Wednesday, April 20, 2016

A reminder that we will meet on the main floor of the arts building tonight and that we should come in the front door.

Lana, Louise, Lynn and Heather played  Tuesday, April 12 at 7 p.m. at the United Church for the Tempo Festival. They played Crying Time and Wildflowers and were asked to play Crying Time at the highlights concert on Thursday.

The Ukulele Club of Winnipeg and the Brandon Ukulele Club have been invited  to come to Carman on Sunday, June 5 to play with our school group and our group at Ryall Park. The school theatre is our backup location in case of rain. People have been invited to bring a picnic lunch, lawn chairs and their ukuleles. There is an event page link on our new Boyne River Ukulele Group Facebook page.

Lunch will be from 12 until 1 with perhaps a performance by our student group at that time as they will be there earlier for setup. The day will go until 5 p.m.

Small groups can sign up to play followed by a group strum with suggestions from the Vancouver Circle book drawn from a hat.

Welcome to Lori and Tom who joined us at our latest strum on Wednesday, April 13. In addition to playing Wildflowers and Crying Time, we played our Patsy Cline tunes, Both Sides Now, A Town This Size, Try to Remember, and more (that I can't remember).

We will next meet next on the main floor of the Golden Prairie Arts Council building on April 20 (tonight) and on the second floor as per usual on the 27th. Don't forget our Tempo fest performance on Thursday at Carman Collegiate. The time given was 7 p.m.but I will try and confirm this.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

I was finally was able to attend one of our Wednesday evening strums again.  Thanks for an enjoyable evening. We practiced Crying Time, Wildflowers and a few other songs including Farewell to Nova Scotia which we are considering for a future performance piece.

If you haven't heard, we are meeting at Louise's Friday April 8 at 7 p.m. to practice our Tempo pieces, Wildflowers and Crying Time and anything else we would like to play.

I confirmed today that we play on Tuesday, April 12 at 7 p.m. at the United Church.  Our school strum club will play at 1:30 p.m. so we will bring music stands and have permission to leave them there for the Boyne River Ukulele Group performance at 7 p.m.

There is some interest in the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg and the Brandon Ukulele Club coming to Carman on Sunday, June 5 to play with our school group and our group at Ryall Park. I have booked the school theatre under our school strum club as a backup location in case of rain. Tim, from the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg has suggested everyone bring their own lunches and that perhaps a BBQ or two could be provided for strummers' and their guests' use.  Please let me know what times and other logistics you would envision for the day. I was thinking 12 until 5 with the first hour as a meet and greet during lunch. Perhaps our school group could perform two songs during that time,

We could follow a format where each group does a performance of two songs and the rest of the time is spent strumming some pre-planned songs or random songs together, assuming everyone either brings the Vancouver Circle books or copies for everyone.

I will set up a Boyne River Ukulele Group closed Facebook page and an open Facebook event page. I will also post details once we have them on the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg page.  Please let me know your thoughts regarding timing and logistics. I was thinking we should ask participants to bring lawn chairs and that we could provide music stands from the school.

The next meetup, besides the strum on Friday April 8 at Louise's place, will be Wednesday, April 13, upstairs in the Golden Prairie Arts Council building.

Wednesday March 9, 2016 

Thank you for an enjoyable evening once again.

In addition to playing some of our regular pieces  such as Unclouded Day we paid some extra attention to Wagon Wheel a song we are considering playing for the Tempo Festival. Our potential performance time and date will be the evening of Tuesday, April 12 at the United Church unless renovations aren't complete and then it will be at the Anglican Church. I will try and confirm the date and time by next week.

We tried some pieces from the Vancouver Ukulele Circle songbooks (the books the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg also use for their twice monthly strums) including Sea of Love and Octopus's Garden.

Thank you to Louise who hosted Lynn, Lorna and myself last Friday evening in a kitchen ukulele sing along. It was a lot of fun.

The next meetup will be Wednesday,March 16, upstairs in the Golden Prairie Arts Council building.

- H, not one of the L's or the K who attend our meetups :)

Wednesday, February 24 and Wednesday March 2, 2016 

Sadly, I didn't make it to the Feb. 24th or March 2 strums.

Hopefully those who were able to attend the Winnipeg strum updated those who weren't able to attend.

It was a lot of fun and the most ukulele players I had seen "live" in one room before, about 50 of them I believe.

You can follow the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg on Facebook or sign up for their newsletter though their website.

The next strum at the Kingshead on King Street is Sunday, Nov 6. It runs from 2 to 4:30 pm.

Lana has been converting some of the songs for our book while Lorna I believe is making the copies.

As requested, I sent Lana a few changes I made to Come Dancing to make it easier to play and more like the original.

The only other change I had was for I'm Yours, making the second instrumental part the same as the first by taking out the extra G, D and D7 chords.

Please let me know if there are any new songs or news you want me to post on the site from the last two sessions

Also, please let me know if anyone else would like a book from the King Street group. They are from a Vancouver club and quite good I thought. Maybe you saw a copy at the last strum. The cost is $15. Scott Sauders from the group works for Subway and could have them sent to the Subway in Carman.

The next meetup will be Wednesday,March 9, upstairs in the Golden Prairie Arts Council building. I look forward to attending again to show you a little something that arrived in the mail this week.

Here is a preview...

https://youtu.be/L02ghVfq3xw

Wednesday, February 17, 2016 

This week a special guest joined us, Lynn's daughter Emily who was out to Carman for reading week.

Here, I believe, were the selections that we practiced (please let me know if I have forgotten any): Kansas City, Uncloudy Day, Wagon Wheel, Rain and Snow, Wildflowers, Lie Down Beside Me, Walking After Midnight, Crazy, Log Driver's Waltz, Come Dancing, Crying Time, and Hallelujah, 

At least five of us will be traveling together to the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg Strum on Sunday Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. at the Kingshead on King Street. Scott Sauders will only have two books on hand ($15/each), so we should arrive early so we can sit together and share. You can also of course print out their songbook here. We will meet at the Carman Collegiate parking lot at noon to make the drive in together.

We also discussed putting our own song book together (even if it is just sheets in a separate binder for now) to make finding our favourite songs easier. Please choose five of your favourite songs from our current list of songs or any other song you would like to see in the book and bring your list to Lana. Some members have already passed on all or some of their song choices. We can add more songs as time goes on of course.

The next meetup will be Wednesday, February 24, upstairs in the Golden Prairie Arts Council building. 

- H 

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 

Each member present, taking turns, chose a few songs to play. This week's selections included:

Kansas City (Lynn will figure out the tune for us), Passing Through by Leonard Cohen, Riptide by Vance Joy, In A Town This Size by John Prine, Uncloudy Day, Wagon Wheel, Rain and Snow by the Be Good Tanyas, Wildflowers, Class of '57, Lie Down Beside Me,Hey Good Lookin' , Yer So Bad (with verses by Louise and Lana), Walking After Midnight, I'm Yours by Jason Mzraz, and Crazy by Patsy Cline. 

The next meetup will be Wednesday, February 17, upstairs in the Golden Prairie Arts Council building. 

We would like to as a group travel to the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg Strum on Sunday, Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. at the Kingshead on King Street. I have asked Scott Sauders if he would have at least six of their club song books for us to purchase for $15/piece. If you weren't at our meetup on Feb. 10 and you would like a book. Please email Heather so she can have one saved for you at the Feb. 21 Winnipeg strum.

We also discussed putting our own song book together (even if it is just sheets in a separate binder for now) to make finding our favourite songs easier. Please choose five of your favourite songs from our current list of songs we have been playing and we will put all of those songs together alphabetically. You can bring your list to the next meetup on Feb. 17 or email Heather.

You can of course add a song you like that we haven't played yet as well.

- H 

Wednesday, February 3, 2016 

Lana reported that the group welcomed back Kim who has been following the club's activities from home for a while as she has been busy on Wednesday evenings. To compensate for not being able to attend, and since it was World Ukulele Day the day before, Heather stayed up past midnight playing Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper.

In a round-about of song choosing at the gallery Wednesday evening, players chose several great songs to play including:  Wagon Wheel, Yer So Bad (with verses by Louise and Lana), a few John Prine songs, Let it Be, Something, Hey Good Lookin' , You are My Sunshine and more.

Lana agreed to bring chords for Unclouded Day in G, In a Town This Size, and Bring Me little Water Sylvie next week.  Lynn also promised to bring some songsheets.

The next meetup will be Wednesday, February 10, upstairs in the Golden Prairie Arts Council building. Hope to see you there :) I can't wait to hear the Yer So Bad verses.

- H