The "Holiday Chorus" Concept
…... and how it can help you recruit
members and promote your chorus!
by Sharon Kittle, Yahara River Public Relations Chair
The Yahara River Chorus, Sound of Madison Chorus, and Fox Valley Choruses have been promoting their choruses and recruiting members through "holiday choruses" for several years. In fact, that's how I became a member of Yahara River Chorus in 1999. This handout is designed to tell you a little bit more about this concept and give you ideas on how this could work for your chorus .
The basic idea of the holiday chorus concept is as follows:
- set up a "pre-membership drive" in the chorus which ties in with an upcoming performance by the chorus;
- invite any women in the community to come to chorus rehearsals leading up to this performance and sing on stage with the chorus for this show (without committing to membership in the chorus);
- after the performance, follow up with each guest who participated in the performance and ask them to consider joining the chorus.
Yahara River
The Yahara River Chorus generally makes up flyers for our members to give to people they know to invite them to participate in the holiday chorus. They take the flyers to work and post them at their places of business and state, "if you have any questions, contact (Name) for further information". They let them know that they will be learning holiday songs that they have been singing for years, but in 4-part harmony, a cappella style. We inform them that there is no obligation to join our chorus afterwards. Our Public Relations Chair also sends a media release to the newspapers, radio and television stations in the area to let people know about the holiday chorus.
After the Holiday Concert is over, it is of course our hope that the new holiday chorus singers had so much fun singing with us that they will now want to join us. We explain to the guests the process for auditioning and joining Sweet Adelines and offer to have them come in early prior to rehearsals, and practice with the section leaders to prepare for their audition. They are allowed to sing one of the songs they learned for the Holiday Concert for their audition, so this is usually pretty quick and painless.
We've had pretty good success with this process and also tried it with a "Summer Chorus" process this year. We advertised it the same way as we did for the Holiday Chorus, but told them they would learn two songs and perform those songs with us in our Fall Show. 2000 was a bit of a banner year for Yahara River Chorus as we obtained seven new members from our Holiday Chorus.
For more information, contact Sharon Kittle at (608) 592-7544
Sound of Madison
Sound of Madison has followed several of the suggestions from Sweet Adelines International's "Ready, Set…Grow" manual in structuring their holiday chorus. Letters are sent to previous guests and members, news releases are sent to the media, and notices go to the local newspaper’s calendar listings.
Once the guests start coming in, the chorus uses pre-printed name tags for them, and sends them follow-up notes after three of the six weeks to let the guests know that the chorus is glad to be working with her and to offer to answer any questions about the chorus.
Sound of Madison averages 15-20 guests for their holiday chorus. Several of their guests come back every year because they can't make the time commitment to regular rehearsals but do enjoy singing with the chorus. For the past two summers, they have also done a Summer Guest Chorus which is also well attended.
Sound of Madison is encouraged that many of their guests return to participate in the guest choruses for several reasons. First, there is always the hope that circumstances will change with some of their guests which will allow them to join on a permanent basis. Second, it really energizes the rest of the chorus through the enthusiasm of the new guests. And finally, they feel that the guest chorus helps expose more people to the barbershop style since it introduces that style to the guests and any family or friends the guests bring to the performance will also in turn be exposed to barbershop harmony.
For more information, contact Gloria Borchert at (608) 244-6777
Your Chorus?
Now that you’ve read about how three other choruses in Region 22 have used this concept, maybe it’s time for your chorus to give it a try! As you can see, this program works best when each chorus tailors the idea to best fit their chorus and its needs and recruitment or promotional goals.
For more information on this concept, see the "Performance Opportunity Plan" section of the Ready, Set…Grow Manual on pages 3-42 to 3-60, or contact any of the choruses mentioned above for more information on how they’ve structured their holiday choruses.
