1. High Notes

• Welcome to 2024. It is 40 years since your humble editor joined the General Assembly Chorus. Russ Johnston joined 7 years before that! 
• Jan 5: The Annual OCS Banquet was held in Fuquay.
  • OCS's 2024 Board of Directors:
    • Sticking around from last year: Gary Thorn remains as President; Larry Hill as Secretary, Michael Field as Treasurer, Nic Cols  as VP Membership, Mike Muha as VP/Music & Performance, Warren Fuson as VP Outreach, and Andy Fuson as Member-at-Large.
    • New BOD Members are Bob Inskeep as VP Marketing, and Mike Carney as member-at-large.
    • The first BOD meeting of 2024 will be next Monday Jan 14. All chapter members are invited, as always to attend.
  • Thanks to our awesome Vern Pike as he is retiring from the BOD, for his great service to the chapter!
  • Congratulations to all those honored for their exceptional service to Oak City Sound throughout 2023: 
    • Above and Beyond - Tim Kinsey, John Zweighaft
    • Rookie of the year/Team Player - Michael McQueen
    • Barbershop Spirit - Nic Cols
    • Barbershopper of the Year - Larry Hill
• The new mobile app can be used to access sheet music and learning tracks (and documents and attendance), with instructions for getting it and setting it up at: https://www.oakcitysound.org/dbpage.php?pg=app, which you can get to once you login.
• Jan 8: Our first meeting of the year.
  • We had three guests last night, incuding Jackson and Lucas, two students from Green Hope High School where they are starting up a barbershop singing club there. They indicated that they would be back next week with more friends. For our part, we are going to try to find out how we can support their efforts! Stay tuned. The third guest was Matt Martin, a friend of Jack Moody, 
  • At one point, we had 19 singers on the risers, a new record for 2024!
  • We started working our two new songs "Lazy Day" and "Where Everybody Knows Your Name", and our attempts 
  • And with the new year come 2 big new directions for Oak City Sound:
    • OCS will institute a new mixed chorus in addition to the existing men's chorus. First day of practice is targeted at Jan 22. The new Monday evening schedule will look something like this: 6:30 to 7:30 for the Mixed Chorus; 7:30 to 7:45 for business meeting and break; then 7:45 to 9:30 for the men's chorus. Or thereabouts. The first event for the new mixed chorus (hey it needs a name!) is competition in April at the District Spring convention in Pinehurst. 
    • OCS is resurrecting our old qualification process for contest songs. Basically, each singer will be required to submit a recording of each song, usually made during a rehearsal on your cell phone, well in advance of the competition date.
• Jan 15: Regular Monday meeting, our (current) usual times at the (current) usual place.
  • Please prep on the following songs:
    • Where Everybody Knows Your Name
    • Lazy Day
    • Over the Rainbow
    • Two Less Lonely People
    • Almost Like Being in Love
    • Sweet Caroline
    • Bare Necessities
  • As part of our new quartet program, the following singers are to be ready: Vern Pike, Tom Anderson, Nic Cols, and Michael McQueen
• Jan 22 (Monday); First meeting of the new mixed chorus. Start time is 6:30. Men's chorus starts at 7:30. Usual location at Searstone.
• Feb 5 (Monday): First meeting in our new location: Glenaire Retirement Village off Kildaire Farm Rd. Note that we will be in a different building from our earlier years there in the Auditorium.. Details on location and parking will be given out in January. New usual time.

2. Carol's Korner

It was great getting back to singing with all of you AND having YOUNG guests! Let's always sing like we are trying to impress our visitors and I bet we'll all have more fun, too!

3. Future Notes

• February 14 Wednesday: Singing Valentines!!

4. Long Range

• April 19 to 21: Carolinas District Convention in Pinehurst NC

5. Champagne Room

• A stroll down Memory Lane: A Singing Valentines quartet from 2004. BTW, we still have those snazzy teal vests and ties, and maybe could use them again. It could happen!
•