Your Letters

Thankful for her Sweet Adelines Family
"I agree with Joni Bescos - I too cannot imagine life without Sweet Adelines. I am 81 years young and fortunately in good health. I joined Capital City Chorus (CCC) 26 years ago and still look forward to Thursday night rehearsals, to being on the risers with my (Sweet Adelines) family, working with our wonderful directors, and raising the roof with that wonderful barbershop sound. Whenever we happen to have a night off I feel like a fish out of wate.! I am so thankful I found CCC, it is such a wonderful group of women and we all love each other. I know I am not the best singer on the risers but I do my best to support the sound (study the music, listen to learning tapes or CDs, warm my voice up during the drive to rehearsal) and I am really thrilled to be going to Calgary to compete."

Betty Beardsley
Capital City Chorus
Region 4

Singing Saved My Life
It all began with a cough that persisted and was interfering with my singing. I was diagnosed with chronic Bronchitis, then the flu, then pneumonia, several times. Finally, after two years of constant illness I was sent for a Pulmonary Function Test (PFT). The diagnosis was interstitial lung disease. A CAT scan showed nonreversible scarring of both lungs and honeycombing of a portion of the inner-lining in both lungs. A biopsy was performed to determine the cause of this illness.

Still, they didn’t know what was causing it. All they could tell was that my lungs were fighting an unidentified trespasser and were trying to protect me. 

I tried chemotherapy and heavy doses of prednisone for six months. That was a thrill – I gained 17 pounds to an already generous shape. My bi-yearly PFT tests showed 16 percent more degeneration in my lungs. By now each lung had lost 36 percent of its capacity. It was determined that I have Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).  The diagnosis was fairly grim. The average life span for an IPF patient is between three to five years after diagnosis and two years had already passed.

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) was called in and I was aggressively pursued with countless tests to determine if I was healthy enough to have a double lung transplant and possible heart transplant. My life was filled with needles, probes and prying men and women with stethoscopes hanging around their necks.

I had to make a decision. Either I succumb to depression and stop living before I died or live my few remaining months happy and fulfilled. I signed up for the administrative chair for Sacramento Valley’s Really Big Show. I headed up the Singing Valentine Program. I went to chorus every week and even danced in the front row. I joined a quartet and then an octet. My life was spent in formal singing rehearsals three times a week and I was rehearsing on my own at home. The rest of my time was dedicated to performances. My husband supported my decision to continue my happy life with a very busy schedule.  I managed to sneak some time in for him and all was good.

Then in April of 2007, my appointment at UCSF included yet another PFT test. Amazingly, this showed no change from tests taken six months and one year ago. I am in remission. UCSF said that I’m too healthy to continue to see them at the transplant center and unless things go south in the future, not to bother coming back.

I continue to go to my pulmonary specialist for checkups. In fact, a visit to him after my good news from UCSF was already scheduled. He said ALL YOUR SINGING MAY HAVE SAVED YOUR LIFE! The continued, intense breathing exercises and actual singing was just the holistic healing my body needed.  So, sing ladies!  Sing for fun, sing for companionship, and sing for health.

Mary-Lou Munson
Sacramento Valley Chorus
Region 12

Looking for Donna?
This is vague but could only happen to a Sweet Adeline. I met Donna on the beach in Rivera Maya Mexico on April 6, 2007. I was walking with my son and his family and she was strolling with her husband coming from the beach. We were all amazed at the beauty and warmth of it all and she told me she was from Calgary. I immediately said I would be in Calgary at the beginning of October and she replied, "Are you a Sweet Adeline?" You all know the rest.

We met a couple more times during the week and
talked about our choruses (hers would not be competing and mine would), she expressed interest in meeting again in Calgary and then taking us on a driving tour in the mountains (back roads only locals know). She is a lead, I'm a tenor, and we never did find the missing baritone and bass parts. The only information we didn't exchange was last names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.

I have e-mailed the choruses from Calgary, looking for Donna to no avail so I'm going worldwide. Donna, if you're there, please contact me. I know this never
happens to other Sweet Adelines, right? See you in Calgary.

Joan Machtel
Riverport Chorus
Region 22

40 Years and Counting
For an 84-year-old who has never driven Olive Hildreth, has never had a problem getting to and from rehearsals. Every Wednesday evening she gets a ride by a fellow Sweet Adeline and is picked up in the parking lot next to her house. They wait until Mrs. Hildreth slips through a opening in the hedges that her husband keeps cut back.

Olive has been a Sweet Adeline since the mid 1960s. "When I started, we rehearsed at St. Luke’s Sessions House in East Hampton. Then at the Methodist Church, then at Harmony Haven, which was upstairs on Main Street in Sag Harbor. I’ve been in the chorus 40 years and never had to worry about getting anywhere."

The recent recipient of a "Sweet Adeline of the Year" plaque and a gold pin commemorating her 40 years as a Sweet Adeline, Olive is one of those lucky women who wouldn’t know what Botox represents, yet could easily be taken for her own daughter.

If you ask, she will be happy to tell you what keeps her young: planning the annual trip to the regional competitions, choosing floral arrangements and candles for the yearly installation of new officers and deciding where to hold the ceremony, singing with the chorus on stage, in nursing homes, churches, or senior citizen centers, and most of all, learning new music for a new song.

As children, Olive and her sister Lillian were a tap-dancing team. "I was three and my sister was four-and-a half when we first had tap lessons in Greenport," Olive said. "We used to sing and dance in the old minstrel shows." They were even offered a chance at stardom when they were approached by Winnie Lightner, a well-known comedienne of the silent-movie era, who asked if she could take them to New York City. Knowing the nightclub and big band scene, her parents declined the offer.

After all of these years her passion for singing hasn’t faded. "Sometimes I’m so excited we’ve learned a new song, I can’t sleep," Olive said. "Anything with show business, you always feel good."

By Irene Silverman
East Hampton Press 2007

Sharing Marketing Ideas

Craigslist.org
Hickory Tree Chorus, Region 15 2007 Champs, has had some success using www.craigslist.org to recruit new members. We just started using it this summer and were able to generate about a half dozen inquiries/visitors during this normally slow time. We also gained one new member. It is easy to post locally and to tweak postings to make them timely (although craigslist.org does not allow similar postings to run too frequently, we have been able to post 1-2 times per week). While I wouldn't call it an overwhelming success, it is one more tool we hope will yield more members in the future.

Dana Dunlevy
Hickory Tree Chorus
Region 15

If you would like to share your marketing story or view more comments and suggestions from other Sweet Adelines choruses on their marketing sucesses join divadialogues.com and search for the topic on Marketing Success Stories or send them to ann-marie@sweetadelineintl.org.

Features

Do you Blog?
by: Ann-Marie Dowling, Membership Coordinator

For many the question isn’t, "Do you blog?" Within the last year I recall asking my 14-year-old step-son, "What is a blog?" There are many of us who have asked that same question recently or are still inquiring. Surprise! Blogging is not that new.

In the early 90s blogging was inspired by online diaries or subjective posts on varied Web sites. It has quickly become one of the most popular ways to express ourselves. The blogging phenomenon is real and is starting to reshape the way we communicate as a society.

Blogging has developed from insignificant commonplace thoughts to a worldwide communication forum to include tech blogs, news blogs, sports blogs, political blogs, dating dilemma blogs, shopping blogs, music blogs, commentary blogs and the list goes on. Established news outlets are hopping on the bandwagon as blogging has started to compete with traditional journalism. Instead of working against blogs, media channels are now creating their own to include well-sourced newsworthy information.

Believe it or not more and more people are starting to trust the personal thoughts and opinions of bloggers more then they trust newspaper, magazine and broadcast media stories. The emotional responses bloggers are stirring up are building reader’s loyalty, with which traditional journalism has a hard time competing. Readers don’t have the opportunity to relate to journalists on a personal level like they do bloggers; therefore, blogging continues to grow as a significant part of the information and communication revolution we face today.

Luckily, blogging doesn’t cost more than a computer connection, which you can find virtually anywhere these days. This may just be the answer Sweet Adelines has been looking for to retain and increase membership or maybe just a useful outlet to tell the world about our talent. That’s where the question "Do you blog?" comes into play. If you don’t but are one of our members interested in getting the word out about our organization – here is your chance.

By searching the Internet you can find blogs anywhere and you can post a blog nearly anywhere. Of course Myspace.com, Google.com, Livejournal.com, Blogger.com and Wikipedia.com are some of the more popular blog sites where we can all get started, but if you want to get more specific, try searching Web sites that target the people we want to reach, such as women’s organizations, women’s interest, arts and entertainment, a cappella sites, etc.

Although Sweet Adelines International is a very large organization, the amazing talent it consists of does not get enough exposure. If each Sweet Adelines member were to post a Web blog, think about the numbers we can reach and the influence we may have. Pick your place and start letting the world know about your Sweet Adelines experience.

Young Singers Foundation
This month the Young Singers Foundation is pleased to feature the Middle Tennessee Festival of Harmony, sponsored by Tunetown Show Chorus, Nashville,
Tenn., and held January 12-13, 2007. Lynett Kawano, grant chair, Tunetown Show Chorus, says:

"We were very excited about last January's festival, and we appreciate the Foundation's interest and support. We have a significant number of young members in our chorus, as well as a large number of mother/daughter pairs, who have many contacts in the high school choir communities. They gave us substantial help in planning our festival. We feel that with the help and talents of Debbie Connolly, we made a huge impact in our community for barbershop harmony with young people."

You can help talented young people obtain a quality music education too! Please visit http://www.youngsingersfoundation.org