Christmas Luncheon Program with Leslie Stratton–Harpist

Wow, just WOW! This program was absolutely outstanding. Leslie Stratton is the Principal Harpist with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. We enjoyed her Harp music once before, with our own Charlie Pagnard and his trumpet. She will also return in the spring with “Harps of Grace”. After hearing this, I am really looking forward the next harp performance! She will also be playing again this coming Sunday in our morning services at Washington Heights Baptist Church with a few other members of the orchestra.

I Know you want to see her play, so here are a couple of videos from her performance for us.

 

4 of “6 Noels” and “I Wonder as I Wander”

 

Harp Christmas Music

 

I know some of you probably just want some CD quality Harp Music for playing during this season. So, here’s the entire Harp Music Program.

We finished our day with a very nice Christmas Meal, prepared by Lisa and her staff in the kitchen and dining room. We enjoyed a Christmas Ham, Green Bean Casserole, Fruit Salad and Peppermint Ice Cream with home made Chocolate Sauce.

We Wish You all a Blessed Christmas
and Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving Luncheon Program

This month we enjoyed a great program featuring piano and organ music and our own Lead Pastor, David Kisner.

Grace Averitt and Nancy Jensen played a Piano and Organ duet for both the prelude time prior to our program and then a special number just prior to Pastor Kisner’s talk. The organ did not come through well because of the way we handle the piano and organ in our sound. The piano is amplified through the soundboard in the balcony and the organ has it’s own amplifier and speakers behind the platform. Hence, when recording, the organ does not pick up, unless we record from the room, instead of the board. I have done that with some programs, but there are problems with other sounds such as audience talking and other room noise coming through, too. Since, our purpose of the prelude is to provide background music while you visit with friends prior to the program, recording from the room has it’s problems.

You can listen to the music HERE

Pastor David Kisner is our Lead Pastor. You will note, during his start, he discussed the age of our staff. That was because of the way I introduced him by emphasizing my title of Senior Adult Ministry Pastor. We’re adding more young guys and two of our other pastors recently retired. So, now I’m the old guy and Pastor Kisner is close behind in the number two (by age) position. The other two guys were older than David but younger than I.

All that to say, Pastor Kisner did not preach but told stories about how the Lord led him from politics into ministry. Initially, he thought he should go into politics. We here at Washington Heights are thankful that he was led to the ministry. You should listen to his program to understand all this.

   

Listen to Dave Kisner’s talk HERE

Lisa and the kitchen staff prepared a Thanksgiving meal for us with Turkey Pot Pie, Sweet Potato Casserole, Cranberry Salad and Pumpkin Pie. I’ve asked Lisa to provide the recipes for our December Newsletter. I think the pot pie and fixings will be something nice to use for Christmas and for your Thanksgiving Leftovers.

Speaking of our Newsletters, watch them for announcements of upcoming programs and trips in 2016.

Next month, we will enjoy some great Christmas Music with Leslie Stratton and her harp. She played for us one other time with Charlie and his Trumpet, but this time it will be primarily Leslie. We will also be using Leslie and Charlie for a Christmas Musical in our church in December. So, you can have two opportunities to listen to some great music. Join us in December.

March 10 Luncheon Program

We’ve been anxious for this day to arrive because we haven’t had the group together since December. It was awesome to see so many of our friends again! Welcome Back! We missed you.

We had a great kickoff luncheon program; starting with our Prelude Program of Piano and Violin music, followed with an awesome program by our old favorite soloist, Dave Harney. Then, finishing with some delicious food. Several people asked for the dessert recipe, so I will put that in our next newsletter.

We had some good prelude music to start us off as everyone assembled in the auditorium enjoying a time of fellowship with old friends, prior to the meeting. Today, we had a trio of good music performers: Fred Scheffler, Nathan Brandt and Caitlin Erlandson with her mom, Julie, at the piano. You can listen to their program, HERE!

Following this prelude, I opened our program with our normal jokes, acknowledgements of birthdays, anniversaries, and newcomers, and introductions to day trips and our fall trip. This fall we’re going to Canada and the Niagara Falls.

The for our REAL program we brought up Dave Harney. Dave sang a great selection of songs from his newest CD! Of course, he also shared stories and jokes. His programs are always entertaining as well as inspirational. You can hear the entire music program, HERE. I will also provide a couple of video clips, below.

Video #1      Video #2

Following the program Lisa and her staff served a meal of pulled pork (roasted on the premises) with baked beans and mac-n-cheese. This was followed with a delicious Banana Split Pie. I will be sure to include the recipe for that in our April Newsletter.

Next month we’ll enjoy Dayton Christian Schools, “Resounding Joy”!

Luncheon Program–Chris Thompson

This month we had another musical concert, this time a vocal concert featuring our own Chris Thompson.

During our “Early Bird” prelude period our conversations were enhanced by the piano music of Fred Scheffler and Nathan Brandt. You can hear their music HERE.

Following our announcements and recognition of Birthdays (there were no anniversaries this month), Chris Thompson provided an excellent vocal selection of gospel music. He chose music that was familiar to most of our people and often invited us to join in.

You can listen to the entire concert HERE! This is somewhat flawed where the audio soundtrack messed up.

I’m also including links to YOUTUBE videos of two of the songs that Chris performed.

I'd Rather Have Jesus

No More Night

During our November luncheon we will feature Chuck Clevenger as a concert pianist and artist. Yes, we will be combining these two art forms into a treat for our ears as well as our eyes. This looks like it could be a great program. I’m looking forward to how it will be done!

SCIOTO HILLS DAY TRIP

October 9th. we took a group of 33 of our Young@Heart people over to Scioto Hills Camp to enjoy a luncheon program. They typically have this program, “Seasoned Saints”, twice a year in the spring and fall. So we scheduled this trip for a nice Fall Color drive and an opportunity to enjoy some good music and comedy.

There was some color but it was a rainy, gray, overcast day! So, while the color was there, it wasn’t the great brilliant color that we think of when we think “fall color”. Here is a sample photo that I took from the patio where we had our luncheon. I was a true fall day but not a brilliant one!

The photo above is the dining hall of the camp where we ate. It does a good job of illustrating the cloudy sky.

The camp director and leader of the “Seasoned Saints” program is Scott Bruns. Scott introduced our program and gave an update about the camp. I was surprised to find that they have a full-time staff at the camp of 8 to 14 people, depending on if we count wives in the number. I think it is fair to do this since they help with the meals, and so on, throughout the entire year. The kids camps are their primary focus but they have year around activities such as “Seasoned Saints” and various church groups. In fact, our church is sending down a group of men for a Men’s Retreat, late this month.

To start, we had a very nice luncheon. Actually, it was very tasty and I have requested a couple of the recipes to use in our Newsletter. Watch for them! We had one of the larger groups and were acknowledged as the group traveling the furthest.

Joy Jones was our featured soloist. The last time we went to Scioto Hills, fall of 2012, we heard Joy and two of her sons sing. They weren’t able to join her, this year. She has a nice voice and we enjoyed the gospel music.

One of my greatest fears when planning our programs for Young@Heart is that we would have a last minute cancellation of our performer due to illness, etc. That is what happened to Scott for this program. We were supposed to have a male singer and comedian and he had to cancel two days prior to the program. We were fortunate to have Joy available.

If you’d like to know more about the camp click on this link.

If you’d like to know more about Joy and her boys check out their website, here.

September 9, 2014 Luncheon–Spittin’ Image

It’s September so it must be Spittin’ time! Spittin’ Image, I mean. Brian and Blain Swabb (Identical twins) joined us at Young@Heart, once again. That means we will be seeing fall colors, soon, because I think they always seem to come in the early fall.! They’ve been performing for us for eleven years! They started coming here before I was here and our people really enjoy them.

All photos can be enlarged by double clicking!

But before we get to them, we started with other music! Grace Averitt, piano, and Nancy Jensen. organ, did a nice piano and organ duo! Later, Grace did a Piano Solo. You can hear the piano/organ duet HERE and the piano solo HERE! (NOTE: The organ sound didn’t come through on the recording very well)

Of course, we know you all want to see and hear more from the twins. Brian and Blain are loads of fun with their music and comedy. Perhaps the funniest part was when they had 2 men and 2 ladies join us up front as various farm animals. Nancy was one of the ladies, as a roaring lion, which sounded much like what I hear if I wake her a bit too early! The audio for the Spittin’ Image is HERE! Listen and enjoy!

Perhaps it is interesting to note that both of the guys are newcomers. Hopefully, this won’t scare them so they won’t return. Fortunately, they seemed to be good sports about this.

Lisa Poe and the kitchen and dining room staff prepared an excellent meal. I’m prejudiced but this is the best seniors luncheon in the Dayton area! I’ve included a few dining photos below which illustrate the importance of our volunteers who served. Be sure to thank the volunteers. They’re all awesome!

Next month, Chris Thompson with join us to perform more good gospel music and perhaps tell a few stories.

La Comedia–“He Keeps Me Singing”

Our Day Trip for September was to see the musical, “He Keeps Me Singing” at La Comedia. 24 of us made the short trek to Springboro to enjoy this great Gospel Musical.

This musical is a sequel to Smoke on The Mountain with the Singing Hatfield clan from somewhere south of the Ohio River. This one finds the family involved in a Tent Revival. There were a lot of good old hymns and choruses that would have been sung in the early 1950s.

We’re not supposed to take photos during the program, so the best that I could do was a couple of the performers in the greeting lineup after the show. All of the Adults could also play instruments, including, Guitar, Mandolin, Banjo, Fiddle, Accordion, Harmonica, Piano and Organ. There were also a couple of 4th grade girls singing and playing the Tambourines.

I’ll give this performance a very high rating for good music, performance, and story line. Go see it!

Of course, everyone always enjoys the food at La Comedia. Some of the items on the buffet line are unique to them.

Next month we’ll enjoy more good food and gospel music at Scioto Hills Camp while also enjoying a nice Fall Ride and plenty of color. Join us, if you can keep up, for this trip on October 9!