This past weekend I had a great opportunity to support a great programme and as I see it, a cause.
Pierre held his 10th Annual Canadian Celtic Celebration, and after some previous work with him he had asked that I participate. It's always been part of my hope to build a sort of "Highland Heritage Society" in town. So often we all work individually, but rarely as a concerted group. There are plenty of Italian societies, Finn, First Nation and whatnot, but nothing for the celts.
Well, I think Pierre has done an awesome thing in bringing a bunch of great musicians together with the sole purpose of sharing. Our own pipe band has made it a near centure [next year, 2012, marks our official centennial] only because of the fact that we 'share' it as much as possible. Our free instruction I think is a testament to that. However, we're still not as open as we need to be.
Part of the weekend involved a concert and it was nice, although limited, for me to make some other contacts with the people I performed with - I want to find ways for us to all work collaboratively together more often, and I'd like to thank Pierre for that opportunity and give us a glimpse of what that could look like.
Additionally, I was pretty nervous performing. I've competed before, and played at the Auditorium, but never as a 'solo' in front of such a crowd. That lineup of musicians was absolutely stellar, and I can't believe I was allowed to even be considered to be a part of it.
It's just ironic how in the past few years my work life has centred on the community partnership models, and it's not something that has really sunk in for the organization I've been in for almost 2 decades.
And... it's kinda sad that the vision wasn't caught much by others in my 'community'. As a person related to me, don't be so surprised that less and less people come out to our fundraising events if we can't also support our fellow groups.
And for those of you keeping count it's 43 biked days out of a possible 54 = 79.6%
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