Tom Hunter & The Song Growing Co. September Newsletter

[Tom Hunter - The Song Growing Co.]

September greetings to you all from here where it’s raining now, the soaking kind, and reassuring in the way its music blocks the computer’s sound. A beautiful big moon the past few nights, and Labor Day is here with its "new year" of school and routine. Amazing to think that with our daughter Irene’s graduation from college, this is our first year in 25 when we haven’t had someone go off to school in the fall.

To chew on: Read Gloria DeGaetano’s new book Parenting Well in a Media Age and you’ll be chewing for a long time! It’s for teachers too and anyone interested in children these days. The subtitle tells the big and important idea she’s working on: "keeping our kids human." She writes about the impact of an "industry-generated culture" and its power to standardize us all, to rob us of our own interior lives in favor of aspiring to and buying into what’s "out there," and to keep us "preoccupied with worry and fear." Her basic advice to parents is to find strength in simple things – time together with kids playing, talking to each other, asking questions, making things, and just hanging around. Something necessary grows in such times, something essential about our humanity. "Our personal creations," she says, "are the only effective means to counter the industry-generated culture." Powerful stuff, and useful too!
(Question: Some of you have suggested I put here 2 or 3 of my favorite books with brief descriptions about why they’re favorite. Would that be useful? Let me know.)

Recent event: I spent a week in Aug. in Bay View, MI at a cottage (cottage in this case having nothing to do with size, and only to do with being a summer place – this one is really big!) that’s been in our family since 1904. My kids are the 6th generation to sit on the same porch, and there’s something deeply renewing both about the place and about that history. Sitting on that porch, you look through the gladiolas in a big vase (there have to be glads!) to Little Traverse Bay. It really is a porch for sitting, sometimes for talking and music and reading, but more just for sitting. I hope you have a porch in your life too, and may we all find moments this next year just to sit…..

Upcoming events: The fall is getting pretty full, but there is still room for local and elementary school assemblies (Vancouver BC to Olympia), and then after the first of the year there’s more open time still to be scheduled. Keynotes, workshops, concerts – let us know what you want!
9/3 -- Cypress School District (LA area) opening day elementary teachers keynote
9/8 -- Head Start training, 1:00-3:30pm, Lacey, WA (near Olympia)
9/18 -- Bellingham Technical College, workshop on songs and literacy for early childhood teachers, info: 360-738-0221, Linda Crawford
9/23 -- Chico, CA – full day of assemblies, workshops and family concert
9/24 -- Bing School, Stanford Univ., Palo Alto – family concert, 6:00-7:00pm
9/25 -- Ladera Community Church, Menlo Park – family concert, 2:00-4:00pm
9/26 -- Ladera Community Church – leading worship
Oct. highlights: 10/7-10/9 Pocatello, Id. Idaho Assoc. for Ed. of Young Children events; 10/14-10/15 staff retreat on OR coast for Portland area preschool; 10/18 Texas A&M early childhood classes,; 10/19 Houston events to celebrate anniversary of early childhood center; 10/29-10/30 Spokane for WA Assoc. for Ed. of Young Children; starting ongoing project to mentor primary teachers of a local elementary school how to use songs in the classroom. Please click here to check our web site for dates in Nov., Dec., and into next year.

Hype: Call it a back-to-school-special or call it generous but to readers of this newsletter, we’re offering any two CD’s for $24 and any three CD’s for $33 and WE’LL PAY THE SHIPPING! Just add the word school to your order and tell us where you want them sent. Save them for gifts, expand your own collection, now’s your chance. How can they do that? you ask. We have no idea, we answer. We’re just here to serve and to get songs out to people who can use them… (Click here to see what's available.)  We have CD-sized inserts that help teachers and parents wanting to connect songs and reading. They’re available for the CD’s "Still Growing," "In the Air," and "We’ve Been Waiting for You." Just ask, and send $2 to cover the costs and we’ll send whichever ones you want… Much more is available, so do check the web site… Now and then people ask who does our web site. Answer: Aeden Hunter, and web sites don’t get much better. And while I’m thinking about it, Toni Graeber (in S. CA) took the photo on the web site home page and Laura Vaughn (in Houston) took some of the photos used on the CD "Still Growing." Credit where credit is due… Another newsletter is due next month. Cheers ‘til then!



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THE SONG GROWING CO.
1225 E. Sunset Dr., #518
Bellingham, WA  98226
(360) 738-0340
fax: (360) 734-0295
songgrow at tomhunter.com 
www.tomhunter.com 
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