The San Francisco Pipers’ Club will host the 2005 West Coast Tionól on February 18-20, 2005 (Presidents’ Day weekend).
We are pleased to announce that we will have, not just one, but two guest pipers:
Leo Rickard will be coming out from Dublin, and Patrick Sky will be with us to share both his piping expertise and some of his experiences with Seamus Ennis. (Hey, if the folks in Southern California are going to raise the bar by inviting two guests, then we’ll match them at every step!)
The San Francisco Club has seen a lot of growth in the last few years, and there is a lot of excitement and energy going into putting on a first-rate tionol. Please come and join us!
Please note that the concert associated with the tionol will be held on Sunday evening, so plan to stay through until Monday (which is a holiday) if you can.
You need more instructors!!! Also, the more experienced folks giving lessons to the less experienced folks as per the last SF tionol was a good idea. Contact Ted Anderson for details.
You need more instructors!!! Also, the more experienced folks giving lessons to the less experienced folks as per the last SF tionol was a good idea. Contact Ted Anderson for details.
I’m not sure what you mean about needing more instructors.
We’ll place everyone into classes when they register, preferably in advance, and you can be sure there will be enough teachers to cover all the classes. The intermediate and advanced classes will be led by Leo Rickard or Patrick Sky, and we’ll probably recruit some of the more experienced pipers to teach the beginner class(es), as you suggest. Some of this will depend on how many people register, how many classes we have room for, etc.
Ted has been helping to plan the tionol (of course), so you can contact him if you want. Otherwise, check the website, which we will update as more details become available, or post questions here – there are a number of Bay Area pipers who read this forum and can help answer any questions that come up.
What I mean is that… you need more instructors. The SF tionol is a good time for sure but there is no point in attending lessons when there will be 10-15 yokels blowing chanters in each class. The optimal class size to promote interactive learning and retention with ample feedback is 6 or less students. I, for one, would like to see a class with fewer than we had at McNamara’s “class so large it became a demo” at the last SF tionol. Of course, if this tionol goes like the last one, then I’ll probably just hang out with friends anyways so I guess it doesn’t really matter.
Hey Patrick, Larry, and Gaby…you guys wanna share a room in that shady hotel reknown for gay prostitution once again? Nah…me neither.
Thanks for the suggestions, Lewis, we’ll keep them in mind with the planning. I agree that small classes is definitely best. I think the SoCal group did a great job at their last tionol placing everyone into leveled classes, which kept the class size small, so we will be planning something similar as far as class organization.
I wasn’t at the last tionol, but I heard there were some issues with the previous location…We will be in another area this time, so hopefully the location change will solve your previous problem? Let us know if you have any other questions or suggestions and we will try and address any concerns that you might have.
Anyway, it should be a great time, as usual, and I think everyone knows that the S.F. Tionol is the Party Tionol.
Oh man, I can’t wait til February, this will be my first toinol and I’m really looking foward to it. Even better, Paddy Keenan is playing the month after here in Santa Cruz, which will be the highlight of my year!
What do you mean, only 2 guest pipers? There’s Todd Denman, there’s Patrick D’Arcy…
Todd’s not a guest in San Francisco! (In fact, so far Todd has done about 90% of the legwork to get this tionol set up…)
As for Patrick, we can’t claim him as a local, but we might be able to find something for him to do…
And, to repeat what Justine said, don’t assume that we’re going to run things the same as the last SF tionol (except maybe the parties!) We’re going to keep things pretty organized and attempt to stick to a schedule so that we can make the most of the time. We’ll keep the classes as small as we can, depending on how many people register and how many classes we can hold at once. I don’t expect we’ll be limited by the number of teachers.
