The inaugural Southeast Squeeze-in will be at The Cottage Inn, in Cashiers, North Carolina, March 5-7, 2004. Let them know you are with the Squeeze-In when you register (and note that they do charge half of the cost up front).

The facility itself consists of a lodge and cabins, all of which can be rented individually. In order to make this logistically possible, the organization for the Squeeze-In is essentially, "It's at this location, on this weekend".

If you rent a cabin (or the lodge), and want to host events, please post events (or space availability) in this thread. If you want to teach or lead an event, but will be staying elsewhere (or live close enough to drive in), please post in this thread looking for someone to host it.

Each cabin includes at least a kitchenette, and most or all include outside charcoal grills. No food is provided at the facility, but there are grocery stores nearby. Finally, Cashiers is in a "dry" county, so you will need to bring any alcohol you plan to consume.

And please, spread the word.

--Dave

Sessions at Cedar House (in The Cottage Inn):

Friday night (March 5th): Irish Session (all instruments and skill levels welcome and invited) and kick-off potluck BBQ!

Saturday (time TBD) (March 6th): Irish Slow Session (all instruments)

--Dave

Wow, you've pulled this off. I am soooo impressed.

I hope we can get a midwest Squeeze In sometime.

Helen

How about an "All-American Travelling Squeeze-In", each weekend in a different state, with two weeks off for Christmas & New Years? (Maybe for that we could have a party spanning two weekends in Washington, DC.)

Hey Jim, you're on. I like it. I like it a lot. Course I couldn't eat because I wouldn't be earning any money. But boy could we play.

Helen, any time you want to put together a mid-west Squeeze-in, I'll help!

I have obtained permission and cooperation from my wife and daughter. We will be attending the SE Squeeze in.

Bob Tedrow

Hey Rhomylly,

You're on. Great. Maybe other people would be interested in helping us. I think Ken Coles expressed interest once. This might really happen. I'm excited.

Helen

I'll be accruing vacation round about then, and may actually have an instrument and my car working well, for a change. Since I live in NC, maybe I'll be able to attend and get a chance to listen, at any rate. Since I at this point plan to buy a Jackie from Concertina Connection, maybe Bob Tedrow will consent to look at it and write a review for Concertina.net. Just a thought, and I'm not committing, but I thought I'd at least put myself down as a possible.

Bob G. Evans.

Hey, Dave, do you know what Cashiers may have in the way of inexpensive campsites within easy commute of events? If we went down, it most probably be in a camper.

-Eric Root (and Tina Liza Jones)

I did a little quick checking and I found Singing Waters

Also, I found a thread discussing RVs and Cashiers, and the nearby town of Highlands, NC.

There are also KOA campgrounds in Asheville, NC, which is about an hour away.

--Dave

Thanks, Dave!

If we stayed in Asheville, we could crash with friends, but would have to leave jams in shape for the drive

Thanks for your work, one or both of us will be there. I would like to lead some sort of workshop in playing old-time Appalachian tunes on the English concertina.

-Eric

Congrats Dave,

As a long-time student at the NHIS, I have really missed the Northeast Squeeze-In since we moved the date and location of the class. Your initiating the Southeast Squeeze-In less than 75 miles from my home in Tryon is a Godsend!

I will be making my reservations ASAP. Looking forward to some serious free-reed overload and meeting some new folks.

See ya there!

Update: Just made my reservation in the Box Bend cottage. Since it has a little living area and a couple of fireplaces, I hope to host an anglo slow jam and maybe a class for slow airs on the anglo concertina. English concertinas and button boxes will be welcome to join in too!

Ross

Updates:

The Cottage Inn has extended the checkout time to 1pm on Sunday, which will allow us to end the Squeeze-In at noon, and still have time for people to pack and checkout.

Questions:

I'm working on a web page now, and I'll be plugging in events as people set them up. What time slots sound good?

Right now, I'm thinking the following slots:

Friday:

8pm-10pm
10pm-Midnight
Midnight-2am
2am-Until

Saturday:

8am-10am
10am-Noon
1pm-3pm
3pm-5pm
8pm-10pm
10pm-Midnight
Midnight-2am
2am-Until

Sunday:

8am-10am
10am-Noon

This wouldn't mean that there would necessarily be things going on during those slots, just that they would fit nicely into a chart of what would be happening where.

What do people think? Too many slots? Are two hour chunks too small or too large?

--Dave

I'd expect 2 hours per session is more time than you want. At the NESI, sessions were an hour with half hour breaks between (IIRC 9-10, 10:30-11:30, 1-2, 2:30-3:30, 4-5) with a choice of three or four events in each slot. This gives flexibility for sessions to run overtime if necessary, but doesn't force session leaders to have to fill long slots.

Actually, the NESI had 7 workshop locations x 5 time periods = 35 "slots" which were filled with 28 workshop offerings. Some of those workshops had as few as 3 attendees and some had a couple dozen.

That was for Saturday. Sunday had fewer workshops and fewer people as some folk came just for the Satur-day. We had a total of 130-some people at the event.

One of the problems we've had is that there can often be two or more concurrent enticing workshops.... Our plan to lengthen things further into Sunday should help out with this as there could be duplicate or continued workshops.

While our 1-hour slots seems to be a good lenth of time, some workshops (especially the band workshops) seem to be wanting a longer slot. Originally we had some 1 1/2 hour slots which seemed more appropriate (anything longer didn't seem to make sense and folks needed a break by then anyway), but we went to the 1-hour chunks as that seemed to fit most workshops best. Any workshop that really needed to be longer cold be 2 slots long and those could decide whenever to take a break (or end early) as they chose.

Having the half-hour between the workshops works out great for winding things up and getting to the next one. It also allows folks to just get together and jam, work on stuff from workshops, bone up for the concert, munch, nap....

My personal feeling is that I prefer events which are relaxed and low-key. Lots of room for choice. Making the schedule more open allows for this flexibility. This is not to say that you can't change things to fit circumstances - alter things on the fly if need be. We're still fiddling with and fine tuing with schedule after 14 years (not only during the weekend but also in the planning for next years)!

You mentioned a lot of time slots but now how MANY locations. The number needed will depend on how many folk attend and how diverse are their interests. It's nice to have a choice of different sizes and characters of spaces for workshops in order to meet the particular needs and feeling of each workshop. For instance, we usually have a lot of the Irish (tunes, ornamentation, singing, etc.) workshops in the bar, the repairs (bellows making, action adjustment, tuning, etc.) workshops in a well-lit indoor space with a big central table, slow jam (tune learing, swapping, composing, etc.) outdoors under a tent or maybe on the porch), sight reading (or singing, storytelling) someplace indoors where there's no breeze and it's easier to hear), gospel/shapenote (for the ambiance) in the chapel or in one of the gazebos.....

The Cottage Inn is a complex of what are, effectively, small houses. In order to make the event scalable, and to eliminate the risks of someone having to risk or spend a lot of money to secure a venue, the scheme I fell back on is "a whole bunch of small house sessions, right next to each other".

So, the number and size of the locations are based on (1) how many people rent cottages or the lodge and (2) how many sessions those people are willing to host (even if they aren't leading them).

All I'm doing from a logistical standpoint is coordinating the information (who wants to teach or lead what, who is willing to host, what is where, that sort of thing), and the events that my wife and I will be hosting in the cottage we've reserved.

The reason I asked about time slots was to setup a chart of what would be where and when (I feel like I'm writing an Abbot and Costello routine) for the web page.

So, with all that said...

Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night, and Late Night (as slots) would give us a total of 8 time slots (two on Friday, five on Saturday, and one on Sunday), but they would be very big. More finely grained time slots would give us more leeway not to schedule things against each other (depending on how many people come).

What do people think about leaving it as "Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night, and Late Night" for the moment, and drilling down to more finely grained scheduling if we get enough people who want to lead and/or host events to justify it?

--Dave

Only this: Folks in the Afternoon slot -- and the Morning if it gets started early enough -- will want some sort of break in the middle, for coffee or whatever. If you plan such breaks for a specific time, then the folks in the different groups can mingle, and then return to their groups. An added benefit/danger is that some folks might want to switch groups in the middle, especially after sharing notes over coffee.

(The "edit" was to correct a typo.)

A minimal set of web pages for the Squeeze In are now available.

--Dave

And we now have a logo. I'll have flyers and some Cafe Press stuff (no markup, it'll be whatever Cafe Press charges) shortly.

Again, the details are here.

--Dave

Very cute logo.

Did you draw it yourself?

Bob

No.

Had I drawn it, it would look very convincingly like a stick figure pressing two blobs together.

I commissioned the logo from an artist friend, Ursula Vernon.

--Dave

Dave,
please help me, due to a low side problem and the to print out anything beforte being able to rtread and also the fact that I am in hurry, have to travel urgently to Spain in order to work, and I have lost a day, since I HAD to buy a concertina, special stuff, I ask you to inform :

1. Price of lodgings and how to reserve it ?
2.Nearest Airport and how to arrive to the place
3. Name of the Place, where to go.

I have informed myself today and have learned that IO could travel for about 500 US$, which I consder reaasonable and I guess I can find it cheaper.

So I wish to come.

Since I am not allowed to drive, I would prefer to stay nearby to walk or come by cycle., although I rtrust to find colleagues who would be rteady to give a lift.

I am very interested in the prtojected workshop for Slow Airs on the Anglo by Ross.

Would be ready if there is nobody else and better than me help beginners.

When is limit for registrations and for lodge reservations.?

Thank you uin advance for your kind informatiuon.

Regards
Joachim

Dave,
please one more question :

Cottage / Lodge ?
Thanks
Joachim

Dave,
now I found the home page and I think I can get all the information I need.

After reading I shall confirm my particpatuion

Thanksx for the well done job.

Kindregards
Joachim

Hi Bob, Hi Dave and all you,

I am coming !!!
Just now I have reserved my cottage.

Will work hard the first weeks of the year to jsutify, tjhis expense and one more
"Concertina Capriocho".

Ross, hope to benefit your workshiop.

Bob, would it be a reasonable idea, that you might give a workshop about maintenace and repaoirr, as I know you hgave done before ?

One last question Dave :

I understand that the Squeeze in will start the 5 thg of March in the morning 5.00 h clock.

I undersanmd from this, that arrival time conveniently should be the 4 th in the afternoon, so I made my reservation for the nightss

4/5 of Marcgh, 5/6 of March and 6/7 of March.

Is this o.k. or shgould I moduify it somehow ?

Thanks in advance

Joachim Delp

No. The Squeeze-In starts at 17.00h (5pm).

I know that I'll be arriving during the early afternoon on Friday the 5th.

The other trick, since you'll be coming in by air, will be getting from the airport to the Squeeze-In. The easiest way will probably be to fly in to Asheville airport, and arrange to get a ride from someone.

You could also fly into Atlanta Hartsfield, or Raleigh-Durham, but that would involve a longer drive, and could cause problems if your flight is delayed. Since Asheville is only a bit over an hour a way, even if you had flight delays, someone could go get you whenever the flight arrived.

And it will be great to see you!

--Dave

Hi Squeezers,
after all the noise I have made about coming, I have to confess, taht to my deepest regret, had forgotten taht at the time of this Squeezing I have to in Malasia for professional reasons.

Hopefully it will not be the last one, sionce I really would love to come to North Carolina, which I know a little from two previous professional visits.

Regards, I sahll miss it.
Joachim

Just a reminder, the Southeast Squeeze-In is now about 6 weeks away.

--Dave

Joachim, it's a shame you won't be with the others, but if you do some squeezing while you're in Malaysia, you'll be having your own tiny Southeast (Asia) Squeeze-in.

And who knows, maybe you'll discover someone else there who squeezes.

See folks in two weeks!

So, since we're two weeks out, who currently is planning to attend?

--Dave

Bob and Klari Tedrow along with Alex and some of our friends will be there.

Three members of Paddywhack + one non-musician spouse will be coming.

The weather looks good for the Squeeze-In, with scattered showers Friday and Saturday, and highs around 50 degrees fahrenheit/10 degrees celsius.

See you there!

--Dave

Final details:

We'll start out tomorrow night with a kickoff BBQ and Potluck.

If anyone needs to get in touch with me, my mobile # is 919-889-0146.

That being said, I don't know that I actually have signal in Cashiers...

--Dave

so, we are all dying for a report here

how did it go????

I had a wonderful time.

Our turnout was 15 people over three days, with the music lasting past midnight both Friday and Saturday.

Look for a more detailed report soon (and pictures), and there will be information on the Second Annual Southeast Squeeze-In within the next month.

--Dave

We can make your report and pictures a formal article here if you like. Just let me know.

I think that everyone had a great time. The Cottage Inn was an ideal site for this event -- small though it was this time--and based on discussions we had Sunday morning, we'll be coming back next year. My wife was the unofficial cameraperson so I'll burn Ken a CD for posting purposes. (Ken if you read this let me know the mailing address I need to use!)

Bob Tedrow brought a double handful of his intruments and I got to try them all. I must say I was very impressed with their tone and playability. Keep up the good work Bob. His wife Klari and he played a couple of duets of hymns and the music sounded wonderful -- just like it was coming from a small pipe organ. Alex, their daughter soloed beautifully on several tunes and showed us some nice step-dancing too.

To those of you who couldn't come, you really missed it! But there will be a next time in 2005.

My best to all that participated in the music and the comraderie.

For those curious, this is the breakdown on the principle squeezebox of the attendees:

Anglo Concertina (C/G): 2
Anglo Concertina (D/A "Drop A"): 3
Anglo Concertina (G/D "Drop D"): 1
Button Accordion (B/C): 1
English Concertina: 2

--Dave

15 people, and only 9 instruments?

We also had:

Flute: 2
Fiddle/Whistle: 1
Whistle: 1
Attending but not playing: 2

--Dave

Dave does that concertina count include that huge box of concertinas from Bob Tedrow? The reason I ask is because Elaine and I brought 5 concertinas betwwen the two of us!

That was the players, not the instruments.

There were a lot of instruments...

--Dave