MEMBERSHIP MATTERS

By Jean Metcalfe

Membership Chairperson Diana Black has been really busy trying to whip membership matters into shape -- a very time-consuming project. She has added two new members to her committee -- Joann Hatcher and Joyce Trammell. They join Ronnie Dee who has been helping out in that area for some time. Diana (pronounced "Di-ann") and her committee members invite Co-opers to make suggestions for future meetings, etc.

Diana's next goal is to get updated membership cards and membership rosters to each member. This is no small task, but Prez Paul and I are gonna help out a bit until things get caught up.

We inadvertently left out of our March issue an article relating to the memberships meetings that were held in February, as well as what was coming up in March. We're including some of that information in the next couple of paragraphs.

February Membership Meetings

There's good news and bad news concerning the Monday, February 6, critique session. First the good news: we had a lot of tapes brought in for critique, and the required 10 lyric sheets accompanied them. The bad news is that we ran out of time before we ran out of tapes. But not to worry, we immediately made plans to critique the left-over songs first at our next critique session (March 20) and to mind the amount of time spent on each song. Thanks for being so understanding.

On February 20 the Board of Trustees election was held. The following members were elected to two-year terms: Diana Black, Ronnie Dee, Joyce Trammell and Charlie Walls. They join Dallas Embry, Brenda Bowlin, Karen Le Van, Jean Metcalfe and Paul Moffett, who have another year remaining in their terms.

A big "thank you" to those members who completed their one-year terms on the Board and also to those members who agreed to run for election or re-election. Thanks also to our efficient Nominating Committee and Tellers Committee for the fine job they did in ensuring that the election went smoothly.

March Membership Meetings

Joyce Trammell presented a well-planned, interesting and educational session on song form at our March 6 meeting. Using well-known songs of the past and present as examples, Joyce pointed out factors that contributed to the success of each song.

Co-op Third Birthday Celebrated

March 19 was a very special day for our Co-op. The L.A.S.C. officially came into being three years ago on that date. Following the March 20 meeting (a critique session) we celebrated that milestone with a small birthday party during which the members consumed a cake that had been decorated with the L.A.S.C. logo. Congratulations to us! May we keep on writing and trying to do things right for many years to come.

Future Meetings

Please remember that our membership meetings are now held on the first and third Mondays of each month at 7:30 p.m. at The Rudyard Kipling, 422 West Oak Street, Louisville. Open stage follows at 9:00 p.m., and Co-op members have dibs on signing up for the available 15-minute sets.

For our April 3 membership meeting Diana has lined up Greg Walker, one-half of the local jazz group Walker & Kays. He will talk mostly about music arrangement and production. It should be an interesting evening. I'd sure like to learn more about the jazz form.

April 17 will be critique night. Please remember that critique is limited to songs of members. Time permitting, more than one song per member may be critiqued. Don't forget to cue up your tape and have 10 lyric sheets available for each song.

Diana has furnished the following info on future meetings (so mark your calendars now):

May 1: David Blythe of Falk Recording Service will "walk us through" what he does to create a completed product from an original demo. He will show us the various stages a demo goes through -- from beginning to end.

May 15: Collaboration.

June 5: Debbie Hupp will probably talk a little bit about her company in Nashville, but she plans to direct her discussion toward the workshop she is involved with that is scheduled for the first part of August in North Carolina. (See additional info elsewhere in this issue.)

June 19: Critique session.

July 3: Board of Trustees to decide if we will have meeting that night due to the July 4 weekend.

July 17: Critique session.