Welcome! Let's get to know one another. Please take a moment to respond to this email with your name, location, and what benefit you're hoping this list will have for you. If you lead a song session or organize a song event, tell us about it. I'm so thrilled to be part of this brand-new effort at connecting song session/event organizers to share information and support. I'll start: I'm Amanda Witman and I live in southern Vermont. I co-lead the monthly Brattleboro Pub Sing, which Tony Barrand and I founded in April 2011. I first got a taste of pub-style-singing -- *strong verses! rousing choruses! harmony to the high heavens!* -- from a Revels recording that a friend gave me years ago. I was hooked. I spent years singing along to CDs and wishing I could somehow find some real live people to do it with. For several years, I stood around wishing someone would start a local pub sing so I could sing harmony. Finally I realized that if I wanted it, I had to make it happen (and I had to get comfortable leading songs, which was new for me). Luckily, I had a willing and experienced co-leader from the very beginning, and the interest in our area was encouraging. I am keenly curious about how other sings work -- what choices have you made and why, what are your local customs, etc. -- and about the differences and similarities among groups. In conversations with others, I have found that I am not the only one who felt (and sometimes still feels) like I was/am making it up as I go along. But the more I connect with other organizers, the more I understand how we can make it easier for each other by sharing insights and information. So my hope is that this list will serve that purpose. Please respond with an intro if you're willing, and feel free to post questions to this list whenever you feel so moved. I look forward to getting to know those of you who post to the list. (It's also fine if you just want to lurk or if you aren't interested in sharing identifying information.) It's also helpful if we all try to include a signature line with name and location. Who's next? Amanda Witman Brattleboro, Vermont brattleboropubsing.org