Thanks to the Springdale First United Methodist Church for hosting the event and to their support staff for making sure we had everything needed for a successful singing. Thanks to the Shiloh Museum for helping with the Fall Singing Convention news releases to the local media this year. Susan Young's advance PR campaign seems to have worked. We had people who reported they had read about the singing in the papers. Syd reported that the NW Arkansas edition had an article about the singing with quotes from Dan and Bill on the first page of the Sunday local section. See: http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2014/oct/26/group-raises-voices-spirits-20141026/
Photo: Rene Greene leads the singing school on Friday evening.
It takes more than a few new singers and a single instructor to make a worthwhile
singing school. It's hard to thank Rene Greene and the other strong Alabama singers enough as they arrived on Friday for the singing school and convention. Rene is a remarkable instructor and all the local singers who turned out in support were appreciated as well. All of us certainly hope all of the visitors felt welcome and encouraged to come back and sing with us in the General Store on Sunday.
In summary, we had a final total of 33 participants for the Friday night school, Saturday singing or both. We enjoyed having you at the school and singing and hope to sing with you again. And as usual, the cooks in the group again managed to reach a record high for lunch with crock pots and bun warmers as well as all manner of seriously good food and desserts. I loved the desserts.
Other high notes: We were particularly glad that Darryl and Lea Criss were able to join us for the Saturday morning session. Darryl has made remarkable progress and it was wonderful to see him sitting again the bass section. Mary Ellen Wilkerson and Anita Buswell were back in their usual bass and treble sections. Once again the list is too long to include everyone, but all of you - old singers or new - contributed to an enjoyable evening and all-day singing in Springdale. Thanks for all your efforts to get there and helping us have a wonderful singing.
Photo: Singers paused for a group picture after lunch.
Earlier this week, the mail lady drove up the driveway to deliver a large box. Picked up, the bulky box weighed about as much as a good heavy quilt which sounded like a Katy project. But there was another smaller box within big box. I thought, "Maybe it's a box of song books Dan ordered to replace the ones we sold at the convention." No books. The small box contained a collection of Sacred Harp CD's still shrink wrapped in their jewel boxes. "What in the world!"
We owe one more note of thanks to Bruce Rye for his unrestricted donation of the CDs to our group. How best to use them to promote Sacred Harp singing is something we need to talk about on Sunday. Thanks Bruce, for thinking about the singers and favoring us with one more tool and such an opportunity to extend traditional Sacred Harp shape note singing in the Ozarks.
Hope to see everyone on Sunday in Springdale. Enjoy your Sunday afternoon drive...
