A typical month in Lustre’s calendar
Here in Lustre-land we measure time by the Sweet Adelines calendar, and our year begins and ends with the contest cycle. (We even posted an article about this once before.) After each contest is over, we traditionally gather for a meeting in which we reflect on our most recent activities, and look ahead to the coming year and decide how we’d like to spend our time together. Last weekend we held our annual discussion for the coming year. When we reviewed all that we had done in the last 12 months, we were totally surprised by what we found.
In the last year:
We performed on Altoona’s annual show.
We performed on the Bryn Mawr Mainliners’ Christmas show.
We performed on the Harbor City Music Company “Snackin’ with Santa” show.
We performed several Christmas caroling performances for public and private events throughout the Baltimore/DC area.
We recorded and sold videos for Singing Christmas Cards.
We served as faculty for portions of the Region19 Singer’s School weekend, and performed on the evening show.
We delivered Singing Valentines.
We redesigned our website.
We ran a successful Kickstarter fundraising campaign for our CD.
We won the Mid-Atlantic Harmony Sweepstakes.
We attended the Region 19 Convention and performed on the Saturday Show of Champions.
We traveled to San Francisco and finished Second Place in the National Harmony Sweepstakes.
We performed on the spring benefit show with Capital Accord Chorus.
We recorded, mastered, created artwork and released our first CD.
We held a successful fundraiser Treasure Sale.
We conducted two full-day Quartet Skills Workshops for Region 19 quartets.
We received coaching from several international and regional coaches throughout the year.
We learned several new pieces of show music.
We served as coaches (as individuals and as a quartet) for other quartets and choruses in Region 19.
We created two new competition costumes – one sewn from scratch, one dramatically altered.
We performed for our new chorus family on the Carolina Harmony Chorus afterglow.
We attended and performed at Region 19’s F.L.A.S.H. educational weekend.
We learned how to remain viable as a quartet even when we no longer live in the same geographic area.
We learned how to receive coaching from long distance via video chat.
We prepared for the SAI International contest.
We traveled to Honolulu, HI to the SAI Convention and Competition, and became the 2014 SAI Fifth Place Medalists.
By any measure, this was an incredibly busy year. No wonder we’re a little tired! As we look at this long list, it’s clear that there’s not a single item on this list that we did ourselves. None of these things would have been possible without the support, involvement, encouragement of our friends, family and fans. We’re indebted to all the people who have helped us achieve all of these things.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts!
Looking ahead to 2014, we think things will be very different (more calm?), partly due to being a long-distance quartet, and partly due to having different goals and priorities for spending our time. In the coming year we hope to continue to learn and grow as barbershop singers. We want to perform even more, and we want to continue to develop our own abilities as coaches in the barbershop community. We hope to meet a lot more people and share in the community aspect of barbershop singing. We can’t say for sure what the year holds, but we’re looking forward to finding out!