Nance reports on membership drive and convention venues; Seattle 2010
President's Report, October 2008

Fall greetings! 
I hope this column finds you well into the swing of your fall choral schedule, and that things are up and running smoothly.  It always takes so much energy to get auditions done, singers placed, music programmed and out, and rehearsals launched.  Next thing you know, the holidays will be here (sorry to point that out!).

As I promised in September, I want to dedicate this column to talking about our venues for the 2010 convention. 

But first...membership initiative update
However, I first want to give you an update on the membership initiative, which should be the first concern of all ACDA members.  There is some good news to report.  First, the figures for members renewing after having fallen off the rolls is encouraging.  Apparently those phone calls are having a good effect, so keep up the good work on that front. 

As for brand new members, including new active, student and associate members, the gains have been modest but at least positive—up by 13% nationally since April.  Within the northwestern division, we are up three members in Alaska, down one member in Idaho, up one in Montana, up fifteen in Oregon, up two in Washington, and up fourteen in Wyoming. 

As I said, this is good news, but obviously we have a long way to go.  I think it is important to point out that this membership initiative will only succeed if every ACDA member gets involved, not just people in leadership positions.   I reiterate, if each one of us would bring just one new member to ACDA this year, it would easily solve our immediate financial issues and bring new resilience to the organization.

Convention venues
Seattle promises to be a very exciting destination for our 2010 convention.  We have great venues lined up for every aspect of the convention, beginning with the Sheraton Hotel Seattle:

 http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=460

The Sheraton is right in the middle of the action in downtown Seattle, close to all sorts of shopping and dining.  The hotel has greatly expanded and remodeled since our last gathering in Seattle, and will house all convention registrants, including honor choir members.  There are two floors of convention space, with large, well-appointed ballrooms that will be used for sessions, honor choir rehearsals, honor choir meals and exhibits. 

Two churches in the immediate area will be used for honor choir rehearsals, Plymouth Congregational Church (where the Children’s Honor Choir rehearsed last time) and First Presbyterian Church (which was the primary concert venue last time).  At this point in time, First Presbyterian will be the venue for the honor choir concerts, although we are also in negotiations with Benaroya Hall for that event, and will not know more until the Seattle Symphony posts their schedule in January.  Plymouth and First Presbyterian are both lovely churches with great acoustics for singing.

Our primary concert venue will be Town Hall, a beautifully renovated church that dates from 1922, now home to many of Seattle’s finest arts and cultural organizations. 

 http://www.townhallseattle.org/greatHall.cfm

The great hall has a thrust that adapts the stage to a size suitable for our needs, and a vibrant acoustic that is warm, clear and supportive.  My community choir has performed there and found it to be very rewarding. 

If you would like a great performance venue for your choir in the middle of the downtown core of one of America’s greatest cities, singing for an audience that really supports and values what you do, I encourage you to think about auditioning your choir for the 2010 convention!

Venues very close...easy walk
One of the most oft-repeated positive comments about our 2008 convention was the great appreciation people had for the convention being housed in three venues that were very close together.  I’m not sure we could ever hope to do that as well as we could with those particular sites in Vancouver (I hope we go back there very soon!), but in Seattle all our venues are within an easy walk for most people, and we will be working to provide transportation for those who might have problems with even small distances. 

Know that we appreciate your comments, and do everything we can to provide the best accommodations for the convention while still maintaining the high performance venue standards ACDA members have come to expect. 

Obviously, convention planning will hit its full stride following the national convention in March, and we will be calling for applications for session presentations and performing groups very soon.  I hope you and your singers will join us in Seattle!

National convention (Click here to register...>)
Speaking of the national convention—GO!  We need you there in March.  The schedule that as been laid out shows a fabulous convention program in a much more user-friendly format of just two tracks.  In some ways this harkens back to the early days of ACDA conventions, when there were large audiences for the performances and those in attendance could more easily connect with friends and colleagues. 

Oklahoma City has turned into one of America’s finest small cities, with many new hotels and restaurants.  The venues for the convention are outstanding, and this will be an opportunity for you to visit the “home” of ACDA.  I hope to see you there!

Membership crisis brings call for action; personal, state, divisional goals outlined by Richard Nance

President’s Column: August 31, 2008
by Richard Nance

Saturday, August 23rd was a very productive day as your NW-ACDA board met in a daylong session in Seattle.  I am so pleased to have such an outstanding group of leaders on the board.  Their optimism and creativity amazed me as we discussed several important issues. 

We had the opportunity to take a first blush look at the venues for the 2010 division convention—they are truly outstanding, and I will give you some details in an article in October, so stay tuned!  I must dedicate this column to the primary topic of discussion during our meeting, which is of vital concern to all ACDA members and to our organization—loss of membership and the impact this has on our national budget. 

It is very important that every ACDA member be aware that between January 1, 2007 and May 1, 2008, a very short period of time, our organization lost some thirty-five hundred members.  This alarming figure has come to light since last May, when Tim Sharp took over as Executive Director of ACDA and began the process of assessing where we are as an organization.  Beyond the bare facts, which are shocking enough, comes the reality that financial commitments have been made based on a membership of twenty-one thousand, when income from dues only totals approximately seventeen-thousand, five hundred members.  You can see that this has created a huge budget crisis for the national organization, and we are now operating in a deficit situation, some $300,000 in the red.

I am certain this takes you by surprise—it did me, as well as the rest of the board when I broke the news from Tim Sharp to them.  Tim and his staff have already taken steps to set our financial house in order, and things are undergoing a major restructuring at the national headquarters. 

In the Northwestern division we are extremely healthy and have been for many years, thanks to the efforts of past presidents and our long-time treasurer Carol Stewart-Smith.  They have been incredibly good stewards of our money, and we are well positioned for the future.  However, that does not change the fact that national ACDA has hit a bump in the road, and we desperately need the help of each individual member to get over it.

To that end, Tim Sharp has charged the divisions to increase ACDA membership by a total of three thousand new active and student members by June of 2009.  The Northwestern division is the largest of the seven divisions in land area, but the smallest in number, with 985 active members as of July 31st.  This accounts for just below 6% of the total national membership!  Under Tim’s goal allocation, the Northwestern division is being asked to increase membership by 142 new active and 34 new student members in the coming eight months—just under 5% of the total goal of 3,000.  By state this breaks down as follows:

Please note that these are NEW members, not people who exist on ACDA rolls but who have let their membership's lapse.  We must make every effort to get those people back as ACDA members, in addition to recruiting new members.

In addition, Tim wants to push the idea of a rather under-utilized category of ACDA membership--associate members.  These are people who are singing in your community or church choir—lovers of choral music who are not necessarily choral professionals.  Tim is asking that EACH state recruit 50 new associate members.  As the board and I discussed, this is a rather hard sell right now, because ACDA needs to put in place more resources to attract this sort of member.  Nevertheless, this is an important part of Tim’s goal.

As division president I have set forth the following deadlines for achieving our part of the national membership goal:

As you can see, the division board is taking definitive action to overcome this crisis—but WE NEED YOUR HELP!  I cannot emphasis enough how important it is for each individual member of ACDA to participate in this effort to rebuild our membership base.  We need everyone to be pro-active about this effort or it will fail.  Other prominent music organizations are struggling for members or have completely shut down—MENC no longer offers national conventions, and the International Association of Jazz Educators is no longer in business.  None of us want that to happen to ACDA.

So what can you do?  It seems so simple, but if every active member of the Northwestern division brought one new colleague into ACDA in the coming months, we would double our membership!  That would far exceed our membership goals.  Some of us might even bring in two or three new members—surely each of us knows at least one person working in the field of choral music that is not an ACDA member and should become one.  Perhaps you have the disposable income to “gift” the first year of membership to a young person you are a mentor to, or a long-time colleague you care about.  Tim Sharp would rather have this type of contribution than just a check to the organization, because this could literally be the “gift that keeps on giving.”  We need each of you to be an “evangelist” for ACDA!

The division board, your state officers and I invite each and every member of the Northwestern division to become a big part of this critical effort to bring three thousand new active and student members into ACDA by June of 2009.  We will be working with the national organization to build resources for attracting new associate members, and in the meantime, please approach singers and other individuals that you know to join—we need fifty new associate members from each state to reach our goal.  And if you know anyone that has belonged to ACDA in the past, but has let their membership lapse, please let him or her know how important they are to the organization, and how much we need them back in the fold. 

ACDA has so much to offer everyone involved in the choral art.  It should be the “home” of every choral professional, the founding organization for every thing we do.  Let’s work together to overcome this momentary bump in the road, and go forward into a healthy, thriving future!

Incoming president, Richard Nance, greets members, announces dates and location of 2010 NW Divisional Convention...Seattle, Washington, March 10-13

July 1, 2008
Richard Nance

Summer greetings!  I hope this column finds you in the midst of a wonderful time of rest and relaxation, and that you have plans for lots of rejuvenation before the busy times of fall are on us.  I also hope your plans include attendance at one of the many choral workshop offerings in our region, or perhaps you have bigger things in mind, such as a trip to Copenhagen for the IFCM World Symposium.  

Whatever you have planned, please keep ACDA in your thoughts as we transition to new leadership at all levels.  As we go forth we will miss the love and unfailing commitment that Gene Brooks had for the organization, yet we are so excited to see the new initiatives that Dr. Tim Sharp and our national executive committee have in store.  On the division level, Scott Peterson leaves the office of president with the division on solid ground, both financially and artistically.  His vision for “A New Destination” took us to new heights with the groundbreaking convention in Vancouver, BC.  The convention drew not only many of the finest choirs in our division, but indeed the world.  And the trepidation I think we all sometimes felt about trying to mount a division convention for the first time outside the United States was unfounded, our membership stepped up, and we had the highest attendance ever since we started organizing these events.  Scott deserves our deepest thanks, along with his hard working board and convention committee. 

As I take over the office of President, I first want to thank you for your support and the trust you have placed in me to carry on the excellence that has been embodied by our past Presidents.  It is a long and distinguished list, and I admit being awed by the great things they have done for our organization, and a little intimidated by a hard act to follow.  However I am surrounded by a very qualified, talented board, and I know they will see me through.  Special thanks go to those board members who are leaving their positions: 

Scott Anderson (College and University R & S Chair)
Helen Dietz (Jr. High/Middle School R & S Chair)
Janet Fox (Montana President, leaving office in October)
Mike Frasier (Vice President)
Jim Jirak (Vocal Jazz R & S Chair)
Wallace Long (Male Chorus R & S Chair)
Marcia Patton (Women’s Chorus R & S Chair)

We welcome these newcomers to their board positions: 

Frank DeMiero (Vocal Jazz R & S Chair)
Steven Hart (Montana President, taking office in October)
Solveig Holmquist (President-elect)
Scott Peterson (Vice President)
Heather Prinzing (Women’s Chorus R & S Chair)
Carrie Rice (Jr. High/Middle School R & S Chair)
Reginald Unterseher (Male Chorus R & S Chair)
Steven Zopfi (College and University R & S Chair)

Returning board members include: 

Linda Berg (Children’s Choir  R& S Chair)
Ben Brody (Music in Worship R & S Chair)
Karen Fulmer (High School R & S Chair)
Darrell James (Boychoir R & S Chair)
Howard Meharg (Newsletter Editor and Webmaster)
Seth McMullen (Idaho President)
Russ Otte (Oregon President)
Rebecca Rhodes (Alaska President)
Leora Schwitters (Washington President)
Carol Stewart-Smith (Treasurer)
Karen Thomas (Community Choir R & S Chair)
Gary Weidenaar (Student Activities Chair)
Stacy Winn (Multicultural R & S Chair) 

I am pleased that these folks will continue their outstanding work on behalf of ACDA. 

Now for the big news—our 2010 NWACDA Convention will be held in Seattle!  The dates have been finalized as March 10-13, with the primary performance venue being Town Hall, and the Honor Choir Concert at First Presbyterian Church.  There may be a possibility of moving that concert to Benaroya Hall, but it will be a while before the Seattle Symphony sets its schedule, so we don’t know if the hall will be available at this point.  The convention will headquarter at the beautiful Seattle Sheraton Hotel, and like Vancouver, everything will be within short walking distance of in the hotel itself.  The board will be meeting in Seattle in August to conduct division business and view the venues, and then we will begin the work of planning another outstanding division convention. 

Again, best wishes to you for a wonderful summer! 

Richard