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Welcome
from VASTA's
president Beth McGee
VASTA's Statements of Mission & Principles
NEWS
VASTA Growth Spurs Technological Changes
As VASTA's membership numbers have been hovering around 500 members for a couple years, we are moving to automate some functions to keep the organization working smoothly. Though the Board and the Officers are excited that our membership is growing and our conferences are becoming more and more popular, it can be a challenge to keep the day to day functions of VASTA working smoothly. If you did not realize, all functions from organizing conferences, publishing printed and online materials, the eNewsletter, and the maintenance of the website are all done in the free times of the board and officers. So that we can better stay on top of needs and we can position ourselves to offer more to the membership in the future, we will be moving to a new membership database service. It will track a number of things like membership, dues, conference registration, and the Professional Index. This means, however, that we are going to have some temporary interruption in some services that you may come across on the website. Some of these will include membership enrollment, dues payment, membership information, and the Professional Index. If you come across an area that is being worked on, please be patient. We'll be getting everything back up as quickly as possible.
VASTA Conference 2010 - Call for Presentations
VASTA is pleased to announce have a Call for Presentations to its membership for the 2010 Conference in Mexico City. This conference will be an exciting opportunity for the membership, as they will be presenting not only to our members, but also the members and delegates of CEUVOZ--the national center of studies for voice usage in Mexico.
Please go to the initial 2010 Conference Page for more information and an application.
Get Involved!
The success of VASTA depends on you, it's members. VASTA is an entirely volunteer-run organization, so we all give our time in educating our members and the world on good voice and speech practices. If you are interested in being involved and helping VASTA grow, please write to hr@vasta.org to see how you could become involved.
VASTA 2009 Keynote Address
The 2009 VASTA conference began with a rousing speech by a spry, near-100 year old Arthur Lessac. The man who has influenced a multitude of voice coaches and actors inspired the approximately 300 attendees at the opening of the conference with a speech that drew from his years of experience and challenged us to all be Original Voices. He has been gracious enough to share these words with us on his website. You can find them here.
The Moving Voice
The Voice & Speech Review, the bi-annual journal of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association has published its newest edition, The Moving Voice. This edition explores the integration of voice and movement along with many other exciting articles dealing with private practice, speech and dialects, pedagogy, and much more.
Members of VASTA should automatically receive a copy of the journal. If you have not, please contact the editor. If you are not a member and would like to purchase this journal or earlier editions, they can be purchased online.
VASTA Store!
Show your pride in our organization at the 2009 Conference! VASTA now has a number of apparel, accessories, and house wares with the VASTA logo. A portion of all sales go directly to VASTA and its operating costs. Check it out!!!
VASTA Voice Online
In a commitment to educating individuals about voice and speech, VASTA makes all of the back issues of it's newsletter available online. Both the eNewsletter and the original paper VASTA Newsletter are all available under the Publications section of the sidebar.
If you are interested in seeing the current VASTA Voice, which has exciting information about the upcoming VASTA conference, make certain you Join VASTA. You can Join Online or in the Traditional way by sending the application via postal.
Institutions
are Invited to apply to host a Fellow
VASTA is excited about its new Fellows
Program, which connects qualified VASTA
representatives with institutions in need of workshops, master
classes and symposia.
The purpose is to provide expertise in specific areas that may not
be available in a given institution.
As a part of the VASTA Vision
2014 outreach advocacy goals, VASTA seeks to raise the profile
of what we do as an organization, raise standards for practice
within the profession and increase public awareness of effective,
healthy and creative vocal usage.
VASTA Members: Know someone who could use a VASTA Fellow?
Why not forward this announcement (pdf)
to your friends, and encourage your colleagues to apply!
More information and the Application
Membership Enrichment Grants (MEG)
VASTA is now offering a Membership Enrichment Grants to those VASTA members who wish to host either a regional networking meeting or voice and speech trainers workshop. The application process is simple, follow the instructions posted on the website, http://www.vasta.org/resources/meg.html, and contact the Past President, who will get back to you. VASTA can can assist you with expenses up to $500. Special consideration will be given to proposals that promote the exchange of ideas, techniques, and pedagogy to enhance our work as trainers and coaches. Applicant must be a member of VASTA for two years. Workshop participants need not be VASTA members. As a follow up, we ask that any recipient of a ROW submit a paragraph or two about your event for the VASTA Voice, the on-line news letter.
VASTA Medical Advisor
Yolanda Heman-Ackah, M.D. has been VASTA's Voice of medical reason
for the past two years. She is available via email to answer any questions
about medical voice problems, anatomy & physiology, voice care.
You may email Dr. Heman-Ackah at vastamd@hotmail.com.
Also,
you can access the VASTA MD page via the navigation at the left of every
page: it's listed under Resources.
VASTA Vision Available
Online
A ten-year VASTA goal-setting retreat was held in Las Vegas on November
12 and 13, 2004. A group of twenty-four current and past VASTA board
members met to chart the organization's next decade. The culmination
of this experience was the development of the VASTA
Vision document,
which is now available for your perusal . This document is available
under "publications" in the navigation scheme on the left
side of every page of the website. (Please
note that this was a part of the VASTA Voice Newsletter published in
February 2005.)
Member Contact Info
Update Form Now Available
Have
you moved recently? You can now update your information in the VASTA
Database through our online
form. Use the navigation on the left of any page to select Membership,
and then click on "Update Your Contact Info." This will take
you swiftly to the update form. The form sends an email to
the treasurer, who will update your
entry in the VASTA Database, which we
use for all our contact information (like when we email the VASTA Voice).
If you would like to update your Professional Index form, you will need
to go to the Update form
for that separately: the VASTA Database and the Professional Index
are separate entities, and are not connected at all.
An update has been made to the IPA font set for Windows. It is downloadable as a single zip file and gives instructions to be set up as simply as possible for usage.
International
Events New!
Prepared by Kara Tsiaparas, this resource lists events world-wide for
Voice and Speech Trainers.
VASTA Bibliography
Brad Gibson, VASTA's Bibliographer maintains an online version of the VASTA Bibliography. Thanks in part to a grant from ATHE, records from the old paper version of the bibliography have been loaded into electronic format. This searchable resource is a far more useful version and offers full boolean searching. The bibliography is located on Libraryworldcom.com's website. To log in, follow this link, and enter the Library Name: "vastabibliography" (no space) . Then click "submit". Once you've logged in, there will be further instructions on the welcome page.
To submit books and resources to the bibliography, please use this online form to forward the information to Brad Gibson.
Though VASTA
is an independent, incorporated identity, it is also
a Focus Group of ATHE - The
Association for
Theatre in Higher Education
Some files on vasta.org
use the Adobe
Acrobat Reader.
This site is
maintained by VASTA Director of Technology,
Michael J. Barnes, with assistance from Chris
Neher.
Original site design is by Eric
Armstrong.