[From the Ontario District's newsletter, The Trillium, issue 61-03, July - September, 2007 , Waldo Redekop, editor.]

[ED: Taken from the Guelph Chapter’s e-mail list. Used with permission.]

Pep Rally

By Rod Mills, Guelph Chapter member

It is sad news that you may not be at the Pep Rally tonight. The Pep Rally is a once-a-year event, to support (and help subsidize) our Ontario District’s choruses and quartets that will be attending International contests this summer.

Sure, there is a charge for admission, and even for food and drinks. But we get to be together as a chorus, and with friends new and old.  It is a great opportunity to meet our pals in the district and to sit down and enjoy each other’s company, all while listening to some amazing barbershop harmony.

The Pep Rally is a fantastic time, with choruses and quartets performing one right after the other the entire evening. And, they just get better and better — the Royal City Ambassadors even get a chance to jump on stage and sing. So we are a part of it all!

This was an occasion talked about and shared as an upcoming event more than two months ago in our chapter meetings and in e-mail.  Perhaps you don’t realize how important such an event is. But then again, perhaps you have another important obligation that was scheduled more than two months ago and are therefore committed otherwise.

This is the main reason that events are shared so far in advance, so we may mark them on our calendars to reserve our time for that important event. I for one  appreciate that Ken Fisher and Doug Todd are willing to create and share the calendar for the chorus in advance.

Sure, this event does go late — probably back home around midnight or shortly thereafter — but it is important to support our own singers as they are to represent us and our very own district as they sing, competing in our society’s contests.

If we know it goes late for us, cannot we prepare by getting a good sleep a couple of nights in a row before, and then after to catch up?  The Pep Rally is only once a year and it is such a very good cause.

These are my thoughts about the importance of attending the Pep Rally to support and encourage our district’s own choruses and quartets. It is also a great indication of encouragement to those who are hoping to form quartets and to those who are interested in working harder in their own choruses.

I wonder if you feel the same.     k