President’s Report
Scott R. Peterson
Northwestern Division
American Choral Directors Association
June 2008
I.
Greeting
a.On behalf of the Board of the Northwestern Division of the American Choral Directors Association, I send greetings to all who read this report. The past two years have been quite successful for the Northwestern Division, including our bi-annual convention in Vancouver, B. C., Canada, and we are proud of the great people who are members of our Division. The Board has striven to move toward new projects and activities and is active by making new things happen for our members and their choral singers whether in a school, church or community situation.
II.Division Convention, Vancouver, B. C., Canada “A New Destination”
a.Observations
i.Our bi-annual convention of the Northwestern Division was held at the Hyatt Regency and Vancouver Fairmont hotels in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 20th through February 23rd, 2008. This convention was aptly named “A New Destination” which proved to be an accurate description both literally and figuratively. It was the first convention held outside the borders of the United States thus occupying a place in the history of ACDA. It also provided an opportunity for the Northwest Division Board to gain the attention of ACDA on a national level and to create a unique and exciting convention for our members which proved to be the case.
ii.It is also an interesting note that this convention began with a meeting in December of 2005 between Scott Peterson, then President-Elect, NWACDA, and Gene Brooks, then Executive Director of ACDA; and ended with a meeting of Scott Peterson, President of NWACDA and Tim Sharp, new Executive Director of ACDA. The time frame of preparation and execution of the convention overlapped an extremely interesting period in the history of ACDA.
iii.At the request of the president, former president and Chair of the Past Presidents Committee, Twyla Brunson, organized a recognition of all former presidents of NW ACDA. Twyla organized a presentation of the presidents at a concert hour and also place a gallery of photos and biographies of the presidents in the lobby of the Pacific Ballroom, outside the performance hall. Those present who were honored were William Mayclin, Rod Eichenberger, Richard Dalzell, Constance Branton, Tom Miller, Twyla Brunson, Karen Fulmer, Richard Clark and Michael Frasier.
iv.Members and others who attended the convention seemed to be pleased with the proximity of the performance hall, interest session venues and housing. All events, including honor choir performances, were held at the Vancouver Fairmont Hotel, the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral which were essentially across the street from each other. There was no need for busing, except for special activities for the honor choirs, and the area was full of opportunities for food, including fast food and expensive restaurants. The quality of various aspects of the convention was very high including housing, performances and interest sessions.
v.Howard Meharg, NWACDA web master and editor, was awarded the 2008 NWACDA Choral Leadership Award for his years of work setting up an electronic network for members. He has been instrumental in establishing and encouraging the Division to utilize a web page instead of a published newsletter, saving the Division a large amount of money for postage, and also managing the email address list for the Division. Howard has been a real source of support to the NW ACDA Board and also to several of the member States by editing and managing their web pages also.
vi.We are very grateful to our student members for helping with site management at the convention. Students under the leadership of Dr. Gary Weidenaar from Central Washington University and students from Central Oregon Community College under James Knox, and some students of Morna Edmundson were extremely reliable and helpful. We hope that the exposure of these active student chapters will encourage development of more student chapters.
b.Attendance
i.The 2008 Convention had the highest number of registrants in the history of NWACDA at 445 registered attendees. 27 choirs performed and included about 1,584 singers not included chaperones and parents. We had over 500 students in 4 Honor Choirs and 23 Exhibit booths.
ii.While we don’t have a specific statistic, there were many people attending the Vancouver Convention from outside the Northwestern Division and from around the nation and from other countries.
iii.Several dignitaries attended the convention in Vancouver including Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt, national president, who presented sessions, Dr. Tim Sharp, Executive Director ACDA, Dr. Tim Seeling, who presented sessions, Jon Washburn, conductor of the Vancouver Chamber Singers, and Morna Edmundson from Vancouver, conductor of Elektra and who was our local site chair. The King’s Singers lent a smashing conclusion to the convention in our final concert in the Fairmont’s Pacific Ballroom.
c.Future Points
i.We would like to suggest a better, more organized approach to Reading Sessions. On our part, the reading sessions were not complete and need to have better follow-through in terms of what sessions are actually included and how the packets are handled.
ii.A more realistic amount should be budgeted for audio-visual equipment. Nearly every presenter now uses Power Point or some sort of technology that has now become a normal part of such a presentation.
iii.A summary of suggestions from the Vancouver Honor Choir General Chair and Honor Choir Chairs should be solicited from the president to help incoming Honor Choir Chairs for the 2010 convention. All of the Chairs from Vancouver stated they had ideas for future Honor Choir Chairs and that is something that should be exploited.
III.Other Board Actions
a.A new membership drive aimed at undergraduates completing degrees was implemented in 2007 by the NWACDA board. The intention was for NWACDA to pay for a graduate’s first year of membership in ACDA at the student rate as incentive for our recent graduates to be active members of ACDA. The Board sees this as an opportunity to build for the future of our Division and ACDA in general. Dr. Richard Nance, NW ACDA President-Elect and Dr. Scott Anderson, University R&S Chair have been in charge of this project on behalf of the Board. At this juncture, we don’t have enough data to determine whether the program is a complete success. It will take two or three more years to decide if the program merits continuation.
b.The Board decided to donate a carved sculpture to the National Headquarters in Oklahoma City to honor the memory of Gene Brooks. The art work chosen is “Cycle of Life” by Scott Gielish and the work has arrived at the headquarters building and will be mounted in a permanent location over the summer of 2008. Hopefully, it will be in place for the national board meetings in July.
c.The NWACDA continues to be a leader in terms of offering information online to members and others via our web page and via email. Howard Meharg, NWACDA web master has been a vital resource encouraging our Division to be on the cutting edge of technology with regard to our information management.
d.Our efforts to support the growing chapter in the State of Alaska is beginning to pay off with a new president, Rebecca Rhodes, taking the helm and getting a few activities going with the Alaska Music Educators Association. The NW ACDA Board has provided financial support to Alaska.
e.The NW ACDA Board needs to discuss assisting the State of Wyoming chapter in the same way it has been helping Alaska. Our problem as a division is that we are the smallest in number but by far the largest in geographical area, which presents travel and communication challenges.
IV.Membership
a.Our Division now has a membership of 1,037 members which is fairly strong for our Division. We would like to ask the National Organization to allow us to consider ADCA members who live in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, to be part of our NW Division. It would benefit our Division to include them as members and would be a benefit for them to in an active organization within ACDA.
V.Conclusion
a.The past two years have been good for the Northwestern Division. It is important to note that our recent success is built upon the success of several previous presidents and NW Boards. Due to the fact that the Division has been financially sound, we decided to take the risk of holding our convention in Vancouver. While it was not a complete financial success, it was certainly a motivator and source of inspiration for the Division. Rather than allow logistical problems to prevent them from coming, our members appropriately planned for border crossings and passport issues and conflicts were kept to a minimum.
The Division is in a good position in terms of morale as well. Our membership is up and the attitude is one of positive outlook for the future. Our challenge will be to make sure that each consecutive convention is better than the last and I have no doubt that will happen.
The Board has some positive issues with which to deal: helping state chapters, building student programs and always planning for the future.
It is clear that the attitude of the Northwestern Division is optimistic and positive to the future. I look forward to new leadership and ideas.
Respectfully submitted,
Scott R. Peterson, D.M.A.
President
Northwestern Division
American Choral Directors Association
