Evaluation/Current Status: As we consider the new (fiscal) year, and getting started with the new By Laws, time for evaluation should be well spent. Almost every business evaluates the present course, considering goals, budgets, projects accountabilities and resources, to name but a few items.
     Of course, our traditionally strong values must be important to the organization for they have lasted our entire existence,.. "Good singing, good fellowship, public service". The three items at the core of our joint efforts. Study each item on it's own and you will find that every individual must participate to make each one work well. Think about what your efforts are doing in these areas for this year, try to help your chorus work well, and try to assist your district as best you can.
     "When I last wrote" I addressed items of "Where we are" ( personnel changes and the people on the Executive Council), and "Looking ahead" ( cost controlling, creative solutions with communications, and needing new ideas), and also, "Continuity" (membership, committee revisions, methods and operations for best management of AMCA) - all to constructively maintain fellowship and service.

     Fellowship: In all my travels everywhere in the AMCA regions, encountering fellowship has been the prevalent theme in any activity. Everybody enjoys the fellowship of song - we should promote that better. As choruses and districts have left the AMCA, that has remained a constant question to me: If they are agreed the fellowship is great, why do they depart from such an organization based on good fellowship? I do not have the answers (yet) but they are apparently complicated and many.

     Costs: The important matter of costs keeps coming back to haunt us annually and I would like to hear from folks what really bothers them. I believe what the complaint really means is the value of the money they spend, and the return value they receive. The few dollars we are billed yearly is much less than many organizations. So I look at the return on these dues as perceived lesser value than is paid. The new governance (new By Laws) is done with less people attending meetings, a dependence on the electronic abilities to cut down to one meeting a year, and more autonomy to the District Levels to allow for quicker response to better ideas. We are hopeful the plan is given much needed support.

     Chorister: One area folks complained loudly about was the publication of the CHORISTER. A problem finding a new editor compounded publication at a time when the mailing costs were going higher than had been adjusted for in the budgets. Most of you seemed to be unaware of the cost to mail the newsletter to you. Our plan to use emails to send this out should help costs, but the responsibilities to get them printed will become local. We have considered ways this can get done at various places and determined the feedback of each chorus will help us put ideas out for everyone to use. The emails also allow the individual district to add news when the newsletter goes out. Think of the different ways this can help your district. It can be posted on the district web page, if you are fortunate enough to have one. (Another issue for another time!)

     District Items: Requests for items to be addressed by your District representative are sought for the Agenda at any time you determine to submit them. There may be little time for you to get information to your District representative for inclusion at this meeting, but business will be a continuum over the majority of the year. The operations of said work is not yet detailed, but the methods required must be found by the Executive Council this fall. All of us agree that communications are essential to our success and it will become part of what we emphasize to membership during the year. (Hint!- that is another good reason to revisit the website often, it's a good place to drop your two cents worth and maybe get a good response faster.)

     Values/Traditions: So how does an organization, our Association, hold fast to their values. We have a great strength in our fellowship of song. I have personally witnessed most of our choruses east of Milwaukee, and many sing damned better than I. The singing is good, the fellowship is good, and those efforts can readily bring about service in many ways. Promoting these values at the chorus level and building to the district level is working, but to varying degrees of success. We need to assist those having limited achievement and not cost effective as members, follow characteristics of better development, and progress to the highest level we can attain. We can only accomplish this with communications, sharing information of those success stories and Ôhow to' ideas. All members should apply their own capacity to doing as best they can to get the little things done, and advance to bigger things when you can handle them - that's what leadership is about. We can always use more help in that area. Then we must continue sharing, information! The ways and means any chorus made a successful event can prove most advantageous to others in a similar situation having complications. Our Association can better itself, it just takes some efforts.

     Now what are your ideas to assist the progress of AMCA?

Best regards,
Ric Addenbrooke, Pres. (NYP)

     A small addendum: I started this article in September, so it has taken about a month to get this to our Webmaster. It got displaced by my daughter's wedding and an unplanned opportunity for vacation, which was well worthwhile. I found it sitting in my files awaiting completion as I got "back in harness", prepping for the AMCA Meeting we will host here in NYP District.
     While I don't fancy myself as a writer, I have committed that I would try to offer something, perhaps with some frequency if possible. Maybe you could also offer something to the website, or the CHORISTER, and send ideas, comments, critiques, and memorabilia for them to use. It took me a while, but thenÉ. some might call me slow!