Southern Oregon Sound is having a lot of fun working with the local men’s barbershop chorus, Rogue Voices, while we continue our Director search. We have seven holiday performances booked at local retirement communities on December 3rd and 4th and another on the evening of December 9th at the Rogue Valley Manor. We’ve also been invited to sing again at the Holly Theater Marquee on December 16th, so we’ll have plenty of opportunities to entertain this holiday season!
Our singing skills are continuing to improve with our weekly rehearsals with the guys. I for one am extending my range singing Lead instead of Bass! Some of us are accepting Kathy Scheel’s generous offer to sing with Oregon Spirit with the goal of joining them at contest next year. We’re still on the Director hunt, but realistically, we would not be ready to compete again as SOS in 2023. We’ll start joining Kathy’s rehearsals via Zoom soon and will join some in-person rehearsals in January. It will be nice to be a Bass again (ha-ha)!
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Harmony Fusion had a really successful show on Oct 29, “Back By Popular Demand”, which was our first show since 2019. Many Region 12 sisters were in the audience, for which we were very grateful and felt the love and support. And one of our newest guest singers performed our final song that she had learned in just a few weeks! We invited all Sweet Adelines, current and former, to come up on stage to sing together “How we Sang Today,” which brought at least one of our HFC singers to tears.
We also had coaching by Erin Howden on Halloween night, a first for HFC. She energized and challenged us to get out of our heads and be entertaining singers and take chances, and she gave us some great techniques to improve vocal unity. We were exhausted!
Below is a photo from our show.
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Wishing all of you happy fall, y’all! Thank you so much for all your support in Phoenix at our SA International competition and especially for the really fun and loving Tunnel of Love after our performance. Seeing that crowd of friends from our Region 12 there really made us smile and feel great.
Yes, we’re definitely still high from Contest, and we wanted to share with you our special photo from the contest stage. It really was a thrill for all the contestants to perform on the International stage after two years of disappointments and cancellations.
Like many of you, there is “Life after Contest!” We updated our plan for this fall for all the things to do between October through most of next year, starting with Guest Nights for our fun holiday sing-outs. We have guests visiting for 3 weeks and then singing with us for our really fun SANTA’s ARRIVAL. Santa arrives on a tugboat with Mrs. Santa, and sometimes even the Grinch is seen sneaking around the tugboat! Children join us singing carols, and it is truly an uplifting community event. We even had an article written about us in a local paper, the ArgusCourier, which we hope will stir more interest in visiting to sing carols with us. We’ve also got a great group of daytime holiday singers, led by our own Sue Oaks (Thanks SUE!), that has several sing-outs planned during the holiday season. The holiday season with PEC is ON in Petaluma!
We can’t wait to see you all again next year at Winter AIM to get those hugs we missed during the pandemic. Also, we get to finally have our LIVE well-loved crab feed again on Saturday, February 11, 2023, so SAVE the date and come up and join us. It’s the best crab on the west coast. Come for delicious crab, salad, pasta and drinks - and performances!
We’re sure all of you are conducting or planning guest nights to rebuild each chorus, and we wish you success bringing new people to barbershop. It’s so exciting to prepare for prospective members who have never heard of our organization. Spread the word, all!
Hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving! We are very thankful for each other and for all of you.
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October was a busy, fun month for SOS. We joyfully added two new fantastic leads-Sandra Echavarria and Alicia Miller. We focused hard on our pasta feed fundraiser, held at the Windsor Grange, courtesy of Karen Giovaninni. It was a full-on collective effort, with lots of Zoom meeting planning (who knew how handy that skill would become?), and it came together beautifully. We were so excited to be back in front of a live audience for the first time officially in almost three years, resplendent in fall colors. With a gorgeous wine country autumn as a backdrop, we served a delicious pasta meal (accompanied by Sonoma County wine, of course), performed for an enthusiastic audience, and basically had a wonderful time with our sold-out event.


There were many members who were deserving of a shout-out this month, but our winners of the week included Cris Sookne, Kat Slusser, Julie Thomason, and Allison Murphy. We rounded out October with a “live” birthday cake for Master Director Sharon Carlson, followed by our first shared treats in a long while. We are actively preparing our holiday repertoire as we anticipate performances at the Luther Burbank Center Christmas tree lot, retirement homes and shopping centers. As we head toward Thanksgiving, we are very grateful for the opportunity to sing and perform together once again.
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Wow! October was jam-packed with a dozen visitors, a baby shower, and coaching with Erin Howden. To start out, we had a baby shower for Mia Wardell, the fabulous lead from Love Notes. She is due mid-November. She won’t reveal the name, but we do know it’s a boy! During the month, a bunch of visitors joined us during our rehearsals and a weekend of “boot camp” coaching. With all these visitors and new members, it’s more than “new blood;” the addition of fabulous singers is like a blood transfusion!
Finally, On October 30th, 31st, and Nov 1st, we were thrilled once again with coaching from the fabulous Erin Howden. Sunday, October 30th was an all-day rehearsal at our regular rehearsal space, Grace Presbyterian Church in Walnut Creek. Monday, October 31st was an afternoon visual workshop at the home of Kim Machek, where we explored the psychology of performance and strategies to improve the physicality of our visual plan. In addition to the visual workshop on Monday, Erin also provided three PVI’s and coached a quartet. On Tuesday, Nov 1st, Erin coached our contest uptune during our regular rehearsal. We sent her home tired!!!
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This year is flying by so quickly! October saw us beginning to work on our holiday repertoire in earnest. We are preparing for a holiday show on December 10th. Here's a link to more information about that:
Throughout the month, we worked on both regular repertoire and holiday music. We were joined by Jana Gutenson for a wonderful coaching session on October 22. She gave us some great suggestions during our warmup time to help us optimize this very important part of rehearsals. We also spent focused time on our contest songs. We really appreciated all of her insights and are looking forward to continuing to improve our skills to make a better finished product.
For our last rehearsal of the month, many of our members participated in a costume parade to celebrate Halloween. There were so many wonderful costumes - everyone was so creative.
In November we started our holiday guest program, where those that participate will be able to sing two of our holiday songs with us in our December show. We have had a great turnout these last couple of weeks, and we hope they will enjoy this so much that they keep coming back!
Hope you all are having a great November! |
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Sat, Nov 19 |
2:00pm |
RLC Holiday Tea |
Grace Lutheran Church Spirit Center |
Sat, Dec 3 |
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MVC - Jingle Bell Tea |
Saratoga Community Center, Saratoga CA |
Sat, Dec 3 |
1:30pm |
SVC - Annual Holiday Show 1:30pm |
Orangevale Community Center |
Sat, Dec 3 |
4:00pm |
SVC - Annual Holiday Show 4:00pm |
Orangevale Community Center |
Sun, Dec 4 |
2:00pm |
Oregon Coast Holiday Show Carols Cookies and Cocoa |
Newport Senior Center |
Mon, Dec 5 |
5:00pm |
BASC-Mt. View Tree Lighting Ceremony |
Mountain View |
Fri, Dec 9 |
7:00pm |
OCC performs at Yachats Ladies Club Holiday Open House |
Yachats Oregon |
Sat, Dec 10 |
2:00pm |
Cascade Chorus Holiday Show |
Eugene, OR |
Sat, Dec 10 |
3:00pm |
BASC Holiday Show - Holiday Greetings! |
Mt. Olive Ministries |
Tue, Dec 13 |
7:30pm |
SOS = Holiday free mini-show |
Santa Rosa, CA |
Sat, Jan 7 |
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MVC with Lynne Smith coaching |
OBI Studio |
Fri, Jan 20
to Sun, Jan 22 |
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SVC Coaching with Jim Arns |
Sacramento |
Fri, Jan 27
to Sun, Jan 29 |
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Winter Regional Weekend - AIM (Adventures in Music) with Ryan Heller |
DoubleTree Hotel, 2001 Point W Way, Sacramento, CA 95815 |
Thu, Feb 2 |
7:30pm |
BASC - Judy Pozsgay Coaching |
Mt. Olive Ministries |
Mon, Feb 6 |
7pm |
Harmony Fusion with Angela Suraci |
Hill & Valley Club, Hayward |
Fri, Feb 10
to Sat, Feb 11 |
9:00am |
DVC-Ryan Heller Coaching |
Grace Presbyterian Church, 2100 Tice Valley Rd., Walnut Creek |
Fri, Feb 10
to Sun, Feb 12 |
7:30pm |
Nikki Blackmer coaching with MVC |
OBI Studios |
Fri, Feb 17
to Sat, Feb 18 |
7:00pm |
Chorus Retreat w/Judy Pozsgay |
Eugene Faith Center |
Sun, Feb 19 |
12:00pm |
Oregon Coast Chorus Coaching with Barb Vander Putten |
American Legion, Newport Oregon |
Sun, Feb 26 |
10:00am |
SVC - Erin Howden Coaching |
Sacramento, CA |
Mon, Feb 27 |
6:30pm |
SVC - Erin Howden Coaching |
Sacramento, CA |
Fri, Mar 3
to Sat, Mar 4 |
7:00pm |
Chorus Coaching w/Nikki Blackmer |
Eugene Faith Center |
Sat, Mar 4 |
5:00pm |
MVC - Crab Feed!!! |
Orchard City Banquet Hall - Campbell |
Thu, Mar 9 |
6:30pm |
Oregon Coast Chorus Virtual Coaching with Lynne Smith |
Virtual coaching |
Fri, Mar 10
to Sat, Mar 11 |
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SOS - coaching with Ryan Heller |
Santa Rosa, CA |
Sun, Mar 19 |
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BASC - Quartet Coaching with Kim Vaughn |
TBD |
Fri, Mar 31
to Sun, Apr 2 |
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SVC Retreat Coaching- Vickie Maybury |
Sacramento, CA |
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Click on the pictures below to view individual chapters on Facebook. If you have not already liked their page do so now. Next month we will see the next three chapters. |
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Facebook is an excellent way to reach out to your audience. Be sure to post weekly. It can be a recap of your latest rehearsal, the announcement of an upcoming event or share a related musical meme.
Pacific Shores Region 12 has two Facebook pages:
- Pacific Shores Region 12 - Sweet Adelines - This Facebook is used to promote the region's activity and news. Currently 994 Likes, 1114 Following
- Pacific Shores Region 12 - Chats - This Facebook page can be used by the chapters to post events and news. Visit the page and join the group and invite your Region 12 Friends. Currently 176 Members - Please help us grow our Chats Group. Invite your friends.
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2022-2023 REGIONAL MANAGEMENT TEAMKristen Skold - Communications
Angela Suraci - Directors
Alison Miller - Education
Mary Mamer - Events
Geri Miller-Reidel - Finance
Kevran Day - Marketing
Lynda Casillas - Membership
Sandy Jones - Team Coordinator

RMT email: rmt@sairegion12.org
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SWEET ADELINES INTERNATIONAL NEWS! |
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NEW SWEET ADELINES COMMUNITY EVENTS CALENDAR
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The SA community events calendar (https://sweetadelines.com/calendar) is now your go-to source to find out where and when SA events are happening in your community, and to publicize your chorus’s upcoming event. Go to this page and click “Add Event” to add any chorus event you may have! |
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London Harmony Festival 2023
After many adjustments and uncertainties, it is with great joy that I share the good news that the London Harmony Festival tour is a GO! We currently have 26 singers from Region 12 going (plus a few friends from Regions 11 and 13), and we’d love to have more of you join in the fun. I am very honored to be the director of this chorus. We’ll have our next Zoom rehearsal on Friday, January 13th. If you’re interested in joining, send me a note at kathy.scheel60@gmail.com.
The price has been lowered, the itinerary is being updated, and the fee includes so much – the tour, guides, several meals, and opportunities to perform in historic venues. The tour locations include London, Oxford, and the Cotswolds! And once you are there, you can take advantage of already being on that side of the pond by adding to your adventure by going to France (info about that is on the Harmony Travel website) or to Scotland and Ireland (individuals make their own arrangements for this).
Summer of 2023 will be Harmony Travel’s 25th anniversary of planning these singing tours in different countries around the world, and it will be the last time Patsy Meiser will be offering the international destinations, so it’s sure to be very special.
You can write directly to Patsy Meiser at meiserpatsy@gmail.com. Go to the Harmony Travel website for lots more information: www.harmony-travel.net
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