Golden Gate delights!

The 4th annual Golden Gate Singing will be held on the Saturday before the fourth Sunday in April (a.k.a. "April 26") at Potrero Hill Neighborhood House in San Francisco (unless something odd happens).

Ah, the Golden Gate. I remember when that all started. Jill was new to the Bay Area and raring to go, and caused us to have a singing school and an brand-new annual one-day singing. Jill was the first chair, and Carolyn and I spent the whole day cutting up arranging.

We had a boatload (carpool-load?) of Portlanders come down to support the new singing, and a pretty great crop of SoCal folks, too. PHNHH was packed. Oh, what a good singing that was. That was 2005, I guess. Before I had even taken my qualifying exam! Wow. It was also before I owned a digital camera, which would explain why I do not have pictures.

The second Golden Gate, in 2006, was chaired by Betty. I cannot even tell you what a great chair Betty was. People all around her would be freaking out about one thing and another, and Betty would just turn around and fix it. This was also the year in which the distinctive Golden Gate paper name tags were introduced, and I believe it was also the year of our making it a "green" singing: cloth tablecloths (thrifted! yes!), metal silverware (washed by Chris), and composting (taken care of primarily by Carolyn). Yes, that was a great year for the Golden Gate.

The third Golden Gate, i.e. last year's, was chaired by Mark, and went very well. Betty and I were the arranging committee that year, because for some reason a lot of people trust me with the registration cards (fools!). Composting and such went forth as usual, and we outdid ourselves with the food that year, due primarily to some well-placed threats on Mark's part (go Mark!).



Oh, the food. Let me just say that Susan and Shelby have always handled the food with incredible elegance and efficiency. As a nut-allergic person, I had a deep love of those little tags that said whether the food contained nuts (although I have my doubts about how many people actually know what is in the food they make, since most of them say unwitty things like "bread doesn't have peanuts in it!," but that is another rant for another day). I am sure the tags were also useful to vegetarians and vegans.

And that brings us to the fourth Golden Gate. That's this year! It's going to be great.

Mark, bless his trusting heart, for some reason let me be the vice-chair last year, which means that I'm chairing this year.



What's the matter? Don't I look like a responsible chair?

So, lemme see...there are some jobs to assign!

I've already gotten Susan to agree to be vice chair. It gives you confidence in the future of the Golden Gate, doesn't it?

Some of the other jobs have already been claimed/delegated, but here is a list of jobs (most of this is cribbed from a list Mark made last year, by the way).

• Arranging committee: coordinates the order of the leaders and the general flow of the singing. This job is a lot more complicated than you might think, which is why I am glad Betty is going to be in charge of it this year.


• Secretary: takes minutes, turns the minutes in, and makes a report at the end of the convention (number of leaders, songs led, and states represented). This job isn't hard per se, but you constantly have to keep your wits about you. The secretary typically works closely with the arranging committee (to ascertain name spellings, etc.). Linda will be secretarying this year, along with one or more others (pending!).


• Finance committee: passes the hat, counts the money, makes a finance report at the end. I think Chris has done this in the past?


• Chaplain: says the opening, noontime, and closing prayers.


• Resolutions committee: gives a report at the end of the singing thanking the appropriate people etc.


• Set-up and clean-up committees: this is self-explanatory, but I would like to have a leader for each of these jobs. Usually there is a passel of helpful singers that shows up early or lingers late to help with set-up/clean-up tasks, but we wind up wandering around like confused monkeys because we're not sure what needs to get done and what goes where. So we'll need some people to promise to set up and clean up, because we don't want to be caught short-handed, and we also need someone to be the point person who can tell everybody what to do.


• The registration table is really important, but it's also an easy job and good for a new singer. Best of all, you can take it in one-hour shifts. You get everyone to fill out a registration card, distribute name-tags, keep an eye on the cash box and loaners, sell loaners as needed, and get registration cards (for those who want to lead) to the arranging committee. So it's a lot of little jobs, but usually not all at once, and they're all pretty self-explanatory. I recall liking how the Portland singers had a box on their registration cards that you could check if you wanted to lead but needed help. We should think about doing that this year.


• The hospitality committee coordinates housing for out-of-towners. It's best if this person knows a good number of locals. Locals with spare room in their abodes. This job also entails having contact info listed on our propaganda.


• Public Relations: get us advertised! Handle flyers, mailings, PSAs, community calendars, etc. I must admit that I myself am crap at this sort of thing.


• Refreshments: coordinates refreshments on the day of the singing, like coffee, water, and lemonade. This person needs to have a valiant heart. And a car.


• Supplies: makes sure we have all the supplies we need (napkins, compostable paper plates, etc. -- I've got a list somewhere) and buys more of anything we're missing. Currently, our supplies are housed in these big green tubs in Carolyn's garage.


• Green committee: handles recycling, composting, and the washing of the silverware.


• Social: someone has to organize it, and someone has to host it. It would be convenient if these two people were the same person, and Philip's house is really nice (hint)...


• Food committee: In the past we've had one or two people coordinating this job, and a few minions to help arrange food in a logical order, direct the traffic, unwrap/uncover food right before lunch, etc. Shelby has already volunteered to do food, but she'll probably be needing some help, because food is a big job. At least, if we do it right!

Which leads me to add that if you have a kitchen, you should bring food. We do not want people to have guilt about taking the last piece of lasagna, or, heaven forbid, to go hungry. (That said: why does everybody bring lasagna to potlucks? Granted, it's a pretty good potluck food, but we only need a couple of lasagnas, tops. Not twelve of them. The same goes for green salads. I'm going to be pondering good potluck recipes between now and April, for sure. Perhaps Rebecca could share some recipes...)

Holy crap, that's a lot of work. But now I expect the singing masses to rise and volunteer to do it all so I can just sit around stressing out. Whoo-hoo! This is going to be fantastic.

(P.S. - Inder posted on the Time magazine article!)