In Attendance

     The 2009 meeting of the AMCA Executive Council was held May 15th in Milwaukee, WI prior to the WUM Big Sing. Bill Rowe represented the WUM district and Paul Carlton represented UMW. NYP again had no representatives in attendance. Also present were Jim Egan, AMCA Executive Director, Norb Lehmann, AMCA Treasurer and Ron Stenzel, Executive Council Chairman. Richard Harrison from Eau Claire also attended for the purpose of proposing that the 2013 Big Sing awarded to Eau Claire by our district be the AMCA (i.e. Multi-district) Big Sing that year. The proposal was accepted.

AMCA Membership
     Regular membership in AMCA this year is 481, of which 350 are from UMW. There are also 37 Associate members (Directors and Accompanists) of whom 25 are from UMW. The 63 Student members are all from the UWEC Singing Statesmen.
     Bill Rowe reported that membership in the 5 WUM choruses has been stable in the past year. Their next year's Big Sing will be in Rhinelander, WI on the same weekend as the UMW Big Sing in Staples.
     Paul Carlton reported that the Marshall Area Men's Chorus is now known as the Southwest MN Men's Chorus, and Carissa Grosland is the new director of the Blandin chorus and Clayton Miller is now directing South St Paul. All other directors remained the same throughout the past year. 12 choruses were active this year, but SineWave has announced they will cease operation as of the end of this season. The Apollo Male Chorus of Minneapolis is considering joining the district. We have also had overtures that need to be followed up from a group in Sioux Falls, SD and Cannon Falls, MN.

Treasurers Report & Scholarships

     The Treasurer's report was reviewed and approved. The proposed budget for 2009-10 was discussed. Expenditures are expected to equal revenues. No change in dues was discussed, so AMCA regular dues continue to be $10 per year per member.
     3 AMCA Scholarships @ $1,000 and 1 @ $1200 will again be awarded for the 2009-2010 school year. A donation of $100 was approved in honor of Joel McLay, a member of the Rochester Male Chorus who passed away earlier this year. Joel was a long time representative to the AMCA as well as a former president of our district.

Funding TTBB Arrangements
     The initiative to fund new arrangements of popular music has been moving ahead slowly. It has been learned that the cost for "permission" to arrange American Hymn for TTBB will be $40 plus $1 per copy. This does not include any fee to the arranger nor the cost of actual printing.
     An arrangement of I'll Fly Away by Bob Torborg of the Cold Spring Maennerchor was one of the pieces at sight reading at the UMW Big Sing in April. I'll Fly Away is now available for purchase - contact Bob Torborg for details.
     All members are encouraged to submit candidate songs. Contact Ron Stenzel, Jim Egan, Norbert Lehmann, or Paul Carlton with your suggestions.

New York Pennsylvania District
     It was decided that since it has been over two years since dues have been received from more than 1 chorus of the NYP district, that their information should no longer be available to the public on the AMCA website. Ron Stenzel took the action to direct the webmaster to remove from display any materials related to choruses and districts that are no longer active.

Open AMCA Positions
     There is a need for an AMCA historian. Ron Stenzel will pursue obtaining the existing archives from the previous historian (Michigan district). Anyone interested in performing this function for the organization should contact Ron Stenzel.
     The lack of a music committee chairman was discussed. The previous duties of the chairman were to oversee the music contest and to maintain the common repertoire. The music contest has not yielded new TTBB arrangements as had been hoped, so the contest is no longer being conducted. Since we have only two functioning districts, the need for commonality only arises in the years when we have joint Big Sings. The feeling is that if the directors in the two districts are aware of what mass pieces are being sung in the other district it should be possible to arrive at a suitable set of numbers familiar to both districts without the struggle experienced by Eau Claire last year. Bill Rowe and Paul Carlton will be responsible for passing this information each year to the directors in their districts.

Next Meeting
     The venue and date for the 2010 Executive Council meeting is TBD. Since the Big Sings for the two participating districts are on the same weekend, a different plan from the normal rotation must be determined. The meeting will be hosted by the UMW district.