By this time, we hope you have primed your students to the new and/or old challenges that you have prepared for them. The annual holidays are coming up and I hope you and your students are contributing to the sounds of Christmas, Hannukah and New year.

Starting with the Popular Music Festival, our first Branch Event, we will keep record of all teachers who have students participating as well as teachers who contribute and/or help out with each event. At the end of the school year and at the Fall Breakfast next year, we will acknowledge teachers who have helped out the most. We hope this would promote professional camaraderie and cooperation. This also alleviates the responsibilities of the Event Chairperson.

Have a festive and meaningful season with your family and friends.

Sincerely,
Miriam Cole
President
MTAC San Diego

The Fall Breakfast on Monday, September 18, was a visual and inspirational delight.

Teachers were treated to the lovely setting of table linens, bouquets at each table, and “swag bags” for each attendee with their tissue frills adorning each place setting. Thanks to our new Second Vice President, Brian Goral, for making us all feel so special. Tim Broadway, our outgoing Second V.P. brought the coordination of the venue together and brought the new caterer into our lives. Good find, Tim, and thank you for your excellent work for so many years.

Our new Corresponding Secretary, Alla Kesser-Gross, did a terrific job with the notifications/invitations to the Fall Breakfast, and we thank also the behind-the-scenes work of our new Recording Secretary, Angelina Hardy, and directors Lee Galloway, Dan Yu, and Mitzi Koler.

Hearing our new President’s opening greeting in all languages represented by our membership highlighted the international constituency of our San Diego branch. I want to thank Miriam Cole for accepting the position of President of the Board of Directors. Having led us once before in that role, she is well-poised to bring about the dreams that she has for our branch.

I am sure that every teacher was pleasantly surprised to see how committed our new First Vice President is to the integrity and development of our branch. The new website, of which she is the webmaster, is beautifully designed and will serve its many purposes well. We can all thank Yuko Maruyama for the excellent result of her effort. We can thank her entire family also for the outstanding video about Kids Into Music (KIM). Many of us probably realized for the first time, while watching the video, exactly what the program is all about.

Our KIM music exchange/donation table was a success once again, bringing in over $100 in funds for the KIM program. Thanks to Chutaphin Yeager, our new Membership Secretary and Hua Wang, our Treasurer, for hosting that table for the past several years.

And finally, the excellent booklet which stapled together all the information we could possibly need about participation in Certificate of Merit, produced by Eleanor Hum, is just the tip of the iceberg of all the preparation and work load that Eleanor and her CM Committee experience annually on behalf of all our students and us. She and her committee are the lifeline between us and the State MTAC CM program. Thank you, Eleanor, and thank you, Board of Directors, for a delightful and informative morning.

Our Fall Breakfast has become much more than a mandatory meeting. It is a once-a-year touchstone for the integrity and professionalism of our branch, and, just as importantly, it provides a place where long-time members and new members can meet, interact and enjoy each other’s friendship.

Jaclyn Summers
Immediate Past President