Welcome to 2021, and the Ontario District’s 75th anniversary! In my letter to you just one year ago, I invited you to take a line from our Society theme song to heart in 2020 and “carry your part” in our barbershop community. I never could have guessed the degree that we’d all be called on to carry our part in 2020. In many ways we’ve been asked to give up the art form we love in the ways we have traditionally enjoyed it to carry our part in sustaining the health and vitality of our greater communities. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your adaptability and resourcefulness this year, and especially our chapter leadership teams for finding new ways to conduct programming and meet the needs of members. 2020 wasn’t the year I or anyone was expecting, but we all built new skills with new ways of meeting that we’re going to be able to carry back into our in-person rehearsals. It also gave us an opportunity and time to step back and look at how we operate, and get to decide if that’s how we want things to be when we get back on the risers. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.
Occasionally I’m asked how I came to be serving as the president of the Ontario District. I have been extremely fortunate to have have been mentored and given opportunities over the years by too many barbershoppers to name: Ken Fisher, Digger MacDougall, Andrew Shackleton, Steve Armstrong, George Shields, Bill Vermue, Denis Laflamme, Jordan Travis, Barry Towner… the list goes on and on. At some point, each of these individuals asked me to step up and take on a new challenge. At the district level, I began as district webmaster. That position reports to the District VP Marketing & PR, and shortly after I took on the role the VP Marketing and PR at the time stepped down, so the position was vacant. For a couple years, I relished the chance to give back to the district without, really, any official oversight or having to answer for the changes and edits I made to the site. I could basically make changes unilaterally without having to run things by the “higher ups” to make sure that I wasn’t stepping on toes or not doing things “the way it’s always been done”.
Every so often, though, I would need to go to the board for a particularly big decision. At every turn, I found the board completely open and accepting to new ideas. Each “yes” was an encouragement that this was a place where I could really make a change, and pushed me to take on a bigger role. As webmaster, I came to them and said “let’s completely rebuild our website from scratch” and “let’s create new social media accounts”. Green light. As VP Marketing and PR I said “let’s invest in a video series with interviews with Ontario barbershoppers” and “let’s create a new online web store for district merch” and “let’s share our convention video for free on YouTube rather than charging performance groups for them”. Green light. As Executive Vice President I said “let’s try a Saturday afternoon hospitality room at a convention” and “let’s build a consistent presence at the Ontario Music Educator’s Conference” and “let’s rebrand Leadership Academy”. Green light. This was not what I had pictured when I began as webmaster.
I don’t say this to take credit for any of these ideas; none of them are solely mine or even particularly original at the Society level. I say this to highlight that the reason I continued to accept the new opportunities that were placed before me was because the Ontario District is an organization where people are listened to and where new ideas are tried out. If you’ve been holding back your passion or your creativity in helping us better our district and reach new audiences because you think that we’re stuck in a rut doing business as usual, think again. Now more than ever (there’s a phrase that we’ve heard a lot this year), please make your ideas heard. With your help we can come out of this pandemic like a slingshot, poised to engage new people who are yearning for a new community outside of their house.
The light is at the end of the tunnel, the vaccines are coming. I can’t wait for those first events back when we can raise our voices in song again. We’ll see you very soon.
In harmony,
Michael Black
President – Ontario District of the Barbershop Harmony Society