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T0: All active members of the chapter FROM: Reid Joyce DATE: June 22, 1992 SUBJECT: Should the members of the chapter be forced out of competition without their consent? I'm sending you this note as a member of the chapter, not as a board member. It reflects my opinion only -- not necessarily anyone else's, either in the general membership or on the board. I went on record many months ago as being strongly in favor of the chapter's continued participation in chorus competition. My reasons for being so strongly in favor of competition have to do with the following: I believe that there's a strong correlation between our internal cohesiveness and present skill level, and the chapter's return to competition last year, after a long (7-year) layoff, during which its skills atrophied and our team spirit dropped dangerously low. I believe that regular competition gives us goals toward which we can continuously pull as a team, and that when we see (and internalize) a collective goal, we're more likely to accept and apply individual responsibility for learning our parts and improving our performing skills. The Society, in building its "monthly activity report" scheme, has acknowledged the value of competition as an indicator of the health of a chapter, by assigning competition the second highest point value of any activity in which a chapter can engage -- an annual show is the only thing that earns more points. I believe that skill at the craft that we're all dedicated to preserving (barbershopping) is important, but I also believe that competition gives us all a chance to meet and interact with the other barbershoppers in our district, to swap ideas, to recharge our emotional batteries, and to rededicate ourselves to the goals of the Society, some of which transcend personal ones -- or should. I believe that over the last couple of years we've achieved the "critical mass" that's necessary to sustain the interest of current members and to attract new ones who are truly interested in singing well, not just in joining another neat, harmless social club. And I believe that our rededication to competition is largely responsible. I believe that there is currently a negative-thinking faction within our chapter that would be willing to sacrifice the benefits that many of us have finally come to appreciate about competition, just to make a point. I could be wrong, but my interpretation of that point is that we didn't do it totally by the book in April and May, and therefore we should punish ourselves for being fallible humans. A nice, visible way to punish ourselves would be to resolve not to compete this fall, no matter how much damage that does to our morale -- at least the folks who want us to feel bad for having taken some risks will have made their point. We did take some risks, and we paid a bit of a price for having the courage to do it. We did some things at the last minute, both for the contest and the show -- we exercised our judgment, rather than mindlessly insisting on following a regimen that had been established months before, even when opportunities arose or when we discovered problems. I'm not at all convinced that we would have placed differently in the contest if we hadn't had the last-minute session with our outside coach. I think we had been displaying more cockiness than skill during the final pre-contest rehearsals, and our contest performance was more representative of our real skills on that particular day than it was of the things our coach showed us. Our coach showed us that there are some things that we can do if we put our minds to it; we just didn't produce those things on the contest stage. That doesn't mean that we can't do it right in the future, and it sure doesn't mean -- to me, anyway -- that we shouldn't have given ourselves the chance to learn what those things are, even though the timing was pretty crazy. The reason we didn't have the session with the coach sooner was because we simply couldn't. We had it when we did as an alternative to not doing it at all. I still think we made the right choice. We chopped a few things out of this year's show at the last minute, and I think the show was much better for it. Lord knows there's plenty of precedent for cutting songs that we're just not ready to perform in public, regardless of the reason, and this tradition goes back to before we entered contests. I much prefer to do it that way than to leave such songs in and horribly embarrass ourselves with them, like we did a couple of years ago. I agree that we should try to make a show go smoothly, in accordance with a flawless plan, but when common sense dictates a deviation from the plan, I'll go with sense over rigidity every time. Well, your board of directors voted, at their rescheduled June meeting, to prevent you from competing this fall. So -- I'd like to ask you to consider whether we want to allow ourselves to be punished and arbitrarily withdrawn from division/district competition this fall, substituting who-knows-what as our musical goals and motivation, or whether we should demand that the board reverse what I feel to be an ill-considered decision, taken without consulting the membership (actually, without even consulting the music vice-president and the music team that he represents on the board -- they were appalled at both the content of the decision and the fact that it was made in their absence, without any discussion with them). There's going to be a sheet on the table tonight, on which you can go on record, if you dare, by answering the question: "Should we compete in the fall?" Just indicate your feeling: yes or no. This is just a poll, for which I take sole responsibility. The board isn't compelled to take any action as a result of it, but there's no reason why they can't reverse this decision if the weight of the chapter's sentiment turns out to favor continuing to take part in the important Society activity of competition. How do you feel? |