[HANASHIR:7955] Re: Planning a Kumsitz

[Josh Miller <jmiller...>]

Aura,

At 03:00 AM 1/18/01 -0500, Aura wrote:
>I'm a little nervous about this planning session because everyone who is
>coming (over a dozen songleaders) has a different background, leading style,
>repertoire, and musical ability. Many will be meeting each other for the first
>time.
>
>Have any of you ever tried to plan a community kumsitz with several
>songleaders? Do you have any suggestions or tips? Any potential mistakes I
>should avoid making? My tentative plan was to welcome everyone, explain my
>goals for the kumsitz (variety of music, everyone participates), and then set
>a playlist for the evening, playing as we go. Any feedback you could offer
>would be greatly appreciated! You can e-mail me privately if you prefer,
>progdir (at) provide(dot)net(dot)

I have been coordinating the "Bay Area Jewish Songleader's Network" 
meetings for the past six months, so I have run songleader meetings like 
this before! I think that some of the suggestions folks have made are 
great, let me pipe in with a few more ideas:

1) During the introductions, I would make sure that everyone shares their 
songleading background and maybe a word or two about why they came to the 
meeting. This can be *super* helpful for you to get a sense of what 
people's strengths are going to be.

2) I would also be up front and honest with folks that you acknowledge that 
you (and the participants at the actual kumzits) all come from different 
backgrounds, and ask that everyone be particularly sensitive to that.

3) Concerning the goals, were it me, I would not explain the goals as 
*your* goals. I would spend the first 5-10 minutes at the meeting 
brainstorming goals for the kumsitz, and allow your fellow songleaders to 
come up with some good goals that will be more or less the same as the ones 
you were going to set. The purpose: everyone feels bought in to the goals 
of the kumsitz. In my experience in planning events with committees, this 
makes a big difference.

4) I would brainstorm a *very* long list of songs *before* I started 
playing them. Seems to me that unless you plan of having a five hour 
meeting, it is going to take you *forever* to play through all of the music 
and plan what you're going to sing. That way you can keep all of the songs 
that everybody knows and likes, and then choose some of the songs that are 
less well known to share and teach at your meeting.

Good luck, I hope it goes great!

- Josh Miller
   Berkeley, California
   jmiller (at) songleaders(dot)org

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