Ralph’s Blog Archives – 2002
Ralph Shaw, our Illustrious Leader, writes:
My purpose in starting this uke-log of the meetings and activities of the Vancouver Ukulele Circle is to give those people who are unable to be at the a meetings a chance to get a flavour of what they missed. I can tell you now that not all the information will be entirely accurate. As I sit down to update this uke-log in the days after any given meeting I will be sure to have forgotten some key moments and one or two worthy performances and I hope that feelings won’t be hurt. I will do my best but if you notice any omissions or major inaccuracies please feel free to email them to Wendy Cutler so that corrections can be made.
These are the write-ups from previous years. Current year entries are on
Ralph’s Blog page.
Other years: see Blog Archives
Vancouver Ukulele Circle Meetings 2002
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Christmas Party. A wonderful evening. About 16 people were there, including Greg and Linda from my Moveable Music School class. Aletha & Maya helped by pouring the mulled wine made by Kath (she also helped with the other drinks). People brought cookies, cake, nuts. We sang some, watched 10 minutes of Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation featuring Mele Kalikimaka, which we then sang together.
I put together a Christmas Ukulele Quiz and the three teams were: Rudolf, The Wizards, and Bernie’ Master’s of the Ukeiverse (featuring Herculeles). We finished by playing through our Christmas repertoire.
November 19, 2002
A dozen or so people, including Tim, new member introduced by Paul. Gary has been working on wonderful world and he sang it for us. Bernie did Window Cleaner. We sang as usual and watched George Formby It’s In the Air for 15 minutes, which we will continue to do every month.
October 15, 2002
About eleven people, including Charles and Virginia, an elderly couple joining us for the first time. We had a night of playing music. No guests, no videos – just songs.
September 24, 2002
2nd Anniversary & Tiny Time Tribute Night, with guest Bruce Bissell: Tiny Tim’s former promotions manager. This was a wonderful evening We had a giant cake in the shape of a Larrivee ukulele, with pineapple and coconut flavouring (Hawaii!!). It was delicious. We started with the usual Singing in the Rain and then Beginning to See the Light. Janet Walker did a solo of Lulu’s Back In Town, and we all join in the Worried Man Blues. Colin brought his resonator uke that was made for Tiny Tim. I played the Carson video and some of the Australian Documentary: Street of Dreams.
Then Bruce Bissell was introduced and he gave us a very lively talk on his career with Tiny Tim. “The nicest, kindest person I ever worked with…” “He never complained”. Bruce talked about Tiny’s love of music, records, baseball, hockey (Toronto Maple Leafs fan), and how he and Tiny would play in the dressing room together with a guitar, and how Bruce became a part of the act for a while when Tiny would call him on stage to do a couple of numbers.
We took a group photo, had tea and cake and finished the evening off with more songs. Colin McCubbin and Tracy Bissonnette had both brought records to play.
About 15 people were there. Ruth made tea, and the cake was made by Roberta La Quaglia (bought by Virginia).
August 20, 2002
At Sunset Beach by a log! About 16 people. Robin came with friend Tom – a sailor who bought a German uke in Denmark. Bob Doucet arrived for the last song!
It was a nice sunny evening, with a nearly full moon. It got cold at sundown.
July 16, 2002
New people: Robin Townsend, Michelle, Deborah Copeman. About thirteen in all. A warm sunny evening. Interesting that we keep having new people coming (wish some of the old-timers would show up again)!
We sang songs from our repertoire, and new songs from Guy – Man of Constant Sorrow (we did a rousing sing-along with the CD) and Tonight You Belong to Me (we watched a clip from The Jerk).
June 18, 2002
About fourteen people, including Cass King and Tracy Bissonnette. We have a new file box for our songs and have also decided to add new songs to our repertoire.
Lorene’s car was towed from out front.
May 21, 2002
We discovered that Robyn had passed away a few days before the last meeting, so today we had a memorial for her. There were about twelve people, including Lorene’s daughter Catherine, and Geoff, who came for the first time. We had a lovely bouquet of flowers and a candle and a framed photo placed on a table in the place where Robyn usually sat. I read a eulogy I had written for her and we sang Sunny Side of the Street. Then Brian told us of the memorial that there had been for her. Lorene told us of a newborn baby born with male and female genitalia at the same hospital when she had given birth to her son (comment from Wendy – this was relevant to Robyn’s gender ambiguity). This baby had also been named Robin and been abandoned there by the parents. Karen told us about the times she gave rides to Robyn. Robyn could never remember her name. It was also evident that Robyn lived a life on the edge in great hardship and difficult health and poor finances, yet she always managed to come through smiling.
We had tea and cookies and played through our repertoire. Decided to drop Bobby McGhee from our playlist.
April 16, 2002
Fourteen people including new member Bob Grey. Instead of sitting in a circle we set up two tables. Some liked it but it was more strongly felt that it broke our unity and focus.
We did most of our repertoire, concentrating on Slow Boat to China. Lorene brought a video of Ledward Kaapana playing in Vancouver.
March 19, 2002
New members: Merry Wood (works with Guy) and Bob and Bev Drummond. Merry and Bob both have baritones. Maurey came for the first time, and John Larrivee Jr came and we talked about ukuleles. There were nine others present.
We are going to work toward knowing the songs without looking at the music (comment from Wendy – Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!) and to that end we had a “thrash” during the break where Bernie and I and couple of others did Sweet Leilani, Darktown Strutters Ball, and Ukulele Lady.
We repeated our performance of the Moveable Music School songs: It’s Been a Long Long Time, Lullaby of the Leaves, Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, and Tonight You Belong to Me. Ken Hatch sounded great on trumpet.
February 19, 2002
First timers were: Nora Ryan (and son Liam), Diane Bode (with mandolin), and Anne Fleming. There were about ten others. John Larrivee was supposed to come but didn’t, but people brought lots of cookies. We sang from our repertoire.
January 15, 2002
Fourteen people. Movie: i) Jack Lemmon: Long Way Home, wherein Ralph was an extra with Jack Lemmon, ii) Some Like It Hot, wherein Marilyn Monroe plays a uke.
Today was Brian Lohnes’s birthday (his girlfriend Eleanor called me to tip me off) and we sang Happy Birthday to him. In return he sang Let It Be, and Who Stopped the Rain.
We sange more of our repertoire. Robyn was being silly and making Aletha laugh. Aletha took some photos of the playing for the website.
