Caribbean

Bells of the Cascades, clinicians

Bells of the Cascades alumna Judy Schumacher shares this memory from our early Handbell Cruise.

We decided to try a warm weather cruise. Again we used Travel Marketing as our agent. We sent out 7000 bulk mail announcements for the upcoming cruise leaving from Fort Lauderdale on January 7, 1995. We attracted 168 cruisers. We still managed this cruise with only our own BOC members, but we offered fewer classes and started a “forum” type gathering as a more informal way to discuss topics that are of interest to our cruisers. We had nine forums and five classes, which included: Begin to Ring; Solo Ringing I, II, III; Ensemble Ringing; and Advanced Techniques. We did not have a “massed ringing” opportunity on this cruise. We got a number of critical comments on our concert. The cruisers felt that it was too classical in nature and not “listener” friendly. From these comments we decided to make a change in our presentation on our cruises.