The weather prognosticators had been proclaiming the news that the region was about to get slammed with a potent Nor’easter and that it would start mid-day on Friday and extend into the early afternoon on Saturday. As if the foot to two feet of snow was not enough, high winds and freezing rain would add to the drama. After having delivered a hundred and twenty Singing Valentines in a Nor’easter, faced a monsoon at the District Convention in Providence and held an annual show during the worst flooding in memory (October, 2005), it seemed like just the kind of weather the Keene Cheshiremen have come to expect for holding a major event. So, off we trudged to Scarborough Maine for the District Spring Prelims and Granite & Pine Divisional Convention.

As the storm abated, the judges were making their final tallies and soon it was official, Keene was going to have a good day. Already on a high from having had five chapter quartets perform in Friday evening’s quartet competition; and one of them “Stateline” win the Novice Championship, our guys were about to receive more good news. First came a District award, the Bill LeFort Trophy for the largest increase in membership of any chapter in the North Eastern District. This was wonderful, as we have made growing our membership as the cornerstone of our program. Next, came the award for best VLQ. Now Keene has never had a VLQ before, however for this contest, we developed three that we ingeniously named “Cheshiremen VLQ#1, #2 and #3”. Imagine our shock when it was announced that Cheshiremen VLQ#2 had won the contest. The final great moment came when it was announced that our chorus had prevailed in the chorus contest.

Chartered in May of 1952, the Keene Chapter is the oldest in New Hampshire. And in the nearly 55 years since its inception, never have we won the Divisional Contest…never. In fact, I remember that when I first became a Cheshiremen in the mid 80’s, we were the perennial occupants of dead last. Since those days, we have worked to build our music program and have placed second at division a number of times and along we way, qualifying for district on occasion.

About a decade ago, we gave up on the idea of having our chapter life revolve around competition and decided instead to work on building a strong chapter dedicated to fun, fellowship and continuous musical improvement. This has become the bedrock of our chapter. A year and a half ago, we implemented a program to grow our membership and have succeeded in building our chapter from 40 guys at the start of 2005 to somewhere in the low 70’s at present. Our projection is 80 men by the end of 2007. Along the way, we have decreased the average age of our chorus by a decade and a half. At the same time, we have raised the musical standard for acceptance into the chapter.

At the same time, we have worked on building a musically sound chorus. I think we stunned everyone last fall by receiving the award for 5^th place at District. Our concept has been to improve the quality on all our singing and not focusing on the contest songs. Most would be shocked at how little time we devoted to the two songs we did on stage in Portland; on the Tuesday before competition for instance, we indulged ourselves by singing each of the songs twice. It is not our goal to ever become a Nashua. While we hold them in awe at their capabilities and achievements, the sacrifices they make to be so successful are not ones we are willing to make. We will continue on our present path and wish those chapters who focus on competition the very best.

While Portland yielded some nice moments for us, two of my fondest memories have nothing to do with the success we had on stage. The first was seeing our dear friend, the legendary Jim Dodge back on his feet and in front of the Yankee Clipper Chorus after having endured such health problems several months ago. The other fond memory is how the various members of the North Country Chordsmen of Hanover were so incredibly supportive of Keene whenever one of our quartets or VLQ’s performed. And when it was announced that Keene had won the chorus competition, our dear brothers from Hanover rose to their feet and cheered for us. It’s great to have friends like the Chordsmen and it’s great to be a Cheshiremen!