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Associated Male Choruses of America http://amcachorus.org plunkett(A)niagara.com
April 2000 FINALLY!!! After what seems like more lifetimes than Shirley McLean has, the Chorister is being distributed again. It has provided me with more challenges than I thought it would - not the least of which was attempting to publish the document in MS Word rather than Word Perfect. I decided to produce it in Word Perfect after many frustrating days trying to save and recall documents in Word. For those of you reading this electronically, we can thank Dave Thomas for using Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF file for our web site. I have also found a printer in St. Catharines willing and able to publish our newsletter and I hope to be able to produce an interesting and clear document for all of our members and friends. This is your newsletter and it requires content from you. Whatever you give to me, I will attempt to print. If you wish to contact me with your comments or content, please feel free to use my e-mail address listed in the masthead or write to me at:
28 Ameer Drive St. Catharines, ON L2n 3S8
Thanks for your patience and support. This is the first issue of the Chorister that Ron Felsch hasn’t edited since most of us can remember. The standard he set will be hard to meet, let alone surpass. Each issue was a joy to read and taught me a lot about our association. Thanks Ron.
Dan Plunkett is a member of the Niagara Men’s Chorus and lives in St. Catharines, Ontario. He is also president of the Associated Male Choruses of Ontario.
He likes to play guitar and often accompanies himself on the guitar and harmonica. Some of the guys in his chorus will be surprised to find out that he worked his way through Queen’s University playing guitar and harmonica. He also played at the folk Masses.
He has been married to Barb for 24 years and they have a son (Mac) and a daughter (Sarah). When Dan is not doing the singing thing, he fills in his time by working as a retail food officer with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In his job, Dan tries to prevent economic fraud in the food industry.<
He is an active Scouter and a Parrothead.
Joe Love, the president of AMCA, is a long time member of the Case I H Male Chorus from Hamilton, Ontario. He has always been very supportive of male voice singing and his customers can often hear him practicing his songs through the pipes in their plumbing system. Joe has been a plumber for a number of years and his e-mail address luvyrp(A)idirect.com reflects this. He shows his support to choruses by attending as many concerts of individual choruses as he can. He also uses the Internet to communicate with each of us on a personal basis. I have discovered that he keeps a supply of greeting cards with him at all times so that when he finds out that someone needs a card, he can send one out immediately. There have been many people I know who have been lifted by Joe’s thoughtfulness. We all look forward to serving with Joe on the Board of Directors.
Blame Canada! Almost everyone agrees that Robin Williams stopped the show with his rendition of "Blame Canada" at the Oscar Awards ceremony in March. The song is from that awful South Park movie which came dangerously close to exposing Canadian Manifest Destiny. Many American institutions have been overwhelmed by a Canadian presence. Peter Jennings is a Canuck. Ron Joyce, a former Canadian policeman, is now the largest single shareholder in Wendy’s after selling Tim Horton’s to Dave Thomas - the other Dave Thomas. Who doesn’t suspect that Bill Bates is really the mastermind behind Microsoft.
To help you determine if you are a closet Canadian or if your neighbour (note the correct spelling) is one, you might consider the following clues:
Start Thinking About Scholarships Now! Tom Rayner, the chair of the Scholarship Fund, is constantly urging us to support young people in their music studies at University or College. He regretfully informed us that we will not be able to have as many scholarships this year as least year, but he hopes that this is temporary and we will soon be able to increase the number and size of scholarships.
Tom is often heard stating that he doesn’t like noisy money going into the hat as it is passed around at rehearsals for Big Sings and District Sings. Paper money gives us the best results. His own chorus regularly donates to the Scholarship Fund. At a recent concert in Toronto, the Queensmen featured Giles Tomkins, an outstanding young man who is a recipient of an AMCA scholarship.
A good way of drumming up support for the Scholarship Fund is to seek out someone to sponsor. All nominees must be supported by an AMCA chorus. Imagine the pride of having someone your chorus nominate receiving recognition with an AMCA Scholarship; we might even see more young men join a chorus.
Why not start to search now for a nominee for the 2001 group of scholarships so that you can have the nomination in early. Maybe you could even feature your nominee in some of your fall concerts.
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