August 2014 Newsletter

SAVE THE DATE ~ October 25th Homecoming Sing! ~ SAVE THE DATE
Our Committees are Working!
Our New Website is Launched!
Our CDs are Still for Sale!

SAVE THE DATE: Sing College Songs at Homecoming!

On Saturday, October 25th, as they do every year, hundreds of alumni and their families and guests assemble at Baker Field for the Alumni Homecoming Picnic and of course the Homecoming Football Game. The event takes place in a posh 60'x180' tent with an artificial turf floor, and the full bar and excellent catering is provided by Columbia's foremost caterer, Sterling Events. Around the inside perimeter are tables promoting various alumni groups, including Columbia Alumni Singers. At our table, we give out flyers, fill out membership applications, and sell our CDs. At half-time, the entire crowd comes back into the tent for a beautiful buffet dessert service hosted by the Columbia Alumni Association (CAA). 

We have been invited to sing a set of Columbia Songs (similar to the set we sang at the Reunion Concerts) during the dessert service at about 2:15P.M just as people are entering the tent. This is a great time slot because the jumble of tables from lunch will be re-arranged so that we can have a good place to sing - which we could not during the pre-game lunch - and provides a bit more of an attentive, captive audience than the noisy lunch. We will have a keyboard, microphones and speakers, and we will have Jerry Weale and/or Bruce Trinkley - or perhaps both - to lead us. They will also lead a rehearsal on a weekday evening a week or two before the event (date and place to be announced after Labor Day), and during the first half of the game (somewhere up at Baker Field). To attend the Pre-Game Luncheon and/or the Dartmouth/Columbia Football Game, you need to register (and pay) on the Homecoming website, and the Columbia Athletics website respectively and you will receive a link to those by the end of August. There is no charge for attending the rehearsals, staffing the CAS table, and singing in the performance.

This is a unique opportunity to get together and catch up, to sing some wonderful material, to get ourselves known to a large group of alumni, and of course, to support Columbia. All of the detailed logistics are being worked out with the Columbia College Alumni Relations staff Events Committee and our next Newsletter will explain them, and how to download the music if you do not already have it from the downloads for the Reunion Concerts. 

Please e-mail back to Jeff Kurnit, Co-chair of our Events Committee - [email protected] - as soon as possible, about your attendance, and please list your current voice part, so that we can figure out whether we have both a sufficient number of Singers and a workable balance.

Your Committees are Working!

A few months ago we distributed a Survey and Leadership Opportunity, and the response rate and the content of the response was most gratifying. Out of all of those responding, about 25 people stepped up to lead Singers by serving on our Committees. Since then, the Committees have been formed, the Co-chairs of the Committees have conferred as a group, and each of the Committees is working on its mission. The Music committee is working on repertoire, School Liaison is planning how to establish durable connections with the alumni of the many singing groups throughout the University, and the Communications Committee is figuring out how to recruit more Singers and how to make the entire University and its alumni body more aware and supportive of Singers. We welcome the participation of all of those who are interested in the Committees.

Please e-mail back to Michael Garrett - [email protected] - to volunteer your leadership by serving on our Committees (Michael will be back to you by the end of August).

Our Website is Launched!

As we discussed in earlier Newsletters, the Columbia Alumni Association has licensed Nationbuilder for the use of all of its share-interest and groups and school, region, country, state and local alumni clubs. This user-friendly system provides not only a website, but communications, membership and event management as well. We have ported over from our earlier websites all of the relevant content, and are adding quite a bit of our own. The website is a work in progress and is definitely NOT entirely finished, but it is far enough along to release it. We desperately need volunteers for the Communications Committee to work on the site. 

Our website is available at singers.alumni.columbia.edu. Please e-mail back to Michael Garrett - [email protected] - if you will be available to work on the site (Michael will be back to you by the end of August).

Our CD's are Still on Sale

As you know, we have recorded all three of our Singers' concerts and collected reel-to-reel tapes, and 45 rpm, 78 rpm and 33 rpm records of Glee Club performances from the '50s through the '80s. After more perils than Pauline could ever have imagined, all of this fine singing has been digitized and pressed onto CDs with appropriate covers and inserts. A few months ago, the Singers 2013 Reunion Concert CD, and the Glee Club CDs sets from the 50s-60s and 70s-80s were finally distributed to all who ordered them. 

Additional copies of our CDs may be ordered from Michael -[email protected] - for $20 for either the 2010, 2011, or 2013 Reunion Concerts, and $40 for either the Glee Club 50s-60s set or the 70s-80s set, and $70 for both sets.