JAVS Summer 1998

6

by Dwight Pounds

The official seal of the American Viola Society was passed to Peter Slowik at the summer meeting of the AVS Executive Board in July in Provo, Utah, by the outgoing president, Thomas Tatton. Accepting office with Peter were William Preucil (Vice President), Ellen Rose (Treasurer), and Catherine Forbes (Secretary). The event closed the tenure of four people who served the viola and the Society so very well, and provided a fitting time to review their accom plishments and contributions. MARY ARLIN was a most conscientious custodian of the Society's funds, disproving the adage that it is easy to be generous with other people's money. She expeditiously accounted for every cent that entered and left the AVS coffers. Tom Tatton once quipped, "Mary is the perfect trea surer. Every time I buy a roll of stamps, I expect a telegram that the Society is going bankrupt." Far from bankruptcy, the AVS has experienced unprecedented growth during the past four years, which added to Mary's work; but she nevertheless treated each donation, each new membership, and each expenditure as if an auditor were monitoring her every transaction. Mary was elected Treasurer in 1994 and was Host for Congress XXI (1991) in Ithaca, N.Y. Thank you, Mary, for paying our bills, balancing the budget, and helping keep us solvent. DONNA LIVELY CLARK kept our minutes, recording the best of our thoughts and document ing our actions. She translated into scholarly English a maze of dialects, expressions, sugges tions, half-baked ideas and what-if's from dozens of discussions. Further, she handled hundreds of dues checks and money orders, revised mailing addresses, and sent thousands of cards and letters for the Society. To do so more efficiently, Donna had to master the technology of a new generation and become a skilled user of computer programs and spreadsheets. Her words will be the permanent record of the Society's governance from 1994 to 1998. Donna will continue her service to the AVS, having been elected to the new Executive Board. Thank you, Donna. When perusing Donna's minutes, one would have ample reason to suspect that any good idea recorded could have come from AVS Vice President PAMELA GOLDSMITH, whose contribu tions have been legion-leadership, organization, workshops, master classes, recitals, and articles for the journal. Her energy has been as boundless as her dedication to the viola and the Society. She remains the only artist to go to the exhaustive effort of performing the Bach Suite in E~ Major at a North American Viola Congress in its entirety (Bloomington, 1995). In addition to her AVS position, her responsibilities as viola professor at the University of Southern Califor nia, and her engagements as a recording studio violist for the film industry, Pam was one of the organizers of the Southern California Viola Society. Like Donna Clark, she will continue AVS service on the new Executive Board. Thank you, Pam, for each good idea and every one ofyour many contributions. His students call him "Dr. Tom." He is an unabashed advocate for the viola, for the AVS, for his students, and for life itself. He is ToM TATTON. His goals for the Society were ambitious (see]AVSVol. 10.2), among them to double membership and to create twenty chapters throughout the country. Although Tom leaves office with only eight chapters in place, the membership rose to 1000 during his tenure and the policy of chapterization is well established. Tom Tatton assumed a wide and assorted range of responsibilities on his watch, including member ship, money-raising, and chapterization. But the challenge that absorbed most of his presiden tial time and energies was one he neither expected nor sought-reconciling the relationship between the International and American Viola societies. Even as I write these words, Tom is