Harmony celebrates

Uplifting weekend serves as blueprint to the future

By Gaye LaCasce, International President

Re-entry

Looking ahead

Town Hall Meeting - Sunday, Dec 7, at 7 p.m. Eastern. 

Harmony members give generously

• We set an ambitious goal of $15,000
• We EXCEEDED that goal, raising $25,113!

• Deb Wilson (Northern Blend)
• Laura Oakes (Northern Blend)
• Sarah Thorne-Miller (Liberty Belles)

Together We Give. Together We Grow.

Welcome to our newly installed Board

Gaye LaCasce, International President

Donna McKay, Executive Vice-President

Donna Clarkson, Vice-President Finance

Julie Schwingbeck, Vice-President Membership

Jan DelVecchio, Director Convention & Contests

Jeanne O’Connor, Director Expansion Area

Christina Lewellen, Director of Philanthropy

Anne Bureau, Board Director at Large

Yvonne Rafuse, Area 1 Director

Cheryl Copeland Lewis, Area 2 Director

Sarah Thorne-Miller, Area 3 Director

Susan Spencer, Area 4 Director

Sandy McCreary, Area 5 Director

Angie Beatty, Area 6 Director

HI history will be made at CTS 2026

By Kathy Greason, ICJC

Our next Category Training School is scheduled for the end of January 2026.  This will be a “certification school”, meaning that any certified judges who wish to remain in the judging program must re-certify, and current candidates may have an opportunity to certify, too.  In addition, five Harmony, Inc. members, all of whom submitted applications by the July deadline, provided satisfactory references, and successfully completed some pre-acceptance assignments, plan to attend the school.  This class of applicants leads us to a historic new wrinkle.  Two of the applicants are Affiliate members!  Let’s come out and say it – they are men.

You may wonder how this came about.  Since its founding in 1959, Harmony, Inc. has taken pride in its identity as a singing organization that is based on democratic principles and open to all women.  As our mission statement says, we have been empowering women through singing, education, and friendship.  By the early 1980s, our organization was in a position to support a judge training program, and in 1984, we certified – empowered – our very first Harmony, Inc. judges.

Confident in our identity as a women’s singing organization, in 2013 we welcomed our first dues-paying Affiliate members.  This membership category was open to those who might share and wish to support our organization’s mission, vision, and culture, but who, as men, would not be eligible for regular membership.  Among other things, Affiliate membership gave our male directors an official way to belong.

Filling judging panels can be challenging

Ten years later, at Mid-Year 2023, the IBOD considered an agenda item from a former ICJC who, familiar with the challenges of filling panels, had an idea to help our judging program grow and keep our contests strong.  She knew that our current judges often have limited availability to judge our contests, in part because they are all active contestants in choruses, quartets, or both.  She recognized that “[t]here are current and retired BHS-certified judges who would be willing to serve as certified HI judges to serve our contest panels. There may even be Affiliate members who are not current or retired BHS certified judges but who would be interested in entering the HI judging program to become certified in Harmony, Inc. She also noted a number of potential benefits to opening the judging program to Affiliate members, among which were lessening dependence on outside judging assistance at contests, bringing a greater variety of perspectives to our contests, and providing Affiliate members with an opportunity to enjoy more privileges of HI membership.

The IBOD approved the concept, but tabled the agenda item in order to get input from the ICJ Committee.  The committee’s input was essentially that there were clear benefits to increasing the pool of applicants.  Over time, our judging community has actively encouraged our members to consider becoming judges through such activities as You Be the Judge classes and publicity initiatives in the HI Note.  Nevertheless, we have yet to attain the “ideal” number of certified judges and candidates in every category, as set out in our Handbook.  And despite the support of BHS judges, filling panels remains a challenge.  A larger pool of HI-certified judges would ease that challenge.

ICJ Committee recommendations

The committee recommended that, if the initiative were approved, it should be conditioned on Affiliate applicants meeting the same standards that non-Affiliate members must meet, including the length of membership and contest participation requirements.  The committee also recommended that this opportunity be limited to Affiliates who are not currently certified BHS judges, focusing our training dollars on applicants who would not otherwise have qualifications to serve on our panels.

At its first quarterly meeting in 2024, the IBOD approved having Affiliate members in the judging program, with the limitations suggested by the ICJ Committee. Throughout their discussions, the IBOD has remained clear that Harmony, Inc. is and remains a women’s singing organization, and that this policy is intended to support the mission of empowering women through singing, education and friendship.  

Which brings us right back to Category Training School 2026.  I will simply say that I look forward to welcoming two Affiliate members and three regular members in “a blend with friendship” as they explore the possibilities of service to Harmony, Inc. through the judging program.