Evanston Children's Choir

ECC Friday Junior Choir Note – January 27, 2012

Rehearsal number three—a room filled with glee!  Read below to see how you can add to the fun…

From Gary: ECC Actively Seeking More Singers—And You Can Help!  Since 2002, the ECC has been steadily growing by 10-15 singers a year.  Our old 2-choir structure had a limit of 100 kids, and we saw the need to change that.  Over the past 2 years the ECC has expanded to our current 4-choir structure with 3 distinct levels, doubling our capacity to accommodate 200 singers.  “How wonderful,” you say!  Yes, that’s all good stuff, but our expansion has created an acute, albeit expected, conundrum: at this point in time we have created (and are paying for) a program with a 200-singer capacity, but we’re only half full.  We are sure to fill up gradually over the years, but I would sure like to see a bigger wave of new singers coming through our doors right now!  To that end we’ve become more aggressive in getting the word out lately, recently sending an extra batch of fliers directly to all the Dist. 65 public schools, and this time also including area private schools and a special message to homeschoolers.  

So, what can you do?  Well, in a world flooded with advertising and other demands for our attention, people often don’t follow up on fliers—or even positive media attention—unless someone they know gives them a nudge and says “Hey, your kid should try this!”  So, please keep talking to other parents about our program, and tell your kids to invite their friends to watch a rehearsal.  If you know of a place that we can promote ourselves that we may not have thought of, or if you think you have a connection whereby you can get us a mention in a weekend church or synagogue bulletin, or if you have any other ideas, please drop us a line.  And fliers still do work to a decent extent, so here is a flier for you to forward at will, and I can print hard copies if you can think of a good place where we can distribute them.  Thanks for being ECC ambassadors :  ) —Gary

Volunteers Needed for Auction Solicitations:  Our successful Holiday Fund Drive was but one of our 2 yearly fundraising endeavors.  The second is our annual March fundraiser, this year called The Warm-Up: A Spring Fair.  Preparations for this heat up in February and it’s a really fun event for the whole family!  One thing the ECC Board of Directors could use help with is soliciting area businesses for silent auction donations.  Gary can give any volunteers access to the master list of places we intend to solicit via Google Docs online so you can see which places we still need to cover, plus solicitation materials you’d need.  Can you help with this?  If so, please contact Gary directly at (847) 733-0814 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   Thanks in advance!

Weather-Related Absences:  In light of last week’s snow storm, I though it would be a good idea to clarify our “weather policy.”  The ECC follows the lead of the District 65 public schools regarding severe weather events.  If there IS school on a given severe weather day and the school day is not cut short due to weather, then we DO have rehearsal.  The reason we don't cancel very often is that it would be pretty bad if some kids didn't get the message and they ventured through a storm only to find the lights out and the doors locked.  So we typically do have rehearsal for whomever can make it under such circumstances.  Please be advised that we still expect to hear from you if your singer will not be at rehearsal, for weather events or any other reason.  Your courtesy call or a quick e-mail is much appreciated.  Thank you!

See you next week!

Monica      
(773) 415-3560    
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