Believe it or not, I didn’t join BHA because I had a love for administration and paperwork.  I would hazard to guess that, like you, I joined BHA because I just really liked the music.  But now, thirty years later, I find myself in the rather daunting position of guiding our association and ensuring that BHA as an association can provide you, me and all of our members with a great environment in which to enjoy our barbershop music.

This is no easy task, and there are plenty of moving parts. Unlike McDonalds, where you can order a Big Mac and get pretty much the same product anywhere in the world, we have an extremely wide range of products that we present to the world, and all of those products are legitimately called barbershop.

But there are marked differences between each of these Big Macs. BHA is a rich tapestry of diversity and each group has its own special purpose, its own reason for being, its own attraction and its own distinct flavour.

We have groups that have specifically formed to perform and compete at a high level. We have singers who simply enjoy their group for the camaraderie, the mateship and the joy that comes with singing barbershop harmony with your mates.  We have groups that wear traditional costumes and sing for their community nursing homes during the week. We have groups of young people who sing contemporary and modern arrangements, wear fashionably hip costumes and sing in groups of boys and girls. We have groups that enjoy singing mixed barbershop harmony with each other. We have school-age quartets and choruses just learning the craft, and we have guys who have been singing barbershop for decades. We even have guys who have just joined their local clubs and still have no idea that BHA even exists.

Regardless, BHA encompasses and embraces the goals and purposes of all of these groups. You are all valued, equal and necessary parts of our association. What we attempt to do is to enable all of your groups to do what it is that we all joined BHA to do – to sing! We do this through striving to provide events and experiences that benefit you, the members, directly, and that allow us to show people just how great singing barbershop can be.

So, as your newly elected President, I am calling on you, all of you, to help me and my team maintain a firm foundation for your singing ‘hobsession’. Wherever your barbershop journey has taken you, you have experience, knowledge and suggestions that may be useful to others. I would like you to share that knowledge with me and with the highly talented and passionate guys on Council. We are but the humble stewards of Australia’s fine barbershop tradition, and we want to listen to what you have to say so that we can support you to sell a whole lot of Big Macs.

Take the opportunity to be a part of BHA’s future direction, as we continue to build this amazing organisation into the future. Contact me, or any member of Council, any time you want to give us your feedback, tell us your ideas, share your successes, make suggestions, or just have a chat! Contact details are on our website.

In the meantime, make sure you read the other articles in this edition – there are some very exciting initiatives on the way, and we can’t wait to see them broaden our barbershop market, encourage more participation in our artform, and share in our love of singing good old barbershop harmony. After all, that’s why we are all here.

Sing-cerely
Dan Millgate
President