My wife, Linda, had played bells at college in Mississippi and was playing with the seniors’ choir at Grace Baptist Church in Calgary. The choir often went to other places to play and I frequently went along to carry bell cases and tables. In the fall of 1998 (I think), Joan Schaufele started a new handbell choir at Grace Baptist church. Linda, thought it would be something I would like and that we could do together. Joan started me out at the bass end, as is usual for guys, and I progressed from there. Joan was also the Membership director for ALGEHR at the time, so after the first year, Linda and I joined ALGEHR and began to attend Discovery each year.
I was elected to the board of ALGEHR on September 22, 2001 at the AGM in Edmonton and was soon immersed in the work that goes on behind the scenes to make the Guild successful. September 2021 marks 20 years of service to ALGEHR.
I volunteered to take over the Peal on June 2004. In 2005, the Peal began to migrate to email distribution. By the end of 2007, only a handful of copies had to be mailed out, saving ALGEHR hundreds of dollars each year in printing and mailing costs.
In early 2007 I took over the ALGEHR web site from Juanita Pickerl. I moved the site from Juanita's personal TELUS account to TRK hosting company and registered the algehr.org domain name.
I left the board after the 2008 AGM but stayed involved with the web site as editor until Leonard Davidchuk took over in April 2011. I stayed involved in a smaller role by looking after the email forwarders, which I have continued to do to the present. When Leonard retired as the web site editor, I stayed involved as a trouble shooter and advisor to the board. In the fall of 2016, I migrated the web site from TRK to 3ix hosting (more space for less cost).
When Joan left Grace to direct the bell choirs at First Baptist Church in Calgary, I began ringing with the seniors’ choir. I scheduled days off from work as much as possible to coincide with performances and practices. When the flexible days off went away and I was working from home full time, I was able to arrange for 2 hours off on most Thursday mornings for practices, thanks to understanding managers at TELUS. Eventually, as the group aged and fewer people were able to ring, the choir ended and I have played very little since then. Nonetheless, Linda and I have kept up our ALGEHR memberships and I have stayed involved, behind the scenes, with the ALGEHR web site.