Hello NAfME friends,

I trust everyone had an excellent holiday break, and is back and ready  
for a brand new semester with new classes, new repertoire, and a new  
year.  I wanted to send you all a note to let you know what is going  
on with NAfME and what to expect in the coming months.  First of all,  
we will be keeping our meeting times from last semester; that is,  
Wednesdays at 6:30 PM in the lobby.  If there are any scheduling  
conflicts, please let me know.  We will, however, NOT be having a  
meeting this Wednesday, 1/15, and we will start next week instead.

Secondly, we are working to bring some great workshops to benefit our  
club.  To tentatively name a few, we will be having a Handbell  
workshop brought to you by the Northern Bronze handbell choir; a  
Teaching Techniques for Beginning Improvisation workshop, by Elizabeth  
Frascoia, a superstar jazz vocalist/trombonist with Vermont roots;  
another edition of the Orff workshop series, put on by the Northern  
Lights Orff-Schulwerk group, and run by local educator Betsy Greene;  
and a ukulele workshop, with more details on the way!  And if that  
wasn't enough, your local NAfME cabinet is working on a trip to  
Northern New Jersey for later on in the semester, which would involve  
observing in the local schools (which will look much different than  
Vermont ones and provide great perspective), seeing a show in New York  
City, and enjoying the company of your Music Education peers on a road  
trip!  Stay tuned to the emails and make sure to attend the meetings  
for more details!

Please keep in mind that all of the above proposed activities are made  
possible by ushering concerts.  We did a great job getting things  
ushered last semester, although near the end things were cut a little  
close.  We are going to go through all the concerts that need ushering  
and figure out exactly how many ushers we will need for each, so we  
don't end up having 3 ushers for a concert that only needs 1, and only  
1 usher for a concert that really needs 3.  I hope that this will  
encourage people to usher more near the end of the semester, and that  
people won't get to the month of April feeling like they have put in  
their time ushering already.  This semester, let us let no concert go  
un-ushered!

That is my piece for today.  Remember, no meeting this week, our first  
will be on January 22nd.  Please feel free to email me, call me, or  
accost me in the hallways or in my practice room, if you have any  
questions, concerns or feedback.  I'm looking forward to a great  
semester and I hope you are as well.  Good luck on day 2 of classes!

Best,

-Kyle Washburn
President, NAfME
University of Vermont