<p>Hillary Zaenchik</p><p>February 29, 2006</p><p>ENG 352-106</p><p>Assignment for class #5</p><p>Project </p><p>Chantey Singers of South Street - Al Ceunin 2/18/2006</p><p>Q. How did it start?</p><p>A. It started September of 1995. We had the first sing on the after deck of the Peking. </p><p>Some of the first organizers were Bill Beaker, who was the ship keeper of the Wavertree, and Simon Spaulding who visiting from Mystic.</p><p>The first sing was scheduled to be held on Pier 15, but was relocated to the afterdeck </p><p>Peaking. We had over 100 people show up. We would get the whole crew from Pioneer to show up.</p><p>We moved to Seamans Church Institute in January of ’96. For the first 4 years the group got bigger, and then the attendance leveled off. We’ve gotten down to solid core of people. Right now our future plans are to keep going. </p><p>Some of the early singers that eventually went out on their own were the Johnson Girls- </p><p>Bonnie, Andie, and Jay. Another group that came out of the Chantey sings was the NY </p><p>Packet, who consisted of the following members: Frank Weorner, Jan Christensen, among others. </p><p>There is a consolidated scheduled on Yahoo that lists the meeting dates for the South </p><p>Street Seaport, New England Chantey Sing, MIT in Boston, Baltimore and Portsmouth, </p><p>NH. We had a visitor from the San Francisco group and he said he was amazed at the level of participation that we got at our sing, verses at his it is much more a performers and audience listening. We also had some people come in from York, England, who were pub singers. They have a lot of folk music there. We asked them to put us in their newsletter and they did. </p><p>No current plan, but we would like to grow.</p><p>No clear dates set, as it at the discretion of the SCI. Site specific. As a group, we don’t go to other venues. But there have been people who have used the group to gain confidence and grow. Sometimes people will come to the sings for a long time before they will lead a song. And they keep coming back. </p>