Dear chapter members,

One of the interesting results of the pandemic has been so many activities pivoting to online. While my patience with screen time is short—and Zoom fatigue is real!—I am grateful for the educational and cultural opportunities this transition affords. In the last week alone, I’ve “attended” a composer chat with John Corigliano (courtesy of the American Composers Orchestra), a Taiko drum ensemble performance (thank you, Meany Center for the Performing Arts), and an organ recital from Thomsen Chapel (Seattle’s St. Mark’s Cathedral). The latter was a lovely program by John Stuntebeck, and if you’d like to view his virtual organ organ crawl of this Fritts organ, start the embedded video below.

AGO is, of course, working hard at this transition. The latest webinar from national is “Know Your Value”, a guide to helping employees negotiate with religious institutions. The presentation will introduce a new handbook, put together in response to the the salary guide prohibition. That webinar is Monday, February 1st, 5:00 PM EST. For more information, and to register, click here.

https://www.agohq.org/employment-handbook/

If you’d like to watch it later on, past webinars and supporting documents are available on the national website at

https://www.agohq.org/ago-webinars-and-supporting-documents/

And, at the chapter level, we’re continuing the format of pre-recorded presentations, followed by live Q & A. On Monday, February 15th. Paul Tegels will present “Sweelinck and the Golden Age in the Netherlands”. It’s a fascinating period of history, and it produced a lot of beautiful music. Hope to see you there!