OperA Guild Newsletter
Summer 2009

In this issue:

New Officers for 2009 - 2010

Opera Guild Educational Programs Reach over 15,000 Students in 2008 - 2009

Opera Study Course -- A Benefit of Membership

Grants Help Opera Guild Fund Our Programs

Memorial Scholarship to Honor Margie Rust

Introducing our New Website

New Officers for 2009 – 2010

New Officers were installed at the May 17th Annual Spring Membership Meeting at the home of Mrs. Edith McAllister.  The new officers assume their duties on June 1, 2009. 

INSTALLATION OF OFFICERS FOR 2009-2010 YEAR

They are:
President:                                       Kathleen Meriwether
Executive Vice President:                 Richard Teitz
Vice President Education:                 Margaret King Stanley
Vice President Fund Development:    Esther Nelson
Vice President Social Events:            Caroline Sanders
Corresponding Secretary:                 Doris Townsend
Recording Secretary:                        Shirley Kline
Treasurer:                                       Roger Bessey

Opera in the Schools
Margaret King Stanley, Vice President of Educational Development and Past President of the Opera Guild.

What a wonderful year the Opera in the Schools program had in 2008-2009! Last year’s operas reached over 15,000 students, and this year we hope to equal or exceed that number. All of the Opera in the Schools programs are offered free of charge to students in our community. Guild volunteers and members work all year raising funds so that the schools pay nothing! And as always, the seating is first-come, first-served.

The opera, Pied Piper, toured 25 different schools for 30 performances in December and May. Students from each school on the tour participated as rats and as the children’s chorus on stage with the UTSA cast.  We plan to tour Pied Piper again next year, beginning in December. For exact dates and an opportunity for your school to participate, contact Margaret King Stanley at education@operaguildsa.org.

In March 1,700 middle and high school students attended The Mikado at Lila Cockrell theatre. The Opera Guild gave a donation to the presenter, the San Antonio Opera, to make this event possible for the schools. The 29 schools attending included those from San Antonio, North East, Northside, and Edgewood school districts and parochial, private, and home schools. As with all the operas offered by the Opera Guild, we provided teacher’s guides in advance of the opera and this year, we gave CDs of the D’Oly Carte production of the Mikado for the participating school libraries.  Free bus
parking was also provided for buses bringing the students to the opera.

In April, UTSA’s production of  Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte was offered to middle and high school age students at the Buena Vista theatre on the downtown campus. Vocal students from UTSA accompanied by the student orchestra sang in the fully staged production. Super titles were a big help since some of Mozart’s beautiful arias were sung in Italian, the original language. The Guild provided CDs of the opera for school libraries and sent out a teacher’s guide in advance of the performance.

In 2009-2010 we will offer schools two of San Antonio Opera’s productions (September 2009 and January 2010) as well as the UTSA Production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s the Pirates of Penzance at Buena Vista Theatre on the downtown UTSA campus (March 2010). Interested teachers can contact the Education Vice President at education@operaguildsa.org  for more information and dates. All productions are free to schools; schools must provide their own transportation to the opera.

Lecture Series on Opera – Opera Study Course

For several years Board member Elizabeth Lyle has organized a series of video lectures by noted musical historian Robert Greenberg.  Greenberg is the music historian-in-residence with San Francisco Performances.   The programs are free and are a benefit of membership in the Opera Guild.

Thanks to Elizabeth, this year the series, which is held in volunteering members’ homes, was on the major operas of Mozart.  Approximately 25 members came to each Monday afternoon presentation.  To share just one reaction, here are notes from Susan and Fred Nordhauser:

“We thoroughly enjoyed the Monday opera classes sponsored by the Opera Guild.  We enjoyed the wonderful lectures.  Who would have believed that 6 or 8 lectures on Mozart's Magic Flute could be so interesting?  We enjoyed these lectures so much that we all enthusiastically voted to have the same lecturer do the lectures next year on "Listening to Music".  By the way, his lectures last year on "The Life and Times of Verdi" were wonderful as well.

In addition to the lectures, it was very enjoyable to meet with other members of the Opera Guild who also love opera.  It was great fun to meet in each other's homes and to enjoy the wonderful snacks provided by all the participants.

Many of us were sorry to see the lectures come to an end in February and we are looking forward to them starting again in the fall.”

We will be offering the Operas of Mozart on Tuesday evenings over the summer, beginning on May 26.

GRANTS HELP OPERA GUILD FUND OUR Programs
By Roger Bessey, Past President Acting Treasurer, Grants Writer

The Opera Guild funds its Opera in the Schools program and many of its adult opera education events through donations, benefits, endowment interest, and grants.  Grants have become a major and necessary funding source.  The Opera in the Schools program, for instance, now has a budget that is over $50,000 annually, and 60% of that funding comes from grants.  The audio visual equipment used for the Sunday Matinee opera showings was funded by a grant.  Without that funding we would not have the Sunday Matinees.  Clearly it is important that the Opera Guild continues to receive grants to keep our community programs going.

For the past six years OGSA has been fortunate to have obtained funding from the City Office of Cultural Affairs.  Although not strictly a grant (it is a reimbursement contract), it has enabled us to expand the Opera in the Schools program from the point where we reached about 1000 students six years ago to serving over 16,000 last year.  For the past three years the San Antonio Area Foundation has awarded OGSA their maximum dollar level for a grant, $15,000, which has also supported the Opera in the Schools program.  We value this recognition of the favorable way our program is viewed by one of San Antonio’s major grantors and the community.

But grants do not fall off trees.  Many grantors require detailed applications not only describing how the grant will be used, but sometimes years of OGSA past financial data, IRS records, Board lists, and other detailed information about our organization.  As the OGSA Grants Writer for the last six years, I have accumulated five filing boxes full of information in hard copy, not to mention hundreds of files on my computer that I use to respond to these applications.

Most grantors limit the size of their grants depending on the annual budget of the organization who is applying.  Some grantors also will not give grants at all to organizations whose annual budgets they consider to be too small (usually annual budget $100,000 or less), because they feel the complexity of the process they have to go through in judging all the grant applications they receive doesn’t justify the time they would have to spend judging many small grant applications.  Opera Guild is put at something of a disadvantage because of this, since we are a volunteer organization, so labor costs don’t figure into our budget as with other organizations.  In other words, the OGSA annual budget is artificially small, because we have minimal labor charges, even though a lot of work is being done.  Some grantors will allow us to cite volunteer hours as if we had had to pay for them.  So it is important when you work on an OGSA project that you keep track of the hours you spend.

Some of the most difficult problems I have had to face as the OGSA Grants Writer are when we actually win a grant.  Then there are reporting requirements, frequently monthly.  Also there is expenditure justification (keeping receipts, showing that OGSA spent the money the way they said they would in the proposal) and sometimes invoicing the grantor (as is the case with our City grant).  I have a 16-inch stack of paper that is just the OGSA receipts and invoices for the last six years, for instance.  With the Treasurer, I have to keep track of the OGSA financial data on a monthly basis.

After six years as the OGSA Grants Writer, I am ready to pass the baton.  Although it is an arduous job,  it also has a lot of satisfaction attached to it.  Especially when we win a grant!  Especially when you can see programs growing that we might not be able to afford at all if it weren’t for grants.

Memorial Scholarship to Honor Margie Rust

The Opera Guild is sad to report that our President for 2007-2008, Margaret Cape “Margie” Rust died May 10th after a brief illness. Margie served as president, Treasurer, and was Chairman of many events and committees for the Opera Guild and was among the most active of our members. A memorial scholarship fund will be established in her name in the next month.

Margie was a capable organizer not only for the Opera Guild, but for many art groups of San Antonio. She was president of Southwest Foundation Forum, Cancer Center Council, San Antonio Symphony League, San Antonio Art League, Any Baby Can, and other groups. She received many honors, including being named Volunteer Extraordinaire by the Junior League of San Antonio, the Spirit of the American Woman Award of J C Penney Company and named to the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame, a group for which she later served as president. She served as Executive Director for the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program and wrote a social column for 25 years, first for the San Antonio Light and then for the North San Antonio Times. She is survived by her husband of 42 years, Joe C. Rust, two sons, their wives and four grandchildren.

Introducing OUR NEW WEBSITE

The Opera Guild Website has been re-designed!  In addition to a new look, the site contains many features to make it easy to use and informative for our members and visitors to the site:

• The calendar of upcoming events is available on all pages of the site.  The upcoming events will automatically be kept current so that you can always know what Opera Guild and opera events are coming up.
• There is a new members only section.  Only Opera Guild members who have registered on the site and been verified as members have access to the memers only section.  This section includes an on-line membership directory as well as location information for events that are held in member homes.
• You can join the Opera Guild or renew online.  Payments can be made either by credit card or through your PayPal account.  The Opera Guild also accept donations online.
• You can elect to receive information about the Opera Guild events interest you.  This is done through the "subscriptions" information of your account when you register with the site.

We are excited to have a modern state of the art website that reflects the forward thinking vision of the Opera Guild and its members.  The site will work best if you have the current version of your browser.

• To upg rade to the latest version of Internet Explorer click here.
• To upgrade to the latest version of Firefox, click here.

We hope that you enjoy the new site and find it useful!