Re: HN: don't just sit there

[joanna selznick <joanna...>]

Hi everyone,
Glad to know we all got home safely.  I have been reading these comments
with much interest, and Linda's P.S. prompted me to respond...about
regional hava nashiras (hava nashir-OT?) Anyhow, here in the Beautiful
(albeit foggy and sometimes rainy) SF Bay Area, we have started a regional
Songleader's collective, which you may or may not already know about.
Anyhow, there is a group of about 30 people in our area, 15-25 of whom come
to monthly gatherings in San Francisco to exchange songs, job
opportunities, and tricks of the trade...we only started in January of this
year and so far the energy has been amazing. We are going to meet for the
last time this year this Thursday night, where the 6 or 7 of us who went
will share our thoughts and music from HN. It is kind of like a monthly
energy boost, where you know that you can see the people very soon!  

We were lucky in that we had a very strong show of support from our Bureau
of Jewish Education, who has provided us with an e-mail listserv, food for
our meetings, a space to meet, and lots of general support and enthusiasm.
It helps that one of the directors loves songleaders!  We are talking about
a Songleader's track at the fall teacher training seminars, and perhaps a
songleader's concert at the end of the year.  So things can happen on a
regional level, and I encourage all of you to approach your Board/Bureau of
Jewish Ed. and ask them for support.  Otherwise, if you have a directory of
synagogues in your area, contact each one and get the name & number of the
songleader/music specialist there. 

Anyhow, about the program itself, I agree with Rich and others who have
agreed with him.  Mostly, I thought there needed to be more time for us to
teach each other (particularly those of us who are becoming Hava Nashira
"Soosim Z'keynim"--Old Horses).  Josh Miller and i, who have been to many a
Hillel Staff Conference between us, were talking about using that model,
where each staff person (in this case each songleader) is contacted
beforehand if they would like to teach a seminar on something they are good
at doing. These seminars, whether short or long, are then incorporated into
the schedule: they could be anything ranging from: Kids' music, holiday
music, getting your stuff recorded, working with sound equipment, working
with your Cantor, starting a regional group, liturgy/nussach, one person
can lead a hike or yoga, etc etc etc.  
So you get small expert groups meeting all over the place, and suddenly you
don't have a program which depends solely on its faculty to provide
spiritual and professional nourishment, and doesn't seem so top-down
hierarchical.  

Thumbs up to Donny and Shimon for their amazing show, and thanks for the
Elohai N'tzor, the jam session on Sat. night, the 10-times-over Sh'ma,
Klepper's interpretation/composition workshop, the Chassidic music session,
Josee's Sefardic Yah Ribon, Debbie singing Regesh's Shalom Aleichem...there
was more...

(By the way, if you like that Shalom Aleichem, buy the regesh album, called
SHABBOS.  It has some other amazing stuff on it...I highly recommend it)

With that, my friends, I will sign off...
Take care (and Janeen Kobrinsky, I missed you terribly!)
Joanna