Velma Wagner re-convened the meeting Sunday morning by asking for attendees to go round the room and introduce themselves.  She then reviewed our agenda from Friday and briefly explained.

Topics  From Mission Statement
Responsible music-sharing.  Chris Reed will get a copy of a short paper on this subject written by Kristan Burkert, Portland Lesbian Choir, specifically for our network.  Chris will get permission from Kristan to post this on the SSN webpage.  Carol Wheeler explained that there is a place on our webpage called “the wheel shop” as in “reinventing the wheel.”  This is where Kristan’s paper will be, as well as reports/papers/policies from other choruses about dealing with specific issues.

Active support of women composers and arrangers.  Velma Wagner pointed out that we don’t encourage composers/arrangers to attend our festival.  A missed opportunity for them and us.  We do have a separate section in our directory.  Carol Wheeler asked whether she could/should list non-member composer/arrangers at the website and simply indicate membership for those who are members (as she does with choruses).  Proposal from the floor to limit listing to network members but to do outreach to other composer/arrangers to join.  Naomi Weinert of Columbus (Ohio) Women’s Chorus volunteered to compile a list with Carol Wheeler for such an outreach effort.  The subject of dues came up again regarding member/non-member status.  Decision made to collect dues from any new member.

How to Carry SSN Forward
Choral festivals are key in keeping the network vitalized.  They generate energy withing the network, among and within our choruses.  Could there be central organizing of a regular festival, similar to how GALA does it?  Discussion about grantwriting for SSN vs. festival hosting chorus writing grant(s).   Grants would help defray festival costs.   Grant money could finance a network administrator to carry work forward.  More discussion about steps; do we need to get 501c3 status?  Is all this premature without more chorus participation and articulation of a specific collective vision?

This led to the topic of meeting as a network more frequently.  There is more than choral festival business for us to share, discuss, work on.  The geographic realities of our membership were brought up, and teleconferencing vs. actual meeting was discussed.  Liz Jones has some experience in teleconferencing and strongly recommends.  There was a proposal to set semi-annual meetings, and logistics were discussed.  We tried to invoke our own variation on Roberts Rules, and recognized a “friendly” amendment to the proposal to the effect of using GALA leadership meetings as possible sites/times for one of our meetings.  Can we do creative expense-sharing to help non-GALA members attend?  This year not so, but in the future, perhaps.  A suggestion made to change “semi-annual” to annual meetings.  What about meetings surrounding festivals?  What would meeting content be?  We refined our proposal, and passed it:  SSN will meet again in the fall of 2001 to further explore all of these issues and those of  Friday.  Tentative site:  Indianapolis, Indiana.  Host:  Indianapolis Women’s Chorus.  When:  late October, early November.  Contact:  Pam Blevins Hinkle.  Echo added a topic for discussion at our fall meeting:  where are the women of color?

Choral Festival
When could we hold the next women’s choral festival?  We arrived at 2003, sometime that year, pretty much at the host chorus’s call.  Indianapolis is interested, as is ACCO, from the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania (close to Philadelphia).

Geography came up again.  Where are the choruses of the West?  How can we reach out to these choruses?  We noted that Portland Lesbian Choir is represented at this festival.  Before we meet in the West again, should we not want more participation or at least interest from western choruses?  Teleconferencing would make this feasible.  Also expense-sharing.  Both topics need to be researched and “presented” at our next meeting so we can decide on whether to adopt either for future meetings.  Chris Reed will take on expense-sharing.

Janice Scalza of the Grand Rapids planning group made a presentation about festival planning.  She made the point that future festival organizers need more backing/back-up from a decision-making, policy-making group among the network.  Without this, festival organizers end up setting policy by having to decide about such things as level of participation of men, Canadian exchange/equity issues, accessibility, refunds.  Also, fund-raising needs to be addressed.  This festival required much more fundraising than originally expected.  The use of websites and the internet in general were a huge benefit to better communication and publicity.  The Grand Rapids group will put together a complete package of production, budget, fundraising, communication information as well as timelines for all details.  This will be made available to any chorus interested in hosting our festival.  They may even post on their own website.  Watch for more details.

Carol Wheeler, our web goddess, asked whether there was interest in adding links from our webpage to individual chorus sites/pages who desire this, especially to publicize concerts, special events.  Unanimous approval given.

The meeting was adjourned on a very positive note, full of anticipation of meeting again withing six months in Indianapolis.

Meeting notes taken by Barbara Schutzenhofer,  transcribed by Chris Reed
 
 

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