Annual Fall Conference 2020
GENERAL SESSION MEETING MINUTES
TFMC DISTRICT VI
OCTOBER 3, 2020
The 2020 Texas Federation of Music Clubs District VI Fall Conference was held on Zoom beginning at 9:02 AM. The “host” for Zoom was Marcia Edwards, and the host club was the New Braunfels Music Study Club. There was a total 41 people registered for this meeting.
Marcia Edwards, President of District VI, welcomed everyone and then had Roll Call.
ATTENDEES (30):
Wednesday Morning Music Club of Austin
Marcia Edwards
George Edwards
Virginia Kniesner
Sarah Harriman
Michelle d’Arcy
Felicity Coltman
Carol Dewar
Kathryn Govier
Natalie Morgan
Elisabeth Moreno
Marie White
Nan Hampton
The Etude Music Club of San Antonio
Lois Armor
Marque McKay
Lovena Miller
Cookie Nattinger
The New Braunfels Music Study Club
Mary Wittrup
Spencer Gremmer
Johnana Clark
Lois Gerhardt
Karen Akkerman
The Gonzales Music Study Club
Vida Burnett
Laurel Ince
The Opus 64 Club from Austin
Sue Bachus
Brett Bachus
The Arpeggio Music Club from San Antonio
Judy Gorrell
Elizabeth Gutierrez
The Crownridge Music Club from San Antonio
Mary Thomason
John Isaacks
Anna Kiefer
Guest Speakers in attendance
Jennifer Key – NFMC State Festval Chair
Anna Kiefer – President of Crownridge Music Club
Felicity Coltman – Piano teacher and member of Wednesday Morning Music Club
Marque McKay – Member of Etude Music Club
Brett Bachus – Piano teacher from Opus 64 Music Club
Michelle d’Arcy – Member of Wednesday Morning Music Club
Opening ceremonies were led by members of the NBMSC members.
The “Pledge to the Texas Flag” was recited by Marcia Edwards.
“Texas Our Texas” was recorded and sung by Thomas Engler and accompanied on piano by Johnana Clark.
The Collect was led by Mary Wittrup.
Lois Gerhardt, President of New Braunfels Music Study Club, welcomed everyone. She had originally reserved our meeting to be at Gruene Lake Village. She said that their club was founded in 1928 and then in 1929 they became official members of NFMC and TFMC. They currently have 25 members. The club gives 2 scholarships a year for college students and they encourage music in the youth, in the schools and throughout their whole community. She hopes that everyone will come visit New Braunfels because it has museums, the oldest bakery in Texas and many interesting sites to see.
The Response was from Sue Bachus. The Austin Opus 64 Music Club will be hosting our Board of Directors meeting in June 2021.
The State of our District: Club Reports
New Braunfels Music Study Club
Jo Ann Lemmon, Program Chair for New Braunfels Music Study Club, had a recorded report. She mentioned that like other clubs, they have made changes in their meetings since the pandemic. In 2019, they had a Strings Program and an Advent and Vesper Program. In January they hosted their 2 scholarship recipients with a program. The winners sang their vocal selections. In February, their club sponsored a program featuring the Comal Community Band and then everything had to stop for the virus. They hope to continue their programs in January of 2021. They also hope to have their Silver Cup fundraiser, which benefits their scholarship funds, in February of 2021. A German Heritage program is planned for April.
Crownridge Music Club
Anna Kiefer, President of Crownridge Music Club, said that they had their first Zoom meeting for the year on September 11th, 2020. Fortunately, they finished their 2019 District 6-4 Festival before the pandemic occurred. Their Spring Social and other Spring activities were cancelled. They are planning to have an online Festival in February, and they continue having their club meetings on Zoom.
Austin Opus 64 Music Teacher Club
Sue Bachus, President of the Austin Opus 64 Music Teachers Club, reported they currently have 21 teacher members. Sue expects a slight decline in entries for this year’s festival due to the Coronavirus. They would like to have a “live” Festival in 2021, but it will now be an online Festival. Her teachers have noticed that when teaching Zoom lessons, the audio and video can easily be distorted and delayed. Therefore, all the Festival entries will need to video recorded and sent to her by email.
Last year, she loaded rating sheets onto flash drives for our judges so they could type their comments instead of writing and that worked really well. For this year, parents or teachers can email the performance videos to Sue and they will be put on 512GB flash drives. Sue will put the ratings sheets with performance videos on the flash drives and send the drives to the judges for adjudication. After festival, she can email rating sheets from the drives to teachers and students.
Gonzales Music Study Club
Vida Burnett, President of the Gonzales Music Study Club, said their programs were interrupted by the pandemic, but they plan to continue with their program “Presidential Praise.” Every month they would feature the favorite hymns of our 1 or more of our presidents through history and learn about why they were picked as their favorite. Their club has not met this year. They plan to meet in October, but not in a member’s homes as they usually do, but instead in a place where they can spread out.
Arpeggio Music Club
Judy Gorrell, President of Arpeggio Music Club, reported that she and Mike, Festival Chair of 6-3, are preparing to host the 6-3 Festival on January 30th, 2021 and it will be an “Online Festival” this time. Judy, Festival Chair of 6-1, will decide if the 6-1 Festival, scheduled for February 27th, 2021, will be an “Online Festival” or not. She will consult with TSU when she makes this decision in November, so 6-1 teachers need to prepare for either scenario to happen. We were fortunate that both 6-1 and 6-3 were able to have their 2020 Festivals before everything shut down for the pandemic.
Instructions will be emailed to 6-1 and 6-3 teachers in October and will include:
How to video record the students’ entries
Procedures for the Theory tests
Deadlines for Estimate of Entries and Master Summaries of the entries
Student entry deadlines for the Vivace Database
Student entry deadlines for paying entry fees
Etude Music Club
Lovena Miller, President of the Etude Music Club, said their club is not meeting right now, but they remain committed to bringing the love of music to others. Several of their members are giving piano lessons via FaceTime. Some of their members are playing organ, piano and singing at church. Their programs for the year are already planned and they are excited about getting safely back together soon.
Wednesday Morning Music Club
Sarah Harriman, President of the Wednesday Morning Music Club, said they had a virtual Board Meeting recently and they are concerned about when they can have a live meeting again. They are hoping to have Zoom meetings that will include live performers performing from their homes. They had a “test run” of that format last week and they believe they can successfully do that in future meetings. Everyone is learning a new way forward to continue to have their meetings.
Group 1 Guest Speakers
Jennifer Key, NFMC Texas Festival Chair spoke on the topic “Overview of Junior Festival Program and How Junior and Senior Clubs Can Work Together.”
Anna Kiefer, San Antonio Crownridge Music Club President, presented “Choosing Repertoire in a Post 2020 World.”
Felicity Coltman, pianist and teacher in the Wednesday Morning Music Club, spoke and demonstrated her topic called “Release, Relax, Refresh.”
Business Meeting
MInutes
The Minutes were approved as corrected. The Minutes were previously emailed to members and were corrected before this meeting.
President’s Report
Marcia thanked all the members of the NBMSC for their help to make our meeting possible today, especially Marie White (for help with Zoom), Lovena Miller, Johnana Clark, Thomas Engler, Spencer Gremmer, Mary Wittrup, Karen Akkerman and Jo Ann Lemon. She thanked all of our guest speakers – Jennifer Key, Anna Kiefer, Felicity Coltman, Marque McKay, Brett Bachus, and Michelle d’Arcy; moderators – Judy Gorrell and Sue Bachus; and program helper and advisor- Lois Armor. Marcia also thanked fellow District VI officers – Vice President Virginia Kniesner, Treasurer John Isaacks, Recording Secretary Judy Gorrell, Historian Cookie Nattinger, Corresponding Secretary Janie Keys, and Parliamentarian Mary Thomason for their work to make our Fall Conference successful. Finally, Marcia gave a special thank you to Lois Armor, former TFMC President and current TFMC Parliamentarian, for listening and giving advice when needed for managing a large Zoom meeting. Marcia said Lois “made her life a bit easier and more fun!”
Marcia stated that our next meeting will be in June 2021 and will have the installation of the new officers for the next 2 years. She thanked Austin Opus 64 Music Teachers Club for offering to host it. The next TFMC meeting will be in August of 2021. We will meet in San Antonio in October of 2021. There is a new 12th edition out of Robert’s Rules of Order. Marcia also thanked the members of the Bylaw/Standing Rules Committee for their hard work to revise our documents. The new District VI BL/SRs were approved by email unanimously by our members in September.
Bylaws/Standing Rules Committee Report
Virginia Kniesner is the Chair of this committee. She thanked the Bylaws Committee members: Lois Armor, Sue Bachus, Judy Gorrell, and Marcia Edwards (ex officio) for their time and dedication to this project. Many thanks, as well, to those who voted. These Bylaws and Standing Rules were approved unanimously by the District VI general membership voters, and they took effect on September 3.
A total of 199 ballots were sent out before August 1.
15 USPS ballots were mailed at the Post Office on July 28.
184 emailed ballots were sent on July 31.
As of midnight Sept. 2, a total of 77 people had voted.
71 votes were by email.
6 votes were by USPS.
Some of the benefits with these changes follow. (Thanks to Sue Bachus for this list.)
The new Bylaws remove the requirement that meetings must be in person and allow online meetings like Zoom.
The new Bylaws remove the requirement that members must nominate and vote in person and allow nominating and voting by mail or email.
The new Bylaws change the time of the election of officers from Fall to Spring. The election may be held separately from a district meeting. With a Spring election, officers will take office July 1, a few months after being elected, instead of 9 months after a Fall election.
The new Bylaws add specific wording defining the term limits of particular offices.
The new Bylaws add descriptions of duties and responsibilities of each officer.
The new Bylaws add a second Vice-President. One Vice-President will represent the interests of Senior Division members, and one Vice-President will represent the interests of Junior Division members.
And finally, the new Bylaws change the Nominations/Elections Committee memberships to include a representative from each of the District Vi clubs, and they establish 2 co-chairs (the two Vice-Presidents) to represent the clubs.
Nominating Committee Report
Lois Armor is Chair of this committee and the members are Brett Bachus, Janie Keys, Anna Kiefer, Karen Akkerman, Judy Gorrell, and Gerldine Brooks. The committee will request our club members to consider nomination for an office in District VI. Their hope is there will be some of our members who will step up to the various tasks outlined in our new Bylaws for the various offices. This should be completed by March 31, 2021.
In mid-April, they will send out to all District VI members (from a membership list updated in January 2021) a ballot naming nominations for each office along with a short bio of each person nominated.
Ballots will be returned no later than May 15 to Lois Armor. No ballots received after May 15 will be counted. Three of the Nominating Committee members will confirm the count.
The announcement of the new officers will be made at the June 2021 Board meeting.
The next election will be conducted in accordance with the newly revised Standing Rules with the District VI First and Second Vice Presidents conducting the election process.
Treasurer’s Report
This report was emailed to all members previously and it is attached to this report. John went through the income and expenses of our 2019 -2020 budget and of the proposed 2020 – 2021 budget. There were no questions. Sue Bachus made a motion to approve the proposed 2020 – 2021 budget and Carol Dewar seconded the motion. The motion passed.
Memorials
Marcia began with a poem, “Our Memories Build a Special Bridge,” and closed with a poem called “Memories.”
Virginia Kniesner of the WMMC read remembrances of two of their members, Kim Akenhead and Maria Putter.
Spencer Gremmer of NBMSC read remembrances of one of their members, Ken Triesch.
Musical Interlude
Karen Akkerman, cellist and member of the NBMSC, performed Scottish Folk Tunes on solo cello for us.
Group 2 Guest Speakers
Marque McKay, Etude Music Club member, gave us a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson and then read his poem, “Autumn Fires.”
Brett Bachus, Austin Opus 64 Music Teacher Club, presented the history and demonstrations of “The Ups and Downs of Good Pedal Technique.”
Michelle d’Arcy, Wednesday Morning Music Club, gave us a detailed historical presentation of “Heaven’s Harmonic Trio: Correspondence of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.”
Credentials Report
Johnana Clark of NBMSC reported the following –
NFMC Officers - 0
NFMC Chairs – 2
TFMC Officers – 1
TFMC Chairs – 4
District VI Officers – 6
District VI Chairs – 4
Club Officers – 19
Members that sent in Registration – 41
Life Members - 8
Benediction
Our NFMC song, “The Gift of Song”, was sung by Carol Dewar, Wednesday Morning Music Club, accompanied by her husband, David Dewar on guitar.
Meeting adjourned at 12:30 pm.
Submitted by Judy Gorrell, TFMC District VI Recording Secretary
Budget Report of the Treasurer of the TFMC District VI
for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2020
2019 - 2020
Income Predicted Actual
Member Clubs Annual Club Dues ($20.00 x 7) $ 140.00 $ 140.00
Gonzales (October 2019) Meeting Income Split – Fall $ 100.00 $ 85.00
1st National Bank-Shiner CD Interest $ 70.00 $ 95.90
TFMC Pro-Rata Rebate 2019-2020 * $ 450.00 $ 453.29
______________________________
Total Income $ 760.00 $ 774.19
Expenses
Administration Unplanned/Miscellaneous $ 100.00 $ 0.00
Marcia Edwards Annual Expense Allowance $ 250.00 $ 250.00
Mary Thomason Past President Expenses ’15-’16 $ 250.00 $ 250.00
Mary Thomason Past President Expenses ’16-’17 $ 250.00
Mary Thomason Past President Expenses ’17-’18 $ 250.00
Mary Thomason Past President Expenses ’18-’19 $ 250.00
IPFAC (Opera in Ozarks) Annual Membership $ 100.00 $ 100.00
IPFAC (Opera in Ozarks) Donation $ 50.00 $ 50.00
Round Top Festival Institute Donation $ 150.00 $ 150.00
Festival Chairs Pro-Rata Awards 2018-2019 ** $ 200.00 $ 200.00
Festival Chairs Pro-Rata Awards 2019-2020 * $ 200.00 $ 50.00
_________________________
Total Expenses $ 2,050.00 $ 1,050.00
* This Income or Expense cleared the bank in fy 2020-2021
** Part of this Income or Expense cleared the bank in fy 2020-2021
Report of the Treasurer of the TFMC District VI
for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2020
Opening Balance (July 1, 2019) $6,143.31
Income
New Braunfels Club Annual Club Dues $ 20.00
Opus 64 Club Annual Club Dues $ 20.00
Etude Club Annual Club Dues $ 20.00
Arpeggio Club Annual Club Dues $ 20.00
Wednesday Morning MC Annual Club Dues $ 20.00
Crownridge Club Annual Club Dues $ 20.00
Gonzales Club Annual Club Dues $ 20.00
Gonzales Club Meeting Income Split $ 85.00
1st National Bank-Shiner CD Interest $ 95.90
Total Income $320.90
Expenses
Marcia Edwards Annual Expense Allowance $ 250.00
IPFAC (Opera in the Ozarks) Annual Membership $ 100.00
IPFAC (Opera in the Ozarks) Donation $ 50.00
Round Top Festival Institute Donation $ 150.00
Sue Bachus Pro-Rata $ 50.00
Judy Gorrell Pro-Rata $ 50.00
Mike Gorrell Pro-Rata $ 50.00
Mary Thomason Pro-Rata $ 50.00 *
Total Expenses $700.00
Closing Balance (June 30, 2020) $5,764.21
* This payment cleared in fy 2020-2021
John Isaacks, Treasurer
Proposed Budget of the Treasurer of the TFMC District VI
for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021
Income 2020 – 2021 2020 – 2021
Predicted Actual
Member Clubs Annual Club Dues ($20.00 x 7) $ 140.00
New Braunfels (Oct 2020) Meeting Income Split – Fall $ 75.00
Opus 64 (June 2021) Meeting Income Split – Spring $ 75.00
1st National Bank-Shiner CD Interest $ 95.00
TFMC Pro-Rata Rebate 2020-2021 $ 440.00
____________________________
Total Income $ 825.00
Expenses
Administration Unplanned/Miscellaneous $ 100.00
Marcia Edwards President Expense Allowance $ 250.00
Mary Thomason Past President Expenses ’16-’17 $ 250.00
IPFAC (Opera in Ozarks) Annual Membership $ 100.00
IPFAC (Opera in Ozarks) Donation $ 50.00
Round Top Festival Inst. Donation $ 150.00
Festival Chairs Pro-Rata Awards 2020-2021 $ 200.00
New Braunfels Venue Expense $ 50.00
Opus 64 Venue Expense $ 50.00
___________________
Total Expenses $ 1,200.00
