The Spanish Association of Barbershop Singers (SABS)  
Now the dust has settled after our successful convention in Madrid, I thought I should bring you up to date with our plans for the coming year. ‘The Investigators’, winners of our quartet competition, are off to Philadelphia in July to represent Spain at The World Jamboree organised by The World Harmony Council (WHC), which aims to raise funds to support International Barbershop member organisations like SABS.

In 2009 we were given a grant of 700 euros, and we hope to receive a similar amount this year. These grants are intended to support our efforts to develop barbershop singing in Spain. Our President, Nico, has completed (again) a lengthy application for a grant from a Spanish cultural fund. Last year our application failed, but we remain hopeful for this year.   David Wright, a Deputy MD in the top American chorus ‘Hallmark of Harmony’ and probably the best-known arranger in barbershop today, last month visited a music academy in Madrid together with SABS quartets, to make a presentation about barbershop music and singing to the students. SABS hopes to initiate a competition within a number of Spanish academies, with the aim of encouraging students to learn and sing barbershop arrangements.   Sales of the DVDs from En Armonía Madrid are going very well, with over 800 euros-worth already sold. If you have not yet ordered your copy, it’s not too late – details available from Tony Colgrave via e-mail.  

Arrangements are already well advanced to hold En Armonía 2011 in San Pedro de Pinatar in Murcia province, from 8th to 11th April. San Pedro is on the Mar Menor, about 30kms from Torrevieja, very convenient for members from the Costa Blanca. More details will be published after the summer, so please make a note of the dates in your diaries.

We have also agreed that En Armonía 2012 will be held on the Costa del Sol, and our friends there are already in discussion with hotels. Our intention is to keep accommodation and meal costs as low as sensibly possible, to encourage all SABS members to attend.   If you have any queries, or you wish to join SABS (the annual membership fee is still only 10 euros), please contact TONY COLGRAVE.   tcolgrave@gmail.com


Tony Colgrave.


FROM  OUR  SECRETARY              
 
Whilst looking at the Australia and Pacific Section of the Daily Telegraph recently I came across the following report.  
‘Grim eater’ banned from funerals   A fake mourner dubbed ‘’The Grim Eater’’ who gatecrashed funerals just to eat the food on offer, has been warned off by undertakers in New Zealand. Danny Langstraat, a director of Harbour City Funeral Home in Wellington, said his company finally became so irritated with the intruder’s behavior that it took a photograph of him which it distributed to its branch offices.

The firm also alerted grieving families to his presence. ‘’He was showing up to funeral after funeral and, without doubt he didn’t know the deceased,’’ Mr Langstraat said. ‘’We saw him three or four times a week. Certainly he had a back pack with some Tupperware containers so, when people weren’t looking, he was stocking up,’’ he told the Dominion Post newspaper. Mr Langstraat said the man, in his 40s, was respectably dressed and did not look like someone who lived on the streets.’’

He was always very quiet and polite, and did as the rest of the mourners did in paying his respects.’’ The man has stopped turning up since a staff member took him aside and had a stern word in his ear, telling him he could not take food home. Tony Garing president of the Funeral Directors Association said it was difficult to stop people attending funerals. ‘’If it’s in a church or even in a funeral home, if a notice has been published in the paper its essentially a public event.’’

C H Ibbetson