For a local workshop, begin planning at least 3 months before the date. Here are some crucial steps:

• Permission and support of your pastor
• Determine if any funding is available
• Calendar check for facilities availability
• Reservations on parish calendar
• Availability of guest Conductor (if applicable)

Afternoon Mini-Workshop

• 1:00 pm  Welcome and distribution of materials, Chant Instruction
• 2:00—2:15 pm  Break, followed by more Chant Instruction
• 3:00 pm End of Workshop

Two day (7-hour total plus optional extra) Workshop

             Friday

•  1:00 pm Registration
•  1:30 pm  Chant Instruction
•  3:00 pm   Break
•  3:15 pm  Chant Instruction
•  5:00 pm  Dinner on your own

             Saturday

•  9:00 am  Chant Instuction
• 10:30 am  Break
• 10:45 am Chant Instruction
• 12:00 pm Lunch on your own

Optional extra:

• 1:00 pm  Chant Instruction
• 3:15 pm  Break on your own
• 5:30 pm  Singing at Mass

Two Day Workshop with Mass

             Friday

• 8:30 am     Registration and Welcome
• 9:00 am     Chant Instruction
• 10:15 am    Break
• 10:30 am    Chant
• 12:30 pm   Lunch
• 1:30 pm     Chant
• 3:15 pm     Break
• 3:30 pm     Chant
• 5:30 pm     Dinner on your own

             Saturday

• 8:30 am     Chant Rehearsal
• 10:15 am   Break
• 10:30 am   Chant
• 12:30 pm    Lunch
• 1:30 pm     Rehearsal
• 2:30 pm     Break
• 3:00—3:30 pm  Chant Rehearsal (if needed)
• 4:00 pm    Closing Mass
• 5:30 pm    End of Workshop

Two-Day Workshop with Concert, Lecture and Mass

              Friday

• 8:30 am     Registration and Welcome
• 9:00 am     Chant Instruction
• 10:15 am    Break
• 10:30 am    Chant
• 12:30 pm   Lunch
• 1:30 pm     Chant
• 3:15 pm     Break
• 3:30 pm     Chant
• 5:30 pm     Dinner
• 7:00 pm     Concert
• 8:00 pm     Reception

             Saturday

• 8:30 am     Chant Rehearsal
• 10:15 am   Break
• 10:30 am   Chant
• 12:30 pm    Lunch
• 1:30 pm     Rehearsal in the Sanctuary
• 2:30 pm     Break
• 2:45—3:30 pm    Lecture
• 4:00 pm    Closing Mass
• 5:30 pm    End of Workshop

If you are inviting a guest conductor, he/she will likely have in mind what repertory to choose, based on the information you provide as to skill level of expected registrants.

Use the CMAA’s resources for any chant music needed. It’s all available for you at our site.

We also have a very nice selection of polyphony for the parish, along with rehearsal recordings.

If you provide information about the music to be used in advance, many participants will arrive a bit more prepared.

Once your selections are made, put together a booklet (printable locally, or even in the parish copier) ready for printing. Once you have it prepared, make it available for registrants to view in advance, if possible.

If you have a large enough group of attendees, consider using a fast professional printer, such as 48HrBooks.com. They are amazingly fast and very reasonable compared to local copy/print outlets.

Put together a reasonable budget for your workshop:

Expenses will include:

• Cost for Guest Conductor / Instructor (honorarium, travel, hotel, meals) Plan for something in the neighborhood of $500-$1000 for honorarium plus travel/lodging expenses for a 2-day workshop.
• Cost for printing or purchasing (music packets, name badges, pencils)
• Other printing costs (flyers, advertisements)
• Food and Beverage (meals, breaks, water bottles, reception)
• Books (sometimes a useful book will be provided as part of the cost)

Income:

• Financial support from Parish or Diocese
• Projected Registration fees for attendees
• Fundraising (projects or donations)

It is really crucial to have the support and permission of your pastor, as well as others in the parish who are willing to support this effort. They can help with:

• Permission to use facilities
• Scheduling
• Access to parish finances for deposit of registration fees and payment of bills.
• Financial support (if any)
• Celebrant for Closing Mass (if applicable)

Along with sharing the information with your own choir and parishioners, be sure to let people in nearby parishes about your planned workshop and try to get confirmed support and attendance from your fellow musicians at nearby parishes.

Ask for help from your choir members in the organization and hospitality.

Prepare some nice graphics (or get a talented parishioner to help) with photos of the site and of your choir. Put together a nice flyer and make it highly visible at the parish and at nearby parishes.

Announce at liturgies and place information about the event in the parish bulletin.

Consider putting together a “press release” for the diocesan newspaper or online news channel. Always provide photos if you want good visibility on an article.

Consider using the CMAA forum to get the word out (https://forum.musicasacra.com) and also consider posting information at the CMAA Member portal (https://connect.churchmusicassociation.org)

It is very easy to find hotels, airbnb’s, etc. these days. However, it may still be helpful to your attendees to scope out some of the most convenient hotels near the parish and make recommendations.

If you do think you’ll a fair number of out of town registrants (and/or Guest Conductor), it may be worth contacting one or more of them to ask about a courtesy room block. This will not obligate the parish financially, but may result in a discounted rate for attendees.

If you have a gracious host in the parish, you may be able to offer your guest conductor a stay at a parishioner’s home.

For your registrations, consider using one these applications:

• RegFox
• Eventbrite

Both of these applications offer online registration, with payments made by credit card or paypal (or you can also allow offline payment by check), event insurance, and direct deposit to the parish bank account. You can also make reimbursements for cancellations on the app. The fees are pretty nominal and allow communication and collection of data very easily.

You can download a simple booklet for your reference (much of the information is the same as on this webpage) here:

WORKSHOP BOOKLET

If you are holding a short local 2-3 hour workshop, perhaps you can find someone local to offer it (or do it yourself).  It is probably not worth the travel/expenses to bring in a conductor from far away for such a short session.

If you are wanting a longer workshop (2 days, for example), you can probably find excellent guest conductors to assist.

Ways to find potential guest conductors:

• Contact the CMAA directly (gm@musicasacra.com) for ideas of potential conductors who are in your region.
• Reach out and ask on the CMAA forum (https://forum.musicasacra.com).
• Try the CMAA Member portal (https://connect.churchmusicassociation.org)
• Ask other music directors in your circle of friends and colleagues.

To round out your program, you may want to offer breakout sessions. In this way, you can utilize the skills of your local talent and involve more people in the workshop. By inviting others in your area to give short breakout sessions on various topics, you can appeal to more people on different subjects and gain buy-in.

You may also want to have your workshop broken into different skill levels (beginning vs. intermediate/advanced). If so, you’ll need to have someone else to direct another choir in addition to your guest conductor.

The topics can be on a musical subject or even on practical things that are applicable to many different programs, such as budgeting, event planning, fundraising, etc.