Sister Singers Network
March 23, 2002
Indianapolis, IN
Attendees
Chris Reed (SSN), Carol
Wheeler (Bread and Roses Feminist Singers, DC), Carolyn Kasprowicz (Artemis
Singers, Chicago), Marlys Pedtke (Indianapolis Women’s Chorus), Cindy Ramsey
(Calliope—Twin Cities), Pam Blevins Hinkle (Indianapolis Women’s Chorus),
June Huelskamp (MUSE, Cincinnati's Women's Choir), Angie Denov (MUSE),
Sheryl Mase (also representing Janice Scalza) (Grand Rapids Women’s Chorus),
Kim Allman (Indianapolis Women’s Chorus), Midge Stocker (Artemis Singers, Chicago). Later: Marg Herder, Robin Riebsomer,
MC Coskey from IWC.
Festivals
Previous Festival: Grand Rapids
Wrap-up from GRWC:
budget, timeline (Dec-May 2001), and evaluations. GR festival committee
has extensive archives available for helping to plan a next festival.
Brief discussion of
history:
There was a general
discussion of the genesis of women’s choruses and how some women’s choruses
are related to men’s choruses. Identity issues: women identified but not
lesbian, women-centered, feminist, inclusive rather than exclusive. Many
possible permutations exist within SSN and in women’s choruses who are
not part of SSN.
Fundraising: GR started
fundraising early. Logo helped sell. Janice put together a packet for potential
funders. They applied for a couple of grants. Went to GR convention bureau
to get support from local travel industry.
Does the festival make
money to further other purposes of the network? Bottom line: GR festival
doubled the seed money and is ready to turn the money back to SSN.
Important for the
network to plan policy so the festival organizers don’t have to set policy.
SM: Made a suggestion
about the creation of an SSN logo to put forth energy, like the GR festival
logo did for the festival. This is a topic that will be discussed in tomorrow’s
meeting. It was suggested that SSN could put out a call for portfolios
from potential logo artists.
SSN needs to decide how
much of that money should stay as seed money for festivals and how much
to put into SSN pot for other purposes.
Topics for next meeting
or end of this one: Logo, SSN budget.
Next Festival
Indianapolis Women’s
Chorus is planning to go to their board with a request to host the SSN
Festival. The question was raised as to expectations of the hosting chorus
and who is in charge. Answer: The organizing chorus is in charge and can
request and receive help from other SSN members.
There was also a question
from PBH Indy: What was the effect of organizing on the host chorus? Answer
given by SM: Before festival, GR did their spring concert. After festival
GR did the breast cancer oratorio in St Ceclia’s (the same hall) that October.
Then they did a winter concert. Impact of organizing festival on singers:
afterward, marvelous. People finally “got” what we were doing. During the
planning, it was hard because they didn’t all know what they were doing
all this work for.
There was a discussion
of when future festivals should/could take place. Possibilities: odd years
(so not to conflict with any GALA events) or even years in the 2006, 2010
years (because big GALA festivals take place during election years).
Creating a festival
advisory group? Maybe not needed until a chorus has taken on a festival
commitment.
Interim Steering Committee
CR:
Structure of SSN? What we do well is collect dues, put out a directory,
have individual women or choruses take on tasks. As a mechanism for the
NETWORK to take on tasks, an interim steering committee will be created
to carry on business between meetings. They will plan the next meeting.
The initial committee was approved consisting of the following members:
Diana from Artemis, Janice from Grand Rapids, CR as treasurer, MP from
IWC, and Carol from Bread & Roses (DC). It was decided that the term
would be 18 months but it could be dissolved if it is not working. It was
decided that 3 people would constitute quorum.
Issues
were raised regarding how to get diversity from the choruses, e.g., getting
more that just the Midwest members involved, and the need for a common
vision. We want to empower some people to make decisions on behalf of the
network and to go to the network for bigger questions.
Topic
for fall: steering committee to make a proposal for how to proceed for
developing the SSN vision. We hope they can create a really cool call for
suggestions.
Network Membership
What does it mean to
be a member? Web site has list of choruses that are not necessarily members
(by alpha and geog). Do we want to be inclusive rather than exclusive?
Should Membership be by dues? Should we list composer/arrangers, regardless
of whether they are members?
Categories of membership
are chorus, individual singers, and composer/arrangers. Make membership
a suggested minimum donation to avoid being exclusive? Better to keep the
membership dues low? Getting an identifiable membership is a goal. Radical
change in structure would need to wait.
It was decided that we
stay with current dues structure and post this information on web site.
Solicitation of dues will be done by posting to the choruswomen e-list
and on the SSN web site. Contact beyond that to be individual.
Angie: It’s clear from
our history that when SSN disappeared, it was when we went too long between
festivals.
Web and e-Communication & New Directory
Directory being online
only is approved, as long as we can set it up as password protected. To
do this, we must move to a new host.
Newsletter: articles
to be published every 4-6 weeks as they arise. We will solicit articles
on the choruswomen e-list.
Digital divide issue:
will we provide printed copies for people? We need to craft a statement
that we understand that not every interested singer has direct access to
the web, and therefore we encourage women to print and distribute to sister
singers any section of the web site that they believe would be useful to
them.
Focus of the calendar
on our website is women’s choral groups not individual composers, arrangers,
or performers.
We are not planning to
solicit or accept ads on the web site.
CR will begin the process
of cleaning up the current chorus listing by sending periodic requests
for info to the choruswomen e-list.
Next Meetings
MUSE will host a meeting
(tentatively November 2-3, 2002), when they have a concert, and Indy will
have a response no later than then about if/when they might be able to
host.
Artemis Singers will
host meeting in March 2003. Steering committee will plan the agenda for
both meetings.
Web Site
Need for a new host
(Midge will find host; possibly we will work with Marg from Indy)—so we
can move from Geocities, which has limited capabilities—so we can get more
disk space, no ads, the ability to support more file types and therefore
more web features, security for members only section, and ability to hook
into database.
If we create a members
only section, it could be password protected, so we could post the directory.
We could let people decide on an individual basis whether they want to
be shown (even on the secure site).
In Conclusion
Meeting will wrap up
Sunday morning March 24, 2002, at 9:00 A.M. EST. Please forward any comments
you would like discussed to sistersingers@yahoo.com
by 7:00 A.M.