eNews
from the Far Western District of the Barbershop Harmony Society.

April 11, 2008

In This Issue


New College activities

At the FWD Board of Director's meeting in Bakersfield in March two college related items were approved.

  1. To encourage more college quartets to compete in our division contests we will now be recognizing the top college quartet in each division as the division champ and give them plaques. Once the division contests are over we will recognize the overall top quartet with district level trophies.
  2. To promote membership at the college level, and participation in the new Youth Chorus Festival at Mid-Winter, we will be creating a college team across the district to make connections with students and choruses at many college campuses. If you have a passion for getting youth involved in barbershop, please contact John Krizek, FWD Youth In Harmony Chairman, at jkrizek@aol.com. We need your help.

Critically Important Dates

From Bill Cale, Far Western District Immediate Past President

Yesterday, April 10, was a very critical date for Californians. I hope you all paid the balance on your property taxes. In four days, April 15, we all have a critical date to file income taxes. Fortunately, I paid my full property taxes in December and I sent in my income tax stuff electronically late last week. I hope you're all up to date, too.

April 19, is another critical date this month for those of us in NorCal and I just realized I haven't done anything about it, yet, but I'm going to tomorrow. I'm going on line to the FWD web site and register for the convention in Stockton on May 17. You'll find what you need on the Convention links webpage.

Individuals need to send in their registration by April 19, the date the price goes up. Choruses and quartets need to send in their CJ-20's by that date, according to FWD SOP.

The Stockton event promises to be one of the best in NorCal in years:

  1. One of the finest auditoriums anywhere.
    1. 1400 seats
    2. Full orchestral shell with clouds
    3. Digital sound system
    4. Stadium style class rooms for warm up
  2. Unlimited free parking
  3. Oodles of restaurants nearby
  4. Major shopping centers across the street
  5. Unstructured afterglow at Holiday Inn, only two minutes away
  6. Bay Area Chapter Voices in Harmony will be competing for the right to go to District in October after competing for a medal in Nashville in July. It's worth the trip to see and hear them.

Miller "Kep" Keplinger is handling registrations and I'd love to hear him beg for mercy because of a flood of last minute registrations on top of what he's already received. But what the heck, swamp him!

See you in Stockton next month,
Bill Cale


SCE and AZSNSU Division contests

Well, NorCal isn't the only place for some terrific barbershop contests. Did you see the lineup of quartets for the April 19 AZSNSU contest that includes two college quartets? That'll be a doozy of a contest.

The SCE contest is coming along nicely too. The Orange Quartet chapter is working hard to make this a great time too.

You can still sign up to attend these events by going to the Conventions Page to get the hot scoop.


Harmony College West - July 18-20

Harmony College West 2008 will be held in Redlands mid-July this year. Once again we'll repeat the POD quartet coaching method that has received rave reviews by our quartets. Many of our coaches are gold medallists and you won't find a finer coaching staff anywhere. In order to provide this level of quality we do have to raise the fee for quartet coaching this year to $200 per member. Classes for individuals remains at $150 with lodging and $95 for commuters. Also, we have an early bird registration date of Monday, June 16. After that registrations go up $25 each and will be conditional upon class or coach availability.

The HCW 2008 website is ready and you can now register online. We already have two quartets registered, so don't wait too long to signup.

Our Saturday night show will include the 2006 Gold Medal quartet Realtime and the 2007 Silver Medal college quartet The Crush. If you can't attend HCW, but Saturday night is open, you can buy tickets at the door to hear these terrific quartets.

We have four special Early Arrival classes. There is no registration for the early classes—just show up, get your badge, and attend the one-hour classes at 3pm and 4pm.
Time Class Title Class Description Instructor
3pm Tune It or Die What is tuning? Why is it important? Learn more about this most important element of singing. (Open to ALL singers) Rick Spencer
3pm The Psychology of Competition What kinds of things should we think about in preparation for competition? How soon should we begin to think about them? How can we best prepare the members of our quartet/chorus to be ready for contest day? The answer to these questions and more will be revealed in this class which addresses the psychology of the competition cycle. Grab your notebooks and come on down...you won't want to miss it! Dawn Castiglione
4pm The Ensemble Approach to Quartetting Quartetting is more than just four guys singing their part to the same song. Learn some key approaches to quartetting that will offer you more success right from the start. (Open to ALL singers) Rick Spencer
4pm School House Rock In the same way that the famous School House Rock educational jingles helped to bring an educational element to Saturday morning cartoons...this class will help bring valuable information to your quartet/chorus rehearsals that will answer your presentation category questions about how we move, how much we should move, and why we even move in the first place. Plus, this is a really fun way to piece together a visual plan without being obsessed with "choreography" but rather the true nature of the Presentation category..."Showmanship!" Dawn Castiglione

Our line-up of regular classes is just as terrific, but you do have to register for these classes. The details of these classes are way too extensive for this newsletter, so go to HCW 2008 Individual Classes to read the fine details. The classes we are offering this year are:

ClassTitle

Class Length

Instructor

Quartet/Chorus Spokesman 4 Tom Schleier
Contest Emcee 4 Tom Schleier
Music Team 2 Steve Shannon
Plateau A Chorus Coaching 4 Steve Shannon
Sight Reading-Beginning 4 Phil Ordaz
Sight Reading-Intermediate 4 Phil Ordaz
Outstanding In Front 8 Jim Turnmire
Barbershop Arranging 101 8 Dave Briner
Barbershop Acoustics 2 Dan McQuigg
Tag Teaching 2 Dan McQuig
Vocal Production 4 Craig Ewing
Membership Workshop 4 Clark Abrahamson
Marketing and PR Workshop 4 Clark Abrahamson
The Comedic Approach - Barbershop and Humor 4 Brian Philbin
Show Production 8 Allen Fossenkemper

Just click on HCW 2008 to read all about Harmony College West 2008, then choose a link to register.


Attention Chapter Secretaries

Members of your chapter without E-mail will not receive this information and we ask you to print this and share it with them.


DateEvent
4/10-4/13SAI Reg. 21 Conv. - Phoenix
4/18-4/19AzSnSu Convention - Phoenix
5/3SCE Convention - TBD
5/10Singing For Life Blood Drive
5/17NCENN/NCWH Convention - Stockton
6/29-7/06International Convention - Nashville
7/18-6/20Harmony College West - Redlands
9/26-9/28Youth Harmony Camp - Pollock Pines
10/9-10/12Fall District Convention - Bakersfield
10/30-11/02Pan Pacific Convention - Honolulu
11/15NorCal COTS
11/22SoCal COTS
01/25-02/01International Mid-Winter Convention - Pasadena

Important Links

BHS ebiz website
BHS Original Members Only - CJ-20 registration
BHS Main website

FWD Website
FWD Directory
FWD Members Only
FWD Calendar
FWD Youth In Harmony