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MMEA president -Elect Report
1. My zillions of thanks for all those who helped with the planning and participation of our Leadership Retreat in Orono last
month. A pretty crazy amount of information came out of that (read item #7 below) and will serve as an ongoing vehicle for
discussion and change where appropriate.
2. All-State... introductory meetings have been held with the U Maine music faculty and the folks at MCA. We’re organizing
a budget and are on our way to having a well organized Festival. Our U Maine Music Dept liason is Beth Weimann
3. Barb Packales and I are on the Visual and Performing Arts review committee for the Maine Learning Results. Our first meeting
is on Halloween (we’ll see if the committee is a trick or a treat...) so please give us any feedback or points you’d
like us to consider as we dig into this. I am personally leaning toward doing away with the existing document and applying
the National Standards and our own state curriculum document instead. It would be helpful to know if this is an idea the MMEA
membership would support.
4. I presented the MMEA reorganizational framework to District VII on September 6th and they were very enthusiastic. Jay Nelson
also spoke eloquently to the benefits of adopting this plan next Spring.
5. Met with Mike Davis, Craig Skeffington and Dean Neal on Friday, August 26th to discuss issues surrounding Jazz All-State,
Budget, and the MMEA reorgainzation. Dean can assist me in filling in the details on Sunday, but the short version is that
we covered 5 hours worth of ground in an hour and a half with specific recommendations now in place for this year and next.
A really great meeting, and my huge thanks to all three of them for giving of their time that day.
6. Met with Mike Davis on August 26th and Thurs Sept 15 to fine tune the MMEA proposed budget for 2005-2006... an attempt
to streamline, make more user friendly (functional) while simultaneously becoming more detail oriented. Mike has done an enormous
amount of work on this and big time kudos to him for his efforts as he digs into his second year as state treasurer.
7. ATTACHED are the informal minutes from the “brainstorming of issues” component of the MMEA Leadership Conference
(thanks Barb and Wayne!!). I will be using this as a roadmap along the way this year, and I would ask that each of you DOWNLOAD
IT, PRINT IT, and spend a few minutes taking it in (place it on your nightstand... if you don’t find it interesting,
at least you’ll fall asleep faster...). We will need everyone’s full involvement to tackle these issues in an
effective way over the next 8 months. Sunday’s meeting will be a continuing step in that direction.
Rob Westerberg
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State Director's report
After attending the MENC National Leadership Conf. this summer I am more than ever convinced that MaineMEA is doing well but
we need to work more closely with the other music education organizations in the state and consolidate our “leader energies.”
When I explained the proposed changes at the District II meeting there were neither comments nor questions. Either I did
a good job of explaining or no one cares or members believe in and will support the concept. I believe it is the latter.
Speaking of the leadership conference, you may have heard that we had difficulties getting home. Our Tuesday evening flight
was delayed and then cancelled. The airline made Wednesday reservations for us, put us up in a motel and gave us chits for
food. Wednesday we flew to LaGuardia and were transferred to another airline to fly to Portland. That’s when the “fun”
started. Our tickets were wrong; our flights were postponed, then cancelled several times. After spending hours in the
airport we rented a car and drove (Rob drove; Barb and Ed copiloted). By a miracle our luggage made it to Portland. It took
several weeks but I finally obtained enough refund from the airline to pay for the car rental so the four of us lost time,
but MMEA did not lose money. And we used our “down” time to work on MMEA issues and prepare for the MMEA leadership
conference.
The MMEA Leadership Conference was excellent. We got to know each other better; worked on restructuring for a more efficient
MMEA; and left with assignments to further advance the cause. Rob did an awesome job of organizing and facilitating.
Membership
When Scott prepared the General Music mailing he discovered how inadequate the state data base of music teachers is. I believe
strongly that MMEA is the best organization to maintain an accurate and timely Maine music teacher data base but it is up
to us to take the initiative. We need the name, home & school address & phone number, teaching assignments and email of every
music teacher in Maine. Sarah Cumming-Ridge has sent me a copy of the Dist II list (via chair Jim Horwich). I would appreciate
receiving the same from the other 6 districts. If you know of any new or transferred music teacher please sent that info
to your District Chair and to me. It is much better that we receive duplicate information than none at all. Every music
teacher is important. We want to maintain contact and assist in any way that each music teacher requests.
I am counting on YOUR HELP.
Faith Varney
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MIOSM Report September, 2005
Welcome back to the grind everyone! As previously mentioned, we are
working towards planning an event at the State House this coming March,
2006 in collaboration with the Maine Arts Commission and possibly
including a performance aspect. So far in September all emails and phone
calls to MAC have been sending us in circles about who exactly to contact
about this proposal. Does someone (Ed, Joan, etc.) have a name for us to
try to hunt down?
Other than that, materials for Music In Our Schools Month and World's
Largest Concert 2006 are already available online at www.menc.org ,
including ideas of things you can use for your classroom and school-wide.
Some fun ideas listed there!
Respectfully submitted,
Jessica and Adam Newton
Music In Our Schools Month Co-chairs
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Choral Co-VP Report
1. All-State Practice CD's are again available. Have District chairs let their constituents know to e-mail me with their
requests and CD's will only be sent after I receive the $3 fee and a mailing address.
2. Dale Perkins has procured the services of Nancy Telfler (Kjos) for several choral sessions at the All-State Conference.
That's all I have for now. If anyone has ideas or presentations they would like to give in the
choral arena. please e-mail me ASAP.
3. I will be writing a message concerning All-State Conference to be posted on the website in the near future.
Respectfully submitted,
Jay D. Nelson
Choral CoVP
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Choral Co-VP Report (Festival)
Thank you to Jay Nelson for taking care of the All State CD's.
The contract for the Maine 2006 All State Choral Director position has been sent to Jerry Blackstone. Rick Dustin is considering
accompanying - but wants to look at the music. The proposed program that Jerry Blackstone has sent me is as follows:
Mozart: Veni Sancte Spiritus (Arista; requires a very fine pianist)
Brahms: O schone Nacht (G. Schirmer; with piano)
Daley: In Remembrance (Thompson VE 1.1162)
Ticheli: There will be rest (Hindon Publications)
arr. Quick: Loch Lomond (Cypress Press in the SATB version)
Hogan: Music Down In My Soul (Hal Leonard)
I have ordered single copies from Dale Perkins. I am hoping that the board can approve this program so that I may move ahead
on ordering the full number of selections needed for the festival.
Concerning the All State Choral Library, I have been in contact with Darrell Morrow who is currently housing it in Gorham.
The system is working for now; however, if we do come up with a central site (such as Bagaduce) or a central system for the
Band and Orchestral music, then Darrell would prefer that the choral library move to that site. My goal for this Fall is to
coordinate some time with Darrell when I can go to Gorham and stamp, count and catalog all of the tunes. They are currently
not stamped and should be so.
Kim Murphy
Co-Choral VP
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Auditions Report
I have nothing new to report about auditions at this
time.
sam
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General Music Co-Chair Report
want to let everyone know that we are good shape for the
General Music Fall Workshop to be held on Friday, September 30, Augusta
Civic Center, 9-3. This year's presenter is Susie Petrov, who will share
many new ideas for singing, moving and performing.
IT IS MY GOAL TO MAKE PUBLICITY OF THIS EVENT ALMOST PAPERLESS NEXT YEAR!
At the conference, I hope to get email addresses from those attending so
that we do not have to deal with folding brochures and making sure that
the mailing labels that were sent by the state are accurate.
As I checked the labels this year, I learned that many people were missing
and at the same time, one school district listed almost 40 teachers
teaching general music.
In talking with the state Dept of Ed, I learned that the problem is
this...MANY OF OUR GENERAL MUSIC TEACHERS are listed as VOCAL TEACHERS,
not GENERAL MUSIC TEACHERS. The mailing label search didn't bring up
everyone for that simple reason.
We also wanted to help MMEA members see the benefit of being a member...
giving them a $5 discount on the registration. (personal memberships, not
institutional ones) We are also going to encourage people who are not
members of MMEA to sign up soon.
I hope that Districts will mention this event at their fall meetings
across the state.
Scott Dyer
General Music, Co-chair
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State Editor - Webmaster Report
This has been a very intense few months for me. Becoming State Editor in July was fine until the actual deadlines began rolling
in. The State Editor position now consists of the following duties:
- Contacting potential advertisers for The Bulletin magazine.
- Keeping the books for The Bulletin
- Physically doing the layout for the publication (typing/re-typing/formatting/re-formatting)
- Soliciting bids for printing
- Physically getting the pdf file to the printer
- Generating mailing labels for all music educators/Supt./Advertisers/other State Editors and maintaining the database with
that information
- Putting together the bulk mailing and getting it to the S. Windham post office
- Maintaining the Website in a daily updated fashion.
- Dealing with the technical difficulties related to file problems and server problems.
- Generating an electronic newsletter to go out on a periodic basis.
The first edition of this years Bulletin will include the Handbook and be sent to 1000 locations. I will be looking for assistance
with the bulk mailing and Adam and Jessica Newton have offered to assist. Anyone else in the Gardiner area that might participate
would be greatly appreciated.
We are currently publishing 3 issues a year for the Bulletin. I would like to consider looking at raising our advertiser fees
and publishing a glossy cover for next year. Board reports WILL NOT be published in The Bulletin. Rather, they will be made
available online only. If you wish to write an actual article about your area of expertise or find someone who wants to be
professionally published, please contact them and ask. Anyone with contacts at the University level that could write something
that is appropriate to our colleagues and what we do, should send me contact information. I will not publish something just
to publish it!
We have 9 advertisers for the upcoming issue - most of them full page advertising. Please support our advertisers!
Website Update:
- Institutional numbers are forwarded to me daily by Mike Davis. They are placed on the website as soon as I am able from
the time I receive them.
- All Jazz forms are now available on the site.
- The Handbook will be available on the website within the next week.
- Lance Schanck is maintaining the calendar on his website linked from ours.
- Larry Williams is putting up a page with the Jazz Audition audio files that will be linked to ours.
All forms will be current in the next week or so on the site. If you see an error, please bring it to my attention. I am never
offended to be told that I have made a mistake, have the wrong file, or in general just messed up! (I spelled ETUDE as EDUTE
on every jazz download last week!) I need your eyes to catch my mistakes so that I can make them right.
Continue to provide me with information for either the website or the publication. I have several good articles for the January
issue, but I would rather have some choice in what goes in there.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara Packales
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District 2
District 2 had our fall meeting Thursday, September 7 at the Auburn Ground Round. Plans are well under way for auditions
for our District HS and MS Band, Orchestra, and Choral Festivals. Auditions are at Lincoln Middle School in Portland on October
17. The festival planning has begun. This year District 2 will also be working with PCA and the conductor residency. This
year's High School Band conductor will be Dr. Robert (Bob) Spradling of Western Michigan University (WMU). He will be working
with local school, university and community bands as well as District II Maine Music Educators Association (MMEA) winter festival
participants. He will be giving a full-day professional development workshop, classes for USM School of Music students, and
conducting select bands at the culminating public concert on Thursday, February 2nd.
For more about Dr. Spradling, go to this link:
http://www.wmich.edu/music/faculty/som_fac_spradling-robert.html
The tentative schedule is as follows:
Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006 Dr. Spradling arrives into Portland
Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27-28th District II activities
Sunday, Jan. 29th Rehearsal with Casco Bay Concert Band
Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 30-31 In-school clinics
Wednesday, Feb. 1st Professional Development Workshop
Thursday, Feb. 2nd Band Concert
Friday, Feb. 3rd Dr. Spradling departs
District 2 is looking forward to another exciting year in music!
Jim Horwich
District 2 Chair
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District 3
District III is off to a great start this fall. Our Fall Meeting will be this next Tuesday Sept. 20th, at the Village Cafe
In Camden. We thank Kim Murphy for organizing this!
David Watts, instrumental director at Freeport, has graciously agreed to take over the District III Library.
We have quite a few new teachers in District III this year. Jessica Russell will be doing the choral program at Freeport;
Meg Carroll is new at St. George; Stephen Files doing choral at Camden-Rockport Middle school and Darren Avery is new to
the Brunswick High School Choral program. Welcome to District III!
Our auditions for Senior High and Junior High are on schedule. New this year is a web site designed specifically for our
auditions at d3auditions.com. This site contains all you need to know about our auditions as well as down loadable audition
music and choral audition accompaniments. Thanks goes to Allen Graffam for setting this up!
District III is moving to an “online” format eliminating paper work forms etc. which often slows up the process
when registering for festivals. The “paperwork” for some of our festivals next year will be all on line.
One of the big projects we will be doing this year in District III will be to update our job description handbook which is
on line. The handbook was written at least 10 years ago and needs to be updated. Thank you to all the hosts and managers
for helping with this!
Beth Whitney, our District III Web master, also handles our district e-mail list. Last year this list worked out very well
for rapidly disseminating information and announcements. This year we’ll be also using this for “celebrations
and kudos” to educators who, in their every day teaching, are doing outstanding things in the district.
Borrowing the idea of a conductor’s white list from MMEA, we will be looking at establishing an adjudicator “white
list” of those adjudicators who have worked out well for us in the past. We will be able to create a pool of experienced
adjudicators for our many audition-type events.
Respectfully submitted,
Roger Whitney, chair
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