To: Parish Priests, Parish Council Chairpersons, Choir Chairpersons, Choir Leaders, Organists
From: Dr Socrates Boyajian, Chair, Central Council
Date: May 31, 1999
Subject: The Internet
Why are we, as the Choir Association, not leveraging the Internet . . . well actually we are. There are folks in our parishes who regularly check out our web site for the latest Choir Association news and to also check on the variables to be sung for upcoming Sundays (the Giratsooyts section of our web page). The address of our web site is:
www.erols.com\sograd\aacca
We need your help in maintaining the information we are putting out. Currently we have nine sections on our web site, and each section is growing.
1 - What is New - This section shows the latest changes to the web site.
2 - FAQ - This is our Frequently Asked Questions section. We answer basic questions posted to your web site on aspects of our church services.
3 - Central Council - This is our page that shows the current and past Central Council members and how to get in contact with them. This way, if you have a question you can contact the Central Council member nearest to your parish.
4 - Bulletins - This is our page that shows all bulletins for the current and past year. So if you missed a bulletin, you can always go to our web site and get another copy. This is also a good way (for me) to make corrections to bulletins that I have sent out. I have a habit of not using spellchecker before sending a document out. My fellow Central Council members point this out to me on a regular basis, and I make the corrections to the version of the bulletin posted on the web site.
5 - Giratsooyts - We printed this document for several years and people have indicated that it is a handy basic tool for preparing for Sunday services. The current and last Giratsooyts are online on our web site. You can go to our web site and print out any or all pages that you need. We will continue to post each (year) Giratsooyts on the web site.
6 - The Voice - This is the official newsletter of our organization and it is now available online.
7 - Publications - This is a listing of our current roster of publications, with information on costs and on placing orders.
8 - Tutorials - This I think it is the most important, at least used for now, section. It has the beginnings of lessons on learning the music to our church services. Currently the services being worked on in this section are: the Yegmalian Badarak, Requiem Service (Sarxian), Sunday Morning Service, Blessing of the Water. The final product will be pages that display and play the music of each of these services. So - if you are a Tenor, you would go to a page of the Yegmalian Badarak - and hear and practice the Tenor part (like Soorp Asdvadz). The potential to reach many folks through this medium is immense.
9 - Contributors - This is a list of the people who have stepped forward to help out with the web site. As the site starts to offer more, the efforts to maintain it also increase. I greatly appreciate the help I am getting. We are looking for more volunteers to help us further expand our web site.
Help us get the word out on the web site. Our organization has a very challenging task in communicating with our many parishes for the purposes of a unified approach to the musical aspects of our church services. With the distances between parishes and the travel expenses involved, the Central Council can attempt to achieve educational goals year after year - on a limited basis. How wonderful it would be to communicate immediately with all parishes. For instance, if we were to be given a directive that a certain hymn was to be sung at an upcoming Sunday service, the music (that you could see, hear, and print) could be posted on the web site within hours.
There is much to do in this area. I will continue to advocate the use of the Internet as a steady part of our communications mechanism. If you would like to be part of our e-mail distribution list, please forward your e-mail address to:
sograd@erols.com
also with your input as to what you would like to see on our web site.
Eventually, I would like to get to a stage were bulletins (and other documents of communicaton) can be sent to a mass (no pun intended) Choir Association e-mail distribution list. We are actively working towards getting there.