International Handbell Committee - The Meeting

Today was spent in the International Handbell Committee (IHC) meeting. We started at 9:00 AM and continuted until just after 5 PM. The IHC agenda started with with a variety of policy items -welcomes, approval of minutes, review the mission and vision statements, defining criteria for membership to the IHC, and developing a policy for transacting business of the committee electronically.

We also voted to accept a new guild to the committee, bringing our total membership to 7 and adding another country to the rotation for future Symposia. The country will be officially announced at tomorrow's Opening Ceremonies - so you will need to wait until tomorrow's post to find out where the 2020 Symposium will be held. This is quite an historic occassion for the IHC - the first new member admitted since the Committee was formed.

All of the above happened before lunch.

After a wonderful lunch provide by the Handbell Ringers of Japan, we learned about the plans for the 2012 Symposium in Liverpool,UK, and the 2014 Symposium on Jeju Island of South Korea. Both will be wonderful events - for more information on Livepool visit http://www.symposium.hrgb.org.uk/. More details about 2014 will be available later - but the brochures provided about Jeju show a gorgeous island community billed as the honeymooners capital of Korea. This beautiful Pacific island paradise promises to be an ideal location for 2014.

Later in the afternoon we received reports on ringing in countries without organized guilds and about recently formed guilds. An exciting report showing handbells growing around the world with new guilds forming in Israel, China, Taiwan, and Singapore.

We concluded the meeting with discussion about ways in which members can work together to achieve the overall mission of the IHC. By the 2012 meeting, reports will be presented on work in the following areas: Supporting and strengthening ringing where it exists (either with or without and organized guild) and developing international standards of music education and promoting handbells internationally as a music education tool.

After the meeting, returning to the hotel, we began to see many more familiar faces arriving for the event. Things get started tomorrow with Opening Ceremonies at 1:00 PM, our first massed rehearsal at 2:00 PM and an evening excursion and dinner at an exoctic bird and flower garden.