Meeting Minutes
Torch Club of the Fox Valley
9 October 2014
Atlas Coffee Mill & Café
Notes taken by: Jude Kuenn, secretary
Attendees: Jim Baumbach, Nancy Bodway, Paul Freiberg, Jean Jepson, Barbara Kelly, Bill Kelly, Jude Kuenn, Amy Oberg, Mary Poulson, Webb Shaw, Bob Swain, Peter Thiel, Scott Valitchka, Donna Weis, David Woods
Guests: Mary Flanagan, Carol Solie
BUSINESS MEETING
Meeting called to order at 6:40pm
- Guests: Mary Flanagan to join our Chapter and Carol Solie.
- Minutes from 9/11/14 meeting were accepted, motioned and approved.
- Treasurer’s report: balance unchanged at $1,280.68. Sum excludes $420 plus other annual dues payments received throughout the meeting. Check payable to Torch Club of the Fox Valley.
- Old Business:
a. Where to move website and acceptable cost? With Focol dissolving 3/31/15, a new electronic residence is needed. There are currently ~500 hits per month, mostly from Club members. LWV pays ~$80 for their local website host. Immediate options: Google is free; Blogger is free and simpler to maintain than current site. Please email Barb with other uses if more than bios, upcoming schedule of speakers, and minutes are referenced. Consensus: website is not a big recruiting tool. Barb is willing to build something less robust if everyone is agreeable to what components ought to be available online. Topic tabled for further discussion.
b. Should local membership fee be changed for a household? From June’s IATC Convention, annual membership continues at $50 for first member and new this year, $25 for a second and third household member(s). After much discussion, motion was made and approved to maintain $70 as annual first member dues ($20 for our treasury) with second/third household member fee at $45 ($25 to IATC, $20 to the Club). Final point noted: there is no by-law requiring a member give a talk. Effective immediately, these changes encourage more spouse membership. - New Business:
‘Post-Crescent’ readers enjoyed Barbara Kelly’s editorial on the APL and Paul Freiburg’s column. - Business segment adjourned at 7:07pm for dinner.
Jean presented: The Hills are Alive: This is Your Brain on Music
Music has been an integral part of Jean’s life: as church organist, oboe and soprano, alto, tenor recorder player. Pre-baroque to Cajun, all music is enjoyable. Even wine glasses filled at various levels at Thanksgiving offer a melody.
Words can connote music, i.e. “Hi ho, Hi ho”, “I’d like to teach the world to sing…”
Names can also call music to mind: Bing Cosby, Frank Sinatra, and Kate Smith are a few examples.
We get to choose the music we surround ourselves with.
Various ways to hear music were/are 78s, 33s, 8-tracks, Sony Walkman, ITunes, IPod, IPhone, IPad, and IPad Air. Progression reflects the technological advances to listening options.
Music evokes emotions, i.e. Celtic emulates laughing, crying and sleeping.
Earworms are songs that get stuck in our head, showing a part of our mind not in our control, like parasites (“It’s a small world after all”). The earworm phenomenon affects long-term memory and is a helpless sensitivity to musical memories.
There are other inexplicable facets of the brain and music:
Folks who see color for sounds, i.e. D flat = purple
Surrounding children with music to help them pick up music (Mozart effect is not real)
FRMI shows what lights up in our brains when responding to music
Having a musical instinct – Mozart effect not needed
Increased ear damage due to hearing loss (2010 article stated 12% between ages 6-19 experience hearing loss to ear buds high volume)
Daniel Levitin’s “The World in Six Songs” identifies categories the brain recognizes: 1) friendship, 2) joy, 3) comfort, 4) love, 5) knowledge, 6) religion.
Music is a gymnasium for the mind.
An important common history and a human element – we celebrate with music.
Group discussion comments:
Sounds of music reflect what’s happening in Society.
Music impacts animals – cows produce more milk to music.
Stroke and Alzheimer patients may not be able to speak, but some can sing.
The brain is remarkably versatile.
The evening adjourned at 8:55pm.
Next meeting is 11/13/14.