Onondaga County Music Educators’ Association

Fall General Membership Meeting

Tuesday September 14, 2010

Doubletree Hotel

I.  Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 7.00

II.  Secretary’s Report – Dave Wilber (Skaneateles)

The minutes from the spring meeting were not read.

III.  Treasurer’s Report –Sky Harris (Liverpool)

Tony Alvaro reported in Sky’s absence that all is set to go for the year. Our 501c3 status is up to date and our insurance policy is paid.

IV.  President Elect’s Report- Becky Bizup (Fayetteville-Manlius)

A.  Festival Audition Sites – 2010-2011

1.  Senior High – Lafayette

Becky Pethybridge reported that everything is coming along nicely. Solo chair should be open for registration by Monday, September 20.

2.  Junior High – Onondaga Hill MS

Tony Mastrobattisto reported that all of the packets are here at the meeting. Kathy Tompkins and Liz Buell will be co hosting. There is only one packet per school district so please distribute them.

3.  Jazz – Jamesville-DeWitt

Ron Nuzzo reported that, just like the last 20 years, all is set to go for the jazz auditions.

B.  Festival Sites - 2011

1.  Senior High – West Genesee HS

Tony Alvaro reported that planning is under way for this festival. Conductors and managers are as follows:

Chorus – Tony Alvaro, Manager – Dave Norman, Conductor

Band – Andy Perry, Manager – Mark Scatterday, Conductor

Orchestra – Bill Mercer, manager – Tony Pinelli, Conductor

2.  Junior High – Marcellus HS

Mike Cirmo reported that plans are under way for this festival. Conductors are as follows:

Band – Justin Mertz

Chorus – Janice and Paul Chapin

Orchestra – Richard Reagan

3.  Jazz – TBA

The Jazz fest will be held March 25 and 26, 2011. Jamesville DeWitt is no longer able to host the festival so anyone willing to host should contact Becky Bizup.

4.  Elementary – North Syracuse JH

No one was at the meeting to make a report here.

C.  NYSSMA Solo and Major Festivals

1.  Solo Festival – Fayetteville-Manlius HS

Becky Bizup reported that all is on schedule for this festival.

2.  Major Ensemble – Skaneateles

Dave Wilber reported that no registrations will be accepted until December 1. Anyone planning on attending should print out registration forms from the NYSSMA Website. Applications will be accepted until March 31st. The festival will be held April 12 (choral groups) 13th (Instrumental groups) and 14th (Instrumental groups).

V.  Community Groups

A.  LeMoyne College – Travis Newton

Travis Newton passed out some literature about the LeMoyne College Music program offerings. Travis reported that they have multiple instrumental and choral ensembles. LeMoyne allows High School and advanced 8th graders to participate in their groups. Jor Colombo will be directing the LeMoyne Jazz Ensemble this year. Email Travis if you or your students are interested in participating in any LeMoyne groups. This is free.

VI.  Committee/Groups

A.  All County Wind/Percussion Music Chairperson?

The third set is completed this year. There is still some material to be completed for the third set. Please contact Dave Wilber if you are interested in helping renovate this set.

B.  Scholarship Program

Tony Alvaro will be getting the updated information about the scholarship auditions on the web site. Please make sure all deadline dates are met. OCMEA offers up to three 1,000.00 scholarships.. Applications go to Irwin Goldberg.

C.  Jennifer Greene – Solo Chair Liaison

Jennifer reported that in order for the county directory to be updated we need all teachers’ information from each directory and each must have an account. Retired teachers can register and should put their home email address on the site. All of our festivals will be registering through solochair.

VII.  President’s Report

A.  Web Site/List Serve Update

Tony Alvaro reported that the web site was down while we changed from Ted Love’s equipment and site to a new free service for non profit groups. The web site is up and running. There is a new list serve. All members need to re subscribe.

B.  Finance/Audit Committee Meeting

The committee consisting of Dave Wilber, Ed O’Rourke, Sky Harris, Tony and Maureen Alvaro, and Becky Bizup met over the summer. This committee should meet each year to go over the books. This year a few issues arose. We were short in the Sr. High Audition payments. Teachers need to make sure they are paying their fees. We also discovered that we only had 29 members last year which was very much short of our budgeted amount. There was a problem with printing invoices from solo chair. Tony will look into this. Some people pay through Arts in Ed and had trouble getting invoices.

C.  NYSSMA Summer Conference – Presidents report

High School Teachers – If any of your students were accepted for All State you should have gotten a letter about All Eastern and how to register them on line.

There is a new NYSSMA Diversity committee.

The next NYSSMA manual may or may not be on line. It will all happen at once if it does. The only reason it is not on line now is that every manual is the same.

District representatives should send information to the NYSSMA newsletter including new positions, weddings, new children, and retirements.

NYSSMA (Joe Sugar day) in Albany will be March 7, 2011 and will always be the first Monday in March from now on.

The NYSSMA Archives are available to look at. They are housed at the Eastman School of Music.

There is advocacy information at NYSSMA.org and MENC.org.

D.  BOCES Music Library

Tony Alvaro visited the library and met with the new director, Rick Pollard. We now have three options as to how to proceed with the library.

Most of the library is cataloged on line but the most recent additions are not catalogued. We need to get this done.

Your district can pay a subscription of 2,000.00 so you have access to the music.

Rick Pollard thought it would be a good idea to decentralize the library. That means that we take possession of the material and run it ourselves.

The third option is to merge our library with the Herkimer or Monroe county libraries. The problem is that we would need to pay a membership fee to those counties. The fee is charged by the student (1.25 per student). The nice feature of this is that if the library doesn’t have a title they would purchase it. The fee is BOCES aidable.

At this point we need to get the music that is not registered catalogued.

Is this something we could ask University students to do or even house it at the university. Perhaps on of our retirees would be interested or we could get a team of volunteers to go there on a teacher workshop day.

Please let Tony know if you have any ideas about what to do about the library.

E.  OCMEA Directory

VIII.  Old Business

A.  Shine Center for Senior High AC Performances (tabled for 2010-2011)

If anyone has any additional thoughts about this issue please let tony know. We will open this discussion at the festival meetings.

IX.  New Business

1. Dave Brown from Fayetteville Manlius reported that Kitty Popow is finishing her doctoral studies and would like to interview teachers as part of her research.

2. Dave Brown also announced that he is running for NYSSMA zone rep.

3. There is an open graduate class on social networking in education. Teachers can access this by going to www.thinkfinity.org.

4. Tony brought brochures from Syracuse Opera. Teachers are welcome to take students to their Wednesday open educational dress rehearsals.

5. Tony provided a list of all NYSSMA dates this year.

6. Please tell choral teachers that the New York chapter of ACDA is conducting a membership drive. Go to ACDA.org. for more details.

7. New teachers

a. Ron Nuzzo introduced Dan Blumenthal who is teaching Elementary Band and High School Orchestra in the Jamesville DeWitt school district.

b. Dave Brown introduced Cara Richards who will be teaching elementary Music in Fayetteville Manlius.

X. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 7:45