 for two Youth Harmony Camps, and $5,000 for High School Quartet Contests and general YMIH education. To reach more boys, a third camp in Arizona has been suggested. In that case we need $41,000 a year. That works out to $475 per chapter per year. Or put another way, about $15 per Far Western District Member per year. Please send your personal and/or chapter check to:
Youth Education Fund
℅ Ed Bejarana
43 Magnolia Dr.
Watsonville, Ca. 95076.
Make your checks payable to the Youth Education Fund.
Yours in Harmony,
Ed Bejarana