Without first discussing the issue with either the general membership or the chapter's music team, the board decided on our behalf that the chapter would not compete in the district contest in the fall. Following the decision, the board did not, until the president was directly asked in an open chapter meeting, announce the decision to the general membership, and so far he's the only one who's come close to answering for the board's action. The president's words to the few people present at that one chapter meeting are, to date, the only formal words that the board has presented to anyone, despite several weeks of openly expressed anger on the part of a large number of members.

I get tired and impatient when people are willing to sit around and whine, but are unable to overcome their own inertia and actually do something about a problem that is pissing them off. I discovered long ago that calm, academic discussion tends to put this group to sleep, but that if I exaggerate an issue to make a point, especially if I do it in print, I can really stick everyone to the ceiling.

Guess what? I did it again. This non-competition issue made me sufficiently angry so that I was (and still am) willing to take a little heat over speaking my mind, if it will also generate enough light to get the problem fixed.

I don't know if there's really a "negative-thinking faction" within the chapter. If someone reads my earlier memo and can't imagine anyone in the group with an almost universally negative, complaining, constantly scolding-and-rehashing-old-problems style, then maybe there isn't any such thing, and there's really no problem at all. On the other hand, if names and faces pop instantly to mind when you hear those words, then maybe there are people with those characteristics, whether they themselves realize it or not. If someone hearing that description thinks maybe I'm talking about him, then maybe I am. Or maybe not -- maybe I was thinking of someone else.

But would you agree that if there were such an element in the chapter, it might be more destructive than helpful in the long run? We're constantly reminded by the Society that we should be energetic, constantly pushing to be the best we can. The Society says competition is one of the best ways to do that.

It's been asserted by someone locally that preparation for contest interferes with our ability to do other things. LIKE WHAT? Remember what we used to do before we had the contest goal constantly before us? We sat around on our duffs, for months at a time, and sang badly!

If we start feeling a little pushed as we try to prepare for contest in addition to doing all of the other things that a chapter is supposed to do, how does that make us different from the other 800 chapters in the Society? Well, for one thing, the chapters who are sitting around on their duffs, singing badly and not competing, are not the number-one chapters in their plateaus. They look, for the most part, like we looked a couple of years ago, and the way we had looked for most of the preceding decade. They do not look like the 1991 Butler Notables, who are on record as the highest-achieving chapter for their size in the world.

I was once a member of a group that had as its informal motto,

"Onward and upward! Strength through joy!"

Neat group. Do we want our motto to be something like that, or would we prefer

"Slow down and stifle creativity and hard work! Comfort through inertia!"

I'm for pushing, and enjoying it even when it gets a little ragged. Only you can decide what kind of approach you want the group to take.