Terry's Serendipity Cafe

Festival Underground 2018. Claire and Ro
2018-06-16 00:00 (America/New_York)
Festival Underground 2018. Claire and Rory won our Annual Scholarship award. The Scholarship Award Committee were impressed with their contributions to Serendipity Cafe. The generator ran perfectly, thanks, PRCA! But next year we want to go back to the old picnic ground. This year’s Staff Band performance of “Big Time Woman” was awe inspiring to say the least. A wonderful day all around.

GSA at Watchung. Gay May Day postponed a
2018-05-26 00:00
GSA at Watchung. Gay May Day postponed a week due to rain, but good performances and a good amount of money raised for the Ali Forney Center.

Rap'n'Dipity at the Lutherans. Very smal
2018-04-13 00:00
Rap’n’Dipity at the Lutherans. Very small turnout, 30. Great performance by Your Mystery Guest, though. Too bad you missed it.

B’nai Keshet was our host and we had nea
2018-03-03 00:00
B’nai Keshet was our host and we had nearly double the attendance of January. Our new staff task assignment sheet was in effect along with new guidelines for staff behavior, all of which was noticeably working. We have a May 19 date for our fund raiser with the GSA, Gay May Day in Watchung Plaza. And we will have Festival Underground and Make Music Day in June.

We were at the First Lutheran Church. we
2018-01-26 00:00
We were at the First Lutheran Church. we’re going to have to promote these events better, they are more fun with a larger audience. The entertainment was good, but, aside from Liv, not that exciting. We’re currently working on getting locations for the next shows, there are scheduling problems.

Terry’s Serendipity Café at B’nai Keshet
2017-12-28 00:00
Terry’s Serendipity Café at B’nai Keshet: This event was well received, good music, good open mic, Mental Hazard was a big hit I think. Attendance was quite low and we paid too much rent, aside from that, it was ok. We needed more staff participation in group setup especially during open mic. Always good to see Your Mystery Guest.

Alumni Serendipity at the Lutherans. Amo
2017-11-24 00:00
Alumni Serendipity at the Lutherans. Among the alumni present were Mackensie, Chelsea, and Aidan Feliciano, strangely Greg and I found an Open Mic paper plate with Aidan F. and Anna Berlin (Michael’s daughter) on the list. Probably from 2009 or thereabouts. Things went quite smoothly, timely setups, good music. The coffee I made was not good, I’ll have to work on that.

Scarendipity 2017 at the Lutherans. Aida
2017-10-13 00:00
Scarendipity 2017 at the Lutherans. Aidan and I had a great time with the dry ice, and there were quite a few costumes. We were able to transport all our gear including the Halloween stuff without my old 1999 Toyota minivan, which we have replaced with a Honda CR-V. Which held the lights and the drum kit, so not bad all together. Music was good, respect needs a little work, missing our missing seniors.

The Amphitheater again. Fine but cool we
2017-09-29 00:00
The Amphitheater again. Fine but cool weather, low bug count. Good solid bunch of music, with Anna as Entertainment head. Nice opening shtick with Aiden and Jakey, good open mic, several 12 string guitars audible. Money raised for Mexico City relief.

Terry’s Serendipity at the MHS Amphithea
2017-08-25 00:00
Terry’s Serendipity at the MHS Amphitheater. If it wasn’t for Chelsea, we wouldn’t have had Serendipity Café Friday night. She wins the brass figligee with bronze oak-leaf palm for being the only staff member at load-up. Fortunately a goodly collection of staffers was present for the rest of the show, gradually. Good music, including Birdwing, good to see Sam Skinner drop in and do an open mic song, and it was fun reciting “Jabberwocky” for the assemblage. Thanks to Mike and Greg for being there, handling the situation, watching the lights go on and off, etc. And Chelsea produced a new Zine issue as well.

Serendipity at the MHS Amphitheater. It
2017-07-28 00:00
Serendipity at the MHS Amphitheater. It worked, in spite of the forecast and the food poisoning. Music was good, staff was good, cookies were good. Any opinions about Veggie Straws or Capri Sun?

Festival Underground 2017. Rainy days ar
2017-07-17 00:00
Festival Underground 2017. Rainy days are ok if you’re really underground. We weren’t. But Greg brought his 2 tents (we were too tense) and we gave Ben Wilson the Scholarship Award for outstanding Staff Service, and Lily and Maiya’s bands played. And Shadowmakers chickened out. Thanks to PRCA for the cute and quiet generator.

Independence Day Parade! With Ben as Spi
2017-07-04 00:00
Independence Day Parade! With Ben as Spiderman and Lucas as Olaf, and of course, Elvis as Elvis, we got to display our newly-minted and designed (Thanks, Greg) banner. Good day, lotta dancing.

Make Music Day Montclair. (This went on
2017-06-21 00:00
Make Music Day Montclair. (This went on all day). Lotta work, lotta fun! I got to play with New Tricks, and in the Ukulele Parade! Watchung Mountain riders at Diamond were quite Greatful Dead-ish. Hoopers, even.

Festival Underground at Edgemont Park. W
2017-06-17 00:00
Festival Underground at Edgemont Park. Well, it was partly rained out, but Greg saved the day by carrying 2 tents over to the park on his bike! Maiya’s band was greatvery jazzy, with trumpet, Jake sitting in on guitar, and fine vocalists. Then Lily V and the LV band were good and original. Open Mic was fun and congratualtions to Ben Wilson on winning the 2017 Terry’s Serendipity Cafe Staff Scholarship Award!!

St. Luke's Church. Starting with Soular,
2017-05-26 00:00
St. Luke’s Church. Starting with Soular, who presented some fine vocals, we had great music and a smallish crowd. But the vibe was great and we did raise some money in the benefit jar. There’s more to say, but something is wrong with the hosting.

Terry’s Serendipity Café at the Lutheran
2017-04-28 00:00
Terry’s Serendipity Café at the Lutherans’. Good music, good audience and a large staff went a long way towards making this an excellent event. We felt good about working, learning setup and pack up tasks etc. And we collected over a hundred bucks for Meena. Hung out on Ed’s deck afterwards. Critique was quite favorable. Thanks!

Rap'n'Dipity at B'nai Keshet. It went qu
2017-03-25 00:00
Rap’n’Dipity at B’nai Keshet. It went quite smoothly, high attendance, but not as much respect, though. The open mic [hottest rhyme contest] worked well. Some things need to be worked on for rap setup. And we fried channel one of the main (QSC) amp. But we got along on one channel, and it has been replaced with a new one. The old one was bought used about 5 years ago.

With a record $280 raised for Planned Pa
2017-02-24 00:00
With a record $280 raised for Planned Parenthood, this was a fine event. We had a good long open mic, fine bands, a good size staff. And we ate up all the pizza! Lots of people helped with setup & operations, so I thing we made progress in the learning dept. We ought to start thinking about how to get along without our seniors. Speaking of which Margot D. stopped in for a visit!

Our first Terry's Serendipity Cafe at St
2017-01-27 00:00
Our first Terry’s Serendipity Cafe at St. Luke’s was a success. Although we did not figure out how to deal with the many entrances, the room sounded good, the attendance was acceptable, and the music was good. We had a problem with one band using up too much setup time, but we’ll work on that for next time. At the subsequent critiques, the location was given a very positive approval. And we raised $134 for the Sylvia Rivera Project.

And Decembers's show was a fitting finis
2016-12-29 00:00
And Decembers’s show was a fitting finish to the year. Over 100 in attendance, great bands, fun open mic, no broken pots, in short, everything you could ask for in an event of Terry’s Serendipity Cafe. A Happy New Year to the audences and staff, and a special thanks to Mike Berlin for retrieving the chalkboard and closing the front door. We might have gotten some points off for that. I glued the rubber back on the Pearl kickdrum pedal, and put all the parts of the hi-hat clutch back together. And the screw that fell off the cymbal stand. We need some focus on taking down the drum kit, I think. I’ll look at the mic stands tomorrow.

The November Terry's Serendipity Cafe wa
2016-12-02 00:00
The November Terry’s Serendipity Cafe was held in December at the Lutherans. Huge amounts of donations were made to help the people at Standing Rock resist the pipeline, over $180 in cash, plus food, clothing blankets, etc. And the music was good. Audience participation and respect were in top form. There are a few tech details we need to work out with the bluetooth receiver, and we did break some coffee pots, but it was my fault for not checking carefully enough. Attendance was just over 100.

Scarendipity was held at the Lutheran Ch
2016-10-22 00:00
Scarendipity was held at the Lutheran Church on Park St, and was quite well attended. I think we had around 150 audience members, over 30 of whom got the costume discount (we’re big on cosplay). We raised some money for the Fair Workers organization, and we had interesting music, and a fun jam (C-blues) at open mic, with Matt, Nathan, Ed, and sorry but I don’t have the bass & drum names, they were right on, though. Good show, folks

We intended to be in the Amphitheater, b
2016-09-30 00:00
We intended to be in the Amphitheater, but rainy weather moved us indoors onto the auditorium stage, where music and trivia filled a somewhat small but successful evening. We had Cynthia from SOFIA who lead us in taking the pledge again, and good music as usual.

Another bit of rain, and another enjoyab
2016-08-26 00:00
Another bit of rain, and another enjoyable Amphitheater gig. That one guitar guy was too loud. but I liked the Engineers (Small? Little?) And we did Open Mic first, just to try it, and it didn’t give the performers that much of an audience. My guess is we won’t do that again. And we needed respect teaching and snack bar plugging. Next time.

A bit of rain, but not enough to suppres
2016-07-29 00:00
A bit of rain, but not enough to suppress the excellent turnout for Serendipity Café at the Amphitheater. We’re guessing there were over 80 in the audience, and a good size staff turnout as well. Music was great and varied. I love doing the event at the Amphitheater. They need to get that electric socket fixed by the auditorium door, though. Good to see Nelson again, the MHS custodian.

The Independence day parade, with Elmo,
2016-07-04 00:00
The Independence day parade, with Elmo, Cat in the Hat, and Elvis was a fine sunny day. Lucas got a bit light headed in that cat costume, but every kid in town wanted a hug and a selfie. We met Sarah Copeland along the route, who pointed out that we should have Terry’s name on our banner. And we will, right?

Festival Underground 2016 was quite enjo
2016-06-18 00:00
Festival Underground 2016 was quite enjoyable. The weather was fine, we had two fine recipients of the Staff Scholarship Award, and we raised $131 for the Pulse victims in Orlando. We’ll bring that up to $200 and send it this week.

A good sized crowd and some fine music h
2016-05-26 00:00
A good sized crowd and some fine music helped us to raise over $100 for Make Music Day, which we will match. Grace’s bake sale was a success, and we had some fun as well. Many thanks to the late shift of the staff, who hung out on my deck watching the city twinkle after the unloading was done.

The Gay May Day event raised a record am
2016-05-21 00:00
The Gay May Day event raised a record amount of money for the Ali Forney LGBTQ+ Homeless Shelter in NYC, for the second year in a row. We were proud of that. And Tula Vera played extremely well. We had music from noon until after 4 PM and no complaints! Doing this event at Watchung Plaza is much better than the Church St. sidewalk.
