Pattye Benson

Community Matters

Planning a Flash Mob? Better Keep it Quiet! The Noteable ‘Mobsters’ Perform in Wegmans’ Fruit & Vegetable Department

What is a ‘Flash Mob’?

For some, it is joining in with a crowd of strangers to dance in sync to the latest Lady Gaga song at a weekly exercise class. While many would be happy to keep their spastic limbs private, some groups of people prefer to gather spontaneously in a public space and perform a coordinated song or dance to thrill unwitting onlookers with their efforts.

According to Wikipedia, “A flash mob (or flashmob) [1] is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and/or artistic expression.”

The participants in a flash mob – the ‘mobsters’, behave in a predetermined manner for a predetermined amount of time, and then quickly disperse. A successful flash mob event depends on the element of surprise.

Of course, the meet-up and the performances of a flash mob are entirely coordinated and often rehearsed. If you are planning a flash mob, you had better keep it quiet. However, sometimes that can be easier said then done, especially if the group of people participating is 20 middle-aged women.

For the past 28 years, I have been a member and the public relations person for the Noteables, a women’s singing group from the Main Line – Valley Forge area whose 20-25 members sing in 4-part harmony. Under the musical direction of Christine Puk, the Noteables perform a holiday concert series and a spring concert series with 8-10 concerts each season for audiences of nursing and retirement homes, veterans groups and for special local events.

Although family commitments, travel and jobs may at times, take Noteable members away from the Noteables, the groups’ motto is “Once a Noteable – Always a Noteable!”

Our final Noteable concert of the season on Monday was followed by a special holiday luncheon. During the luncheon and gift exchange, a couple of members had the idea that the Noteables needed one final performance of the season.

A couple of glasses of wine later and we were planning a ‘flash mob’. But where . . . ?

Any of you that are regular followers of Community Matters, know of my fascination and enthusiasm for Wegmans so . . . I decided the Noteable’s Flash Mob performance should be at ‘my Wegmans’, in their fruits and vegetable department.

Tonight at 6 PM, performing between the cantaloupes and the tomatoes, the Noteables sang ‘Rockin’ the Baby’ and a jazzy version of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’. Proving once again that you never are ‘too old’, the Noteables can now add ‘Flash Mob’ to their list of memories!

Here’s the YouTube linkto our Noteable Flash Mob in the Wegmans Fruit and Vegetable Department. Tonight’s performance is dedicated to MJ Ormsbee and Natalie Zipkin . . . your dreams have now come true!

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  1. Just saw you on the 6 o’clock news. The performance and nice interviews. Thanks for spreading the Holiday spirit!

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