2009 AGEHR Nat'l Seminar: Thursday

Today was a really good day!

I didn't want to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, so ordered room service (which was actually cheaper!).

I skipped the first Advanced Ringing Track rehearsal (with Jim's prior position) to attend Martha Lynn Thompson's "Finale 1" class. I learned a couple of things in that class that totally paid for the conference! I am looking forward to taking the other 6 classes in the track!

Speaking of the Advanced Ringing Track, we had 5 hours of rehearsal today, culminating with an impromptu concert for whomever we could convince to attend. We did pretty well. I talked to a number of participants & they all said that they learned alot from Jim. He really was much less picky with them than he was with Sonos, though a lot of them asked me "is he always that picky?" to which I answered, "no, he let y'all off easy!" ;-)

I did have one session "free" so I attended Sueda Luttrell's class on solo ringing "Fearful or Free". It was fun! We did some exercises in which we moved to music, both with & without partners, then some of us volunteered to play an excerpt from a solo for the class & try to do it in various emotional states. I really enjoyed seeing how such a class was presented. Plus, it was good to see Sueda again - I haven't really had a chance to visit with her since Handbell Exploration in Scottsdale (AZ) in 2001.

This evening, dinner was down in "The Last Outpost" which used to be a steakhouse, but is now reserved for special events. I sat with John Behnke & Doug Benton, as well as PL Grove, JD Frizell, & JC Coolen. I told JR Smoth & KC Condon that they needed to come sit @ our table so that we would have all the initials represented!

After dinner, Ruben Mendoza gave a solo concert. He was accompanied by Jim Meredith & did a great job, but boy was it hot!! I felt really sorry for him & Jim to play in the heat.

After the concert was a shindig in the outpost with a DJ and line dancing & games & such, but it was just too hot for that, so I went back to my room to freshen up, then hung out in the lobby bar with friends Sharon Barton, Griff Gall, Patrick Gagnon, Rima Greer, Michael Glasgow, Michael Joy, Nick Hanson, Emily Li (who is attending all the way from Hong Kong!), and Kath Wissinger.

All in all, it was a really great day & I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

-Michèle (from my mobile phone)