Welcome to the Grand Rapids Organization of Ukulele Players!
We support the playing of ukuleles and ukulele music in all of western Michigan.
Monthly meetings of GROUP are now suspended. There has been very little attendence for the last 6 months, even though we changed the meeting night to one which people said was more convenient. Experience from last year also shows that attendence was very small in the winter months. If the meetings resume we will send an announcement.
The next meeting will be Monday, December 8 at The Fleetwood Diner. We will be playing Christmas and winter seasonal music. Be sure to visit the song book and download the lyric sheets. You can also bring your own music to share.
Some of us get there about 6PM, and some about 7PM. The hours have floated a little because the diner’s hours have floated. The diner officially closes at 8. They don’t care if we stay a little later, but it’s not a good idea to take too much advantage of their generosity. If you get there early and enjoy a good meal, that’s fine with them also.
Our next meeting will be Monday, September 8. We are trying this new meeting night to see if we can allow more people to attend. Until further notice, we will meet on the second Monday ofeach month.
The July meeting is not at The Fleetwood Diner. The official GROUP meeting is at the luau which Susie is having at her home.
The GROUP will now begin the meeting at 6:00 PM. When we started, the Fleetwood Diner was open until 9:00. It now closes at 8:00. So, to get in two hours of playing we must begin at 6:00 PM. I regret any hardships this imposes on anyone.
FEBRUARY 6 MEETING IS CANCELED DUE TO SNOW
We will not reschedule this meeting, but we will meet again on March 5.
December GROUP meeting
The December GROUP meeting was - not surprisingly – small, as in, Karol, Suzy and me. I got five return emails expressing regrets at not being able to attend. We played through the collection of Christmas songs and had a great time. With the smaller assemblage we not only played the tunes, but we had the opportunity to work on new chords and fingerings.
The good news is if you missed the regular December meeting, you have a SECOND chance. As we were leaving the Fleetwood Diner the manager asked if our GROUP could play another night this month for the diner’s customers –UP IN FRONT. We chose Thursday night, December 20. He is going to promote the event for his customers. All we have to do is show up and play and sing. The Christmas song book of course is still appropriate. He intends to have some children there also, so suggestions for those types of songs are sought. While this has a bit of the air of a performance, it is a real no pressure situation. He asked to start it around 6:00 PM, but anytime that you want to show up and any amount of time you want to stay is ok. Once again, Santa Claus stocking caps are appropriate.
If you have never participated in a musical performance before this is a good low profile way to break in. Please give me some responses if you can or cannot participate. If you are on this list but haven’t been able to come to the meetings because of the night of the week, here is your chance.
Bruce
Our November GROUP meeting was a litle smaller than the previous ones, but no less enthusiatic. If you weren’t there, you missed it!
(Pause for reflection on that.)
We had our first outside guests. Harry and Gertrude live next door to Karol and me. We have put on some private living room concerts for them and their family a few times with our other instruments, hammered dulcimer and guitar. First they were amazed at the size of the banana splits served up by The Fleetwood Diner. They stayed for our jam session and sang along with every song they could. It’s not even Thanksgiving Day yet and we were playing Christmas music. We did have a request from the restaurant staff to play Hava Nagila, but nobody knew it.
Christine and Patsy didn’t make it. They had some kind of lame excuse about Chistine getting married this month. Humph! Just make sure you’re back from the honeymoon in time for the next meeting. Best wishes for the happy couple from GROUP.
A first for GROUP was a workshop. I presented my famous “How to Use A G String” workshop. If you weren’t there, you missed it! Next meeting I will present a workshop on playing up the neck.
We are adding music to the song book on the web site all the time. Make sure to visit it often. Next meeting is December 5 at The Fleetwood Diner. Don’t miss it!
Bruce
Our second meeting was a big success. That’s two in a row! A few people who attended the first meeting didn’t make it for various reasons, but Chester from Whitehall did manage to make the trip for his first meeting. Welcome, Chester. We played some favorites from our first meeting and some new material. Our GROUP was just the right size to gather around a table and peer in on the lyric sheet for those songs which we did not have enough copies of to pass around. Remember, if you have a song you would like to sing at the next meeting, email it to me and we will get it listed on this site for everybody to download.
Our next meeting will be Wednesday, November 7 at The Fleetwood Diner. Once again the staff took excellent care of us. Drinks were refilled and they listened to our music whenever they could. It’s not too early to get some Christmas music posted on this site. Once again, send it to me by email and we will get it posted.
We’ll see you November 7th. Bring your uke and bring a friend.
Bruce Evans