We commented on things that had gone well at the Ashlar Village concert, and things to improve on. The seating arrangement was problematic, as some people at one end of the room couldn’t keep in pace with Steven or Bruce at times. It was proposed to have mics on Steven and Bruce for the next concert and to make seating more condensed) Since a lot of time has been devoted to rehearsing holiday songs since October, it was felt that in future, we would use the same repertoire, and maybe only introduce a couple of new songs for next December.

We talked about trying to include era-specific songs each month, i.e. some contemporary tunes, some folk tunes, some old-timey tunes as well.

A date for the holiday party was agreed upon: Wed Jan 14th.

We talked about Tom Johnson’s suggestion to use the Mickey Mouse Club song as a closing song for all concerts. Although the committee members like the song, and would enjoy playing it occasionally, it was felt that the song would be more appropriate at a concert with other Disney songs - something to think about for the future.

We talked about more support for newbies. Bruce suggested handing out a beginners packet (he has one) to any new folks.This would be collected from them at the end of the session and they would be then given a link to access the very same info. Steven suggested asking two members of the club to be “newbie” coordinators who would get their names and info at the beginning of a  session, introduce them, give them a packet and assign them to a mentor for that session. [Brooke and Paul Moore later agreed to do this job].  A question for future is whether we should perhaps slightly modify the description the library circulates, as far as how much time is dedicated to newbies at the beginning of each session.

Steven mentioned trying to find a “director” who would keep time at our sessions, and help with intros and outros. This could be a student of music from a nearby college or school. This person wouldn’t have to play the uke; he or she might even play the keyboard. Alternatively some of the members could bring songs that we suggest for the month, and lead them.

Since people seem to enjoy the smaller, “break out groups” at the end of our sessions, Steven also suggested that there be smaller group sessions (focusing on folk music, 50’s music, old timey music etc) during the third week of each month. There would have to be a sign up sheet set up so that the groups could be limited in size; interested members could volunteer to host these small groups at their homes (as the library has no more space available in the evenings). There was interest in this idea, but several committee members asked if we could dedicate more time to hashing out the details, at another meeting.

Respectfully submitted,  Beth Peters