The Misery Bay Dulcimer Club

ASBURY WOODS NATURE CENTER NAMES

THE MISERY BAY DULCIMER CLUB

VOLUNTEER GROUP OF THE YEAR.

L-R: Len Toy ~ Adult Volunteer of the Year; Members of the Misery Bay Dulcimer Club ~ Sue Henschel, Louann Andrews, Dan Kerr, & Barb Nagle; and Chris Detar ~ Adult Volunteer of the Year.

“The Misery Bay Dulcimer Club has given many hours of pleasure to the visitors of the Nature Center playing at the Maple Festival, Winter Wonderland, presenting the Dulcimer Workshops, Spring Concerts and dulcimer classes so others may enjoy or learn to play the dulcimer.” (Woods Talk - Voice of Asbury Woods , Spring 07)

The Misery Bay Dulcimer Club is honored to receive this award from Asbury Woods Nature Center. But we must state that we are the fortunate ones.  Asbury Woods Nature Center has always been supportive of our efforts to keep folk music alive in the Erie, Pennsylvania area. They have always offered their facility as a venue for mountain dulcimer beginner classes, as well as supporting contra dances and folk concerts.  Everyone should make it a point to thank Brian Winslow, the Director of the Nature Center, and his staff for their continued support of the dulcimer club.

A MISERY BAY DULCIMER CLUB WEDDING

Jean and Don open their wedding gift from their friends in the dulcimer club.

The most amazing thing happened.....two of our best friends fell in love and got married.

Don Wisniewski and Jean Dreistadt, both long time mountain dulcimer artists and members of the Misery Bay Dulcimer Club, were recently married in a blessed ceremony at Asbury Barn.  The dulcimer club played background music as the guests were being seated before the wedding. Their reception was a barn dance ~ which was quite fitting as Don Wisniewski was the person responsible for all of the past barn dances that were held at the barn. They didn’t have to worry about the music. Several of the guests brought their instruments along and the music was great!

When we learned that Don and Jean would be married, the dulcimer club decided that we had to do something very special for them. It’s not often that two members of your club marry each other, for goodness sake! We decided that all of the members would work on a wedding quilt that would honor them in a musical way.  After we chose the pattern for the quilt, we purchased the fabric, cut the pieces, and had each member sign the signature strips.   We had 18 signatures but 48 blocks. Words from love songs were written on the remaining 30 blocks. We then had to learn the paper piecing technique for building the blocks.  This was taught to us by master quilter, Susan Kerr, in a workshop held at her home.  After the blocks were sewn together, a pinning party was held - so everyone had an opportunity to work on this special gift for Don and Jean.

OKTOBERFEST 2007 WAS A GREAT SUCCESS

$22,000 was taken in for the renovation of St. Joseph Church, Erie’s original German - Catholic Church.

$6,000 was taken in from the Chinese Auction (theme baskets) alone.

We spent several weeks arranging, learning and perfecting our German repertoire, as well as coming up with “German” costumes. MANY positive comments were received concerning the Misery Bay Dulcimer Club’s presentation of authentic German Music in the German Coffee House. “The umpa bands downstairs were nice - but very loud.  When we came upstairs to the Coffee House we could sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee with a delicious desert, wonderful conversations with our friends and beautiful dulcimer music in the background. It was just perfect!”

The Misery Bay Dulcimer Club is pleased to announce our 2007 Mountain Dulcimer Class Graduates. Although the number of people attending the class this year was down, the people who did attend were excellent students and have all turned out to be wonderful dulcimer players.  The best part is that we have gained a few new members in our club! We look forward to many years of dulcimer music together!