New Scor! Camp dates & locations are being released regularly! We have locations planned from New York to Floriday & lots of places in between. Check out the latest at www.stringcamp.com.

Announcing NEW short 6-month or 1-year FlexNote terms. FlexNotes are a key financial tool that enables Symerge to bring you Scor! programs. Join others who have invested their dollars with a purpose, & earn great interest rates (4.0%-5.5%) Learn more at the FlexNote page.

We were pleased to provide an Express! improvisaion workshop and an educational performance to Bay Trail Middle School string students in June. Thanks to Penfield Schools and String Teacher Caroline Clearwater for hosting us! Symerge founders Beth and Kyle Bultman served as workshop teachers & performers.

See www.StringCamp.com for all the latest on Scor! String Experiences for Adults.

Join our Scor! group on Facebook, & tell your Facebook Friends!

Scor! Expansion: The vision of making Scor! inspiration and learning accessible nationwide made big steps forward during this 10th anniversary season. Learn more...

Atlanta Camp! After a few seasons of 1-day workshops in Atlanta, GA, 2011 was the inaugural season of the Atlanta Scor! Camp, a 3-day Scor! experience. Thanks to Nancy Mack for planning assistance & support, and Christ the King Lutheran Church for generous provision of facilities for the Atlanta Scor! Camp--the first full Scor! camp in the south.

Bel Air Maryland was the location of a multi-day Scor! Workshop series. Special thanks to Colleen Grotke and the SSO for helping to present and promote Bel Air Scor! Workshops.

Knoxville TN was the site of the first 'Scor! Weekend'--o a 2-day program. Special thanks to cello faculty Kathleen Bowman and attendee Susan Rankin for planning assistance. An afternoon Scor! Workshop was held in in Ann Arbor, Michigan, hosted at the showroom facilities of Shar Products.

Founders Kyle & Beth Bultman are working with local teachers and organizations to offer Scor! Workshops and camps in numerous cities. We are working to roughly double the number of Scor! events offered in 2012. Contact us if you're interested in helping to create an event near you in the future.

Organizational & structural improvements accomplished this season have been substantial (boring reading for some, but extremely important for Symerge's growth and effectiveness!):

1. A much-needed new website for Scor! was created. Dozens of new contacts have signed up for e-newsletters through a new form.
2. The old and inefficient paper registration system was replaced with a powerful web-based registration solution. Multiple types of event 'templates' were created, representing an investment that will pay dividends in efficiency next season and beyond.
3. Email news previously sent via regular (and problematic) regular email acounts is being migrated to a e-news service provider, enabling full subscribe/unscribe options.
4. Financial stability improved through greater revenue brought in via new options and new events that were financially successful, in addition to FlexNote financing.
5. New printing system for Scor! developed with a collaborating company, enabling efficient, artistic, and personalized promotion of numerous events within one print/mailing run.
6. Completely new design concept and strategy developed to better accomplish our mission and reach more people. We received numerous compliments on our postcards--it's working!
7. Official application for exemption filed with the IRS. Additionally, our first annual IRS 990 form was filed with the IRS and with NY state.
8. Numerous internal policies and financial reporting systems created by the board and staff, enabling efficient operation and eliminating a backlog of paperwork.
9. New volunteer opportunities (for growing Scor! via press exposure) developed & implemented via an online collaboration tool and training resources developed by staff.

The Symerge Creative Vision
Symerge is all about arts creativity. Encouraging it, equipping for it, training people in it, funding it, exploring it, "relevantizing it", and simply celebrating it. So many arts programs focus mostly on skill development and advancement. That's important, but it's not the whole picture.

At its core, art is expression. Effective expression communicates things, so our focus is on developing artists (musicians for starters) as effective and creative communicators--from the youngest to the oldest. The arts can get right to our hearts with an immediacy that our intellect can never match. That's what we're after, so we're jumping in to help spark a creative revolution.

Stay tuned, and we hope you'll join us along the way.