General Meeting August 29, 2015

Start time: 1:10 pm
Present: Susan Witt-Butler, Thelma Dare Ahner, Mary Beard, Laurie Hartmann, Marilyn
Simpson, Simone Lyne Comtois, Marian Marsh, Beth Freeman
Minutes Approved as corrected
Treasurer’s Report
Starting balance $3,675.14
Ending balance $3,801.86
The complete versions is sent as an attachment to the minutes.
New Business
Jim Meredith workshop on Nov. 7, 2015 2-5 pm—in the Green Center Room
1028(note, this is a different location than the flyer) He will bring three of his own
singers and we will provide three students. He will share about his work. He has bubbling
energy. Workshop is free. Parking is $5. First choice will be intermediate high school age,
second choice, first two years of college. Susan will find out if the repertoire needs to be
classical or theatre.
By-Laws What we see in red are the suggested changes.
1) Raise chapter dues to $30 from $25 for full members $20 from $15 for affiliate.
This has been moved, approved and unanimously accepted by vote
2) At the national level, members 68 or older who have been members for 20 years may
request Emeritus status and will be excused from paying dues at the national level.
(This needs to be put in the by-laws) For our chapter, if a member, 68 years old or older
has been a member of our chapter for 5 years they may request Emeritus status and may
be excused from paying dues. This has been move, approved and unanimously accepted
by vote.
More student performing opportunities/student recitals as fundraisers? Ideas-
1)Email chapter if we are having a studio recital.
2)February 20th,2016, Saturday, could be a student recital. First Congregational is $50
Thelma will check out Friday evening and Saturday evening optimal 7:30, second choice
Saturday, 5:30 that weekend. This would have an option of donation by attendees. Ask
venue for two and a half hour reservation.
3)If we want a Fall venue for students, we may look at that for next year.
4) Salon Series for teachers in a home where we collect donations or check out Varenna
or Spring Lake where we may get paid. Suggested the weekend of November 13,14,15,
2015
5)Beth offered Chinese dinner fund raiser in the Spring. She can take 10 reservations. We
will talk about this at the January meeting
Discuss viability of our chapter—need more members, need younger members, need
new board members,etc.
1)The list of the benefits of NATS was mentioned
Memberships give opportunities for students to perform and attend workshops.
Memberships give opportunities for networking.
Vocapedia website and NATS facebook chat room. Mary will send out an email about
this. Susan has the idea to offer a pedagogical course to those who are interested. Chris
Fritsche is also interested. The idea is to do a four session course. We need to bring up the
ideas of making NATS more relevant to younger teachers by using the media that they
are used to communicating with, such as the NATS Vocapedia website and the NATS
Chat facebook group, at the January meeting or create a separate meeting.
2)Susan shared her idea of a pedagogy class. This will be discussed further in January.
3)Laurie spoke about the need to reach the younger teachers with media and
communication that they are used to.
4)Mary will inquire about the cost of joining as an associate.
5)We are looking for a person who is tech savvy who has an interest in websites, social
media etc. Our current website is not up to date. Can we upload videos, recordings on our
website?
Spring workshop—geared toward teachers ideas for presenter, topic, venue, etc.
presenter, topic, venue, etc.
Susan will try to book a venue in March or April .
Ideas include: Ellie Lichtenstein from Cinnabar Theatre ( Can we link her to NATS),
Jennifer King, drama prof from NVC (Napa Valley Community College), Eve-Anne
Wilkes/NVC voice lab, lyric diction, IPA,
If we have ideas, please email it to Vaida
Meeting adjourned at 2:34pm
Round Robin—(Susan will allot a set amount of time for each person based on how many
are in attendance and how much time we have left) We’ll go around the circle and have
each member briefly share/comment on one or more of the following (if there’s enough
time at the end we can have a group discussion on some of the things we heard):
a teaching breakthrough or special experience,
new and interesting repertoire that you’ve discovered,
a new artist who moves you,
a memorable concert you recently attended,
a good new pedagogy video,
something about singing or teaching you learned from a good article