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Hi, welcome to the Reboot Loading Podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie. Hello everyone, I'm here with Erin Huntofta and she is a former coworker of mine. We are both currently laid off. We're laid off at the same time. And I wanted to bring her on for a little special mini episode where she is going to talk about a current fundraiser that she is doing with her choir.
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I saw the website for this that was put together and I was just so impressed by it that I wanted to talk to her about this specifically and get her on early enough so that we can get the word out about this and get as much support for it as we can. I will have Erin on in a future episode, so stay tuned for that. We talk about so many great things that you're not going to want to miss out on. Without further ado, I would like to introduce Erin. Thanks for having me back. Thank you for...
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coming on and talking about this. I think it's a great endeavor, and I know a lot of work has been put into this. So if you wanna give me the background of it, how it came about, any sort of little tidbits of info that we can share out, that would be great. Sure. Northwest Repertory Singers is a smallish choir based out of Tacoma, Washington. We have just shy of 50 members.
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And the choir itself grew out of the Adelphians choir tradition at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. The choir is getting ready to celebrate 25 years, I believe next season, and has a lot of the founding members still very much involved in the choir, including our conductor who was an Adelphian at the University of Puget Sound and took over a few years ago just before
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It is an by-audition choir. We do a lot of works that are original. Some of the works that we did last spring were by members of the choir, so getting to work with the composers as they actively changed the composition during the season was a lot of fun. Having them lead us through their work was incredible. This is a group of people
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who really like each other and have incredible talent and not a ton of promotion, self-promotion. That's not really what this group is good at. This group is very good at making good music, about supporting one another. And I saw opportunities when I joined to build on that. So one of the things that I did initially is I encouraged the group to get involved in a...
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Facebook social media group for the choir internally to communicate with each other. So to get to know each other, to share news. I kind of became a board member accidentally by getting so involved that they turned me into a board member. I'm the social media board member for NWRF.
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And the other opportunity I saw is this group is incredibly talented. They do some so much original work, but they don't necessarily have the financial underpinnings to buy rights. So you see a lot of choir videos all over YouTube. Those choirs typically have enough funding that they can buy the licensing rights to share their performance in a public venue.
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We would like to be able to do that. We would like to be able to hire people to do recorded rehearsal tracks so that choir members could sit at home and play a rehearsal track to sing along to because not every choir member is a pianist, for instance, to plunk out the part to figure out how it all fits together. Travel, going on tour, going to Europe, you know, these are things that if you have more resources financially you can do that.
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and collaborating with composers, collaborating with local orchestras to do larger works in larger venues. We sold out at our Christmas concerts this past year. We ran out of programs half an hour before the concert started. It was just so popular. This group is really making a name for itself, and there's just so much potential to grow.
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One of the things my previous community choir has done a very good job of, Northwest Associated Arts in Burien, Washington has choirs at the youth mainstream and retiree levels. And they have a tradition of hosting a cabaret in the early spring, which is an in-person event with dinner and a silent auction, winepull, dessert dash.
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and performances. It's a really good time. People dress up and love going, love attending, love bringing guests. And the choir makes a lot of money and they do really exciting things with that money. They sponsor, like David Sedaris coming to Benaroya Hall, you know. Those kinds of things really open up opportunities for the choir and help them get some notoriety.
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and I wanted to help this choir gain some of that opportunity. So last year I took some of my choir mates to my previous choir's cabaret to see what it was all about. They were enthusiastic and eventually over the course of talking about it all season last year, they told me, okay, we want you to do this. It's a big effort.
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This auction is our inaugural gala event for Northwest Repertory Singers. It's starting as an online-only auction. It opens on April 26th at 5 p.m. Pacific Time. That's when bidding begins. Registration is open now. You can go look at items now. And it goes through May 8th at 8 p.m. Pacific
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You need to be in the Puget Sound area. So Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, or have somebody in the Puget Sound area who can pick up your item on May 10th or May 11th. Those are Friday or Saturday of Mother's Day weekend at their location in Federal Way, Washington. That sounds amazing. I am very excited to see the outcome of this for your group. And it really just.
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makes me happy to see people coming together. And that's why I really wanted to highlight this because throughout your time being laid off and just looking for things to keep you grounded, keep you mentally sane, I know that this was a lot of work, but I know that this is something that you really enjoyed putting together. And I just, I wanted to showcase that the website, the
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Items on there that are up for auction are really awesome items. I was super impressed and I wish I lived closer. I encourage anyone who is in that area to take a look. Even if you're not, take a look at the choir's information and what they're all about. I will have a link to both the auction piece as well as their website that you can take a look at and see all the great things that they're doing.
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hearing stories like this and hearing about whether it be an organization, acquire any sort of groups that come together that are supportive in such a way that it can help how important mental health is and having squad like that, just having these people around you that share in something that is important to you, share in something that is enjoyable to you, it really helps. So I wish you guys so much luck on this auction and-
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One question I had, do you have options where people could donate cash? Yes. Yeah, if you actually, if you click on the homepage for the auction, there is a big yellow button that says click here to view the full auction catalog and below that is a red button that says click here to make a tax deductible donation to NWRS on Zephyr. No fees. Important to note that if you buy something in the auction,
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It will show the taxable value of the item. If you pay more than the taxable value, that excess amount is tax deductible because this is a not-for-profit, it's a 501c3 organization. And if you buy something and pay with a credit card, those credit card fees are added onto the amount that you pay. If you would like to make a cash donation tax deductible to a...
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worthy organization. It will be on the charity auction website. Again, I will have that linked down in the show notes below. And Erin, best of luck to you guys. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of this. Me too. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it. If you're interested in becoming a guest on my show, all the information on how to contact me is available in the show notes. Also, if you're enjoying the content and would like a shout out in an upcoming episode.
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A link in how you can support this podcast is available in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening and until next time.