Christmas 2008 Sales Extravaganza!

To all you heavers and hefters!
What a great team you all are . . . out there braving the wintry elements to sell Christmas trees! No one could not buy a tree when you are all so cheery and full of the holiday spirit.

Thanks to everyone who turned out for our first two weekends of tree sales; 72 trees have found a new home in time for Christmas, and are getting wrapped in silver and gold and glitter of all varieties.

If we keep this up, all our trees will be gracing some deserving family’s home on Christmas day. Isn’t that a nice feeling?
Thank you all so very much for your un-ending support of this fundraising effort for our dear church. It has already been a labor of love for many, and we are very grateful for all your efforts as well as for those of you who are signed up to do more.
The Busy Christmas Elves,
Linda and Sharon

A Word from the Producer . . .
After the Christmas Eve service last year, Pete Stewart and I talked about how great the choir sounded. I said something like, “They should be recorded,” and Pete replied that he had the equipment and would be willing to help do just that. How cool would that be? The BCCCD committee was formed and the Christmas CD project began taking shape.

And so it was that the choirs found themselves practicing Christmas songs in August. The first recordings were made on September 3rd. In the weeks that followed, we experienced power outages, road-noise, broken equipment, sticking bells, creaking floor boards, that funny pinging sound that the church furnace makes, tired vocal chords, and hiss. Then Pete left for Greece and so I was promoted to recording engineer. We just dealt with each thing and kept on going. Clearly we were onto something good.

The singers and ringers accepted moving everything and everyone to Linda’s house to escape the road noise at the church. They hung in there during attempts to find the right microphone position. They endured my on-the-job training. We were all learning and trying to get the best possible sound quality and performances. That’s right, performances! The songs on the CD were all recorded live! We don’t need no stinkin’ over-dubs!

The last recording was made on November 16th. In the end, we had recorded 85 song takes in 14 sessions. Then we began the process of sequencing the songs into a final CD. We ended up with 13 songs. No one liked that number, so back to the church we went to record another.

Meanwhile, Kim had been working on the cover design and artwork and it looked terrific. It all seemed to be coming together, but it was mid-November and we were running out of time if we wanted to have something ready for this Christmas season.

When we went into production, we ran into a whole other set of challenges, including licensing agreements, turn-around times, printing errors, and manual assembly. It looked like we would not get licensing agreements for two songs so we prepared to record alternates. Peter’s hard work paid off when the last two agreements came through and so we put the microphones away.

The parts arrived last November 26th and when Kim handed me the first complete package it was very exciting. The cover looked great and the music sounded sweeter than ever. Then we sold about 100 copies . . . in five days! If you haven’t heard the CD, stop by at the Christmas Tree and SERVV sale where it is playing most of the time. At $15 per copy, it makes a great Christmas gift.

Many people contributed talent, time, effort, materials and equipment to make this happen. You all deserve a raise. Thank you Linda, Peggy, Bob, Heather, Sharon, Bill, Donna, Jean, Jeff, Arthur, Jan, Larry, Jamie, Stuart, John, Jessica, Diane, Chris, Marjorie, Ed, Amy, Steve, Jacques, Kim, Kylie, Kyle, Joe, Pete, Peter and Monsie. Did I miss anyone?
So what’s next? How about a Lenten collection? Linda?
—Kevin

. . . and the Director
Here we are with the first ever BCC CD of our choirs in our hands. Who'd a thunk it!! Kevin Hobbs thunk it and made it happen! Starting from the very beginning when he brought Pete Stewart into the church on Christmas eve and that fateful conversation took place between the two of them, Kevin has not stopped! His quiet but unwavering determination to make this happen was a force to be reckoned with. It reminds me of Don Quixote and the windmill. Kevin put on his armor and did battle for sure . . . battle with me over how many pieces the choir could get ready for the CD. ( I said 3 or 4, he said 11 or 12 . . . guess who won.) Battle with equipment, battle with the location for recording because of the battle he had with the cars at the 4-way stop (we recorded most in my studio . . . guess who won.) And yes, battle with all of our personalities and Kevin won there, too. The choirs did not know Kevin very well at the beginning, but they do now. We all know of his unassuming manner that gets things done, that look in the eyes that said, " We can do this and do it well" and we are sure glad he did. I have personally been amazed at the amount of work he did to get this CD done. AND his whole family can sing everyone of the songs by heart!

Then there is his trusty side-kick Kim. Now Kim's contribution was not as obvious to us as Kevin's because her work was mostly "behind the scenes? . . . however, without her camera and computer skills and without a determination equal to Kevin's, we would not have the beautiful and impressive layout for the CD that we have. The hours that went into the creating of this are untold. The hours spent trying to figure where to have it all produced, comparing choices, costs and production times!! And then there was the save!! Thank goodness Kim realized that we needed to get copyright permissions or a few of us might be spending our holiday in the cozy comfort of jail!!

Then there was Kim's trusty side-kick Peter, who spent more untold hours tracking down these copyright permissions.So, in case you thought the choirs did all the work, and they did a lot, think again. Without these truly wonderful and determined people I can tell you that this CD never would have happened.
Bravi,
Linda

Awed . . . but not surprised
I’ve never been called a person of few words, nor have I even been at a loss for words very often, but my lexicon falls short as I think of how to thank everyone for the tremendous success of our Christmas Tree and global-and-local handcrafts sales.

Now with the Parish House lawn back to tidy, the “beanbag” and “orange table” rooms restored to Sunday School readiness, the office slowly returning to normal after being the shop’s “back room,” it’s time for the official wrap-up . . . though to me it’s almost a wistful reflection on an extraordinarily shining time of collective talent, work, goodwill and cheer.

It all started at a Women’s Fellowship dinner on September 26th, when we turned ideas into plans, and possibilities into hopes. Our goals were both practical and noble. Our church’s budget deficit weighed on us all, while at the same time we wanted to welcome the wider community into our fellowship, and still contribute to a wider mission.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas, we ran what might be seen as a huge retail project, but one that somehow never seemed overwhelming.

Truly a huge group effort, all our workers, sellers, and buyers deserve our heartiest thanks. It’s always dangerous to try naming certain individuals (please forgive me if I’ve fallen short!), but there are a few movers and shakers behind the scenes who have to be mentioned: Carl Dill, Linda Burton, and Sharon and Bill Harvey for our tree sales; Linda, Sharon, Kevin Hobbs and the choirs for our CD; the Women’s Fellowship for our SERRV sale; Jean Jusko for magically transforming two rooms into our International Bazaar and Christmas Shop; Sharon Carlson for the complex bookkeeping and, along with Heather Detrick, keeping track of SERRV inventory; Jo Dill for publicity, Candy Smith for bringing in the Small Group Chorus from Brookfield High School for our Christmas Concert. We’re also grateful for donations of saleable goods from Linda Burton, Jamie Pfeiffer, Chris Smith, and Jan Lewyn for their beautiful knitting; Donna Hawks for Kevin’s amazing scrollwork; Amy Cox for Christmas decorations, Monsie Hobbs for her handmade beeswax ornaments; Linda Burton for ginger cookies; and Kathy Barlow for her hand-etched glass.

There were 215 work slots to fill over four weekends of selling, and 71 different people from 38 families gave of their time, effort, and enthusiasm to fill them. The fun of just being there inspired more than a few people to come and help when they weren’t even on the work schedule. It was just the place to be!
Especially wonderful was the opportunity to welcome all the friendly shoppers in our community. It was so much fun to visit with our friends and neighbors from Bridgewater and well beyond!

We netted over $7000, selling all of our 105 gorgeous balsam fir trees, all of our 300 CDs, all but just a few of the handcrafts from SERRV, and the wonderful donated goods from our members. Our global handcrafts consignment sales brought in $6500 for our not-for-profit mission project supporting artisans in developing nations through the fair trade organization called SERRV. (Someone wondered where that amount fell on the scale of SERRV sales, and a SERRV representative I spoke to said it was huge!) We also donated $105 dollars ($1 for each tree) to the Community Caring in Bridgewater Energy Assistance Fund for Seniors.
Well, it seems I found enough words to fill a page, but they’re still inadequate for expressing my awe over how fully everyone embraced this “First Annual” Christmas Season Sale. Awed, but not surprised. There’s a tremendous spirit of warmth, fellowship and generosity in this congregation. Deepening our ties to one another and our church was our greatest profit of all.