Band membership is no longer a pipe dream for girls

graysea

2 hrs

Some tweets from different people, one with this photo. Just tweeted!

"Just walked past Susan Boyle. Is that my life complete now?"

"So I just saw Susan Boyle shopping in Glasgow. Starstruck".

"just met Susan Boyle"

"Kinda wierd bumping into susan boyle walking down the street!"

Thank you, SBFansinternationalinc.

graysea

For all the veterans on Memorial Day...

graysea

THOUSANDS OF COMPETITORS SIGNED UP TO THE YEAR’S FIRST MAJOR IN BATHGATE
May 19, 2014

THOUSANDS OF COMPETITORS SIGNED UP TO THE YEAR’S FIRST MAJOR IN BATHGATE

SUSAN BOYLE UNVEILED AS EVENT’S CHIEFTAIN

Thousands of competitors from around 140 pipe bands have signed up to the first major of the year, the EFR British Pipe Band Championships in Bathgate.

A full list of competing bands can be found at http://www.rspba.org/html/contestdraw.php?id=21.

International singing sensation, and West Lothian lass, Susan Boyle has been named Chieftain of the event which takes place on Saturday 31st May.

The Championships, which attract competitors from across Scotland, the UK and beyond, will run alongside the well-established and much-loved Calor Scotland West Lothian Highland Games in the town with the day’s events being called Bathgate 2014.
One ticket, priced at £10 for an adult and £5 for a child, will offer access to both Meadow Park and Burgh Muir Park where there will be fun for all the family including Highland dancing, heavy athletics competitions and pipe band competitions.

Matt Purdie is on the organising committee. He said:

“We are absolutely delighted that, for the first time, these two fantastic events are being held on the same day offering a whole day of fun and entertainment for all the family. It is going to be a fantastic day out in Bathgate for fans of Scottish music and culture.”

The EFR British Pipe Band Championships, the second biggest pipe band championship in the world and the first major of the year, is set to attract around 4000 competitors. Bathgate hosted the event last year for the first time as part of a three-year deal.

Councillor Tom Kerr, Provost of West Lothian Council said:

“It’s a real coup for West Lothian to host the British Pipe Band Championships and we are very excited about the event for 2014 and of course welcoming West Lothian’s very own Susan Boyle – it’s great to have her support for such a prominent event for the region. We are very much looking forward to welcoming bands and visitors from all over the world to West Lothian.”

The Calor Scotland West Lothian Highland Games are now in their 43rd year and attract thousands of people to Bathgate each year from across Scotland.

Tickets are available at www.ticketweb.co.uk. For more information visit www.bathgate2014.com.

A full list of competing bands can be found at http://www.rspba.org/html/contestdraw.php?id=21.

To see article, click below:

http://www.paisley.org.uk/2014/05/thousands-of-competitors-signed-up-to-the-years-first-major-in-bathgate/

graysea

Lovely poster by Gayle Holmes. Thank you for sharing. We are missing you, Susan! Hope to get some pictures of Susan at the Highland Games. Enjoy!

graysea

Posted in Edinburgh News, May 24, 2014

Band membership is no longer a pipe dream for girls

that they are more determined to master an instrument compared to the boys.

“The girls are definitely more interested in playing at an earlier age. Piping is often seen as a male dominated pursuit and that is certainly no longer the case. Here at Preston Lodge the girls have seized the opportunity and shown great dedication to representing the school. Hopefully this growing trend will influence other females to start playing in pipe bands and keep the tradition going strong all across Scotland. It would be fantastic to see this being repeated at more and more state schools.”

The Scottish Schools Pipe Band Championships, now in its second year – with the motto “Every School Needs a Pipe Band” – was held this year at Broughton High with organisers working hard to promote piping and drumming, particularly in the state school sector where it is still relatively unusual.

David Johnston, from East Lothian, is chairman of the committee behind the competition: “Independent schools have a thriving tradition of producing excellent pipe bands and they have also seen a much greater interest among girls in the past few years.”

Keen for not only more piping in schools, but also among girls and women, celebrity bagpiper Louise Marshall, 44, started learning the bagpipes when she was just nine, following in the footsteps of her late father, William Marshall – who was the official piper at Gretna Green for more than 40 years.

Pictured overleaf, she can boast the likes of The Queen, Sir Chris Hoy and the Pope as people she has played for – to name but a few. Louise has also given Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle a lesson recently, ahead of the celebrity’s role as Chieftain of the British Pipe Band Championships, on May 31 in Bathgate.

However, despite an early enthusiasm for the pipes, Ms Marshall studied business and German at university, then had two children (Rory, 15, and Iona 12), before piping professionally. Her son, a drummer with Stockbridge Pipe Band will play at this month’s championships.

“I absolutely love what I do,” she says. “I have been given so many opportunities and it’s lovely to teach young people as well as adults, especially when it’s something you enjoy – it has opened so many doors for me.

“I think there should be more tuition in schools available so piping can be available to all pupils because at the moment it’s not.

“There’s a big push for that at the moment – every pupil should be given the opportunity to learn them.”

n British Pipe Band Championships 2014, Saturday May 31, Burgh Muir, Bathgate www.bathgate2014.com
For article, click link below:
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.co...irls-1-3421746

graysea · **Published 21st March 2010**

Canadian Bill on the SBFII posted this 2010 article regarding Susan's family Tartan. As you know, Susan Boyle is this year's Chieftain at the West Lothian 2014 Highland Games and British Pipe Band Championships in Bathgate, Scotland, which will takes place on Saturday, May 31, 2014. Fans will be delighted to hear that Susan may be planning a special green and blue family tartan, which may contain a green and white strip in honor of her favorite football team, Celtic and may have red strips in recognition of the scarves worn by her fans. How great is that! Where and when can we order a Susan Boyle scarf?

SuBo has designs on tartan

SUPERSTAR Susan Boyle is planning to cash in on her worldwide success by designing and selling her own tartan.

By Mike Parker in Los Angeles/Published 21st March 2010

Susan Boyle has designs on tartan

She wants to have a hands-on role in creating the design which will then be lodged with the Scottish Register of Tartans.

Aides say she will use it on her official clothing range and other trendy memorabilia.

O’Boyle and Boyle family tartans already exist on the official register but the singer, who comes from a Scottish-Irish background, wants to create a new design.

Fashion experts in Britain and the US say the tartan gear would become a worldwide bestseller, especially in America and Japan.

One of her aides said yesterday: “We aim to repackage Susan completely. It will be Susan herself driving the design team, so fans are guaranteed a personal touch that will transform souvenirs into something special.

“She hopes to create merchandise that combines traditional quality with a hip, modern look. People already love her debut album – now they’re going to love her chic tartan image.”

Susan could incorporate green and white in honour of her favourite football team Celtic, with a flash of red to mark the scarves worn by her fans.
Gordon Drummond, who runs an online tartan store in the US, said: “In the case of the Boyle clan, there is a Boyle Personal pattern which is predominantly blue and green, although some Boyles prefer wearing Galloway Red.

“Either way, this might actually work in Susan’s favour as her designers will be able to start from scratch and create a Susan Boyle Tartan.

“It wouldn’t be strictly historically accurate but who cares? She’ll turn herself into a brand that most performers would die for and no fan could possibly fail to recognise.”

Susan, who turns 49 on April 1, could add the Clan Boyle crest – a double-headed eagle with a Latin motto – to her range of T-shirts, sweatshirts and baseball caps.

Los Angeles fashion designer Jessica Clark said: “This is an absolutely brilliant idea.

“I’ve just looked at some of her current Susan Boyle stuff online and it’s not the most imaginative. But a Susan Boyle tartan is bound to sell like hot cakes.”

Click on link below for article:

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/late...igns-on-tartan

graysea

CARBALLO

Susan Boyle sang for

free in Finisterre

Stayed with a friend in the Hotel Ancora

KING MANUEL CARBALLO / VOICE

May 23, 2014 8:45

Susan Boyle is one of those instant Internet phenomena generated. And what has this to do with the Costa da Morte?Before explaining, a brief introduction-reminder, because memory is fragile.

In April 2009, Susan was a Scottish unemployed to which life had not treated very well. He had always dreamed pursue music, but circumstances were not allowed. With 47 years, had the courage to stand for Britains Got Talent , a talent show that aired on British television. A You really are worth, so to speak.When he stood before the jury and the public had to endure taunts and laughter on their appearance. All were silent (there was a lot of deception and exaggeration television, like it is) when Susan took to sing the first verses of I dreamed a dream , one of the songs from the musical Les Miserables , based on Victor Hugo's novel. And one of the great musical history. Note for migrants in London: in the city center, down to Trafalgar Square, the show could be seen for years in the same theater.The sign was part of the street furniture. A shame when they changed it.

Susan Boyle sang for free in Finisterre ( article Spain )
http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/carballo/2014/05/23/susan-boyle-canto-gratis-fisterra/0003_201405C23C12991.htm

Within days, the video received millions of views online and Boyle became a music star. Released an album that was the best selling in the world in 2009. Since then, he has made four and has given concerts worldwide.

All this comes (and themselves) because yesterday offered a small concert in Finisterre. Susan Boyle stayed with a friend at the Hotel Ancora. " pola mércores Chegou or later cunha friend Deron pobo ride a pole and became noite here , "Manuel Trillo had yesterday, store manager, who poses with singer in photography. « lle encantou Díxonos to Costa da Morte, and especially or Cape Finisterre. Hoxe (yesterday) and had lunch Despois xa hotel not marched "highlights Trillo.

The famous British singer was "quite shy" as the host. «noticing that simple persoa moi é unha, although I do é famous'. That if Susan agreed to sing a few bars at the request of Manuel Trillo and his wife. " Deixounos wonder. Foi one luxo, and sen entrance fee ! »

Link is below for article:

http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/carballo/2014/05/23/susan-boyle-canto-gratis-fisterra/0003_201405C23C12991.htm

graysea · May 22, 2014 11:41

Susan Boyle set for starring

Highland Games Chieftain role

Singing star named Chieftain as Bathgate is set to host British Pipe Band Championships and West Lothian Highland Games

**Susan Boyle is this year's Chieftain at the West Lothian Highland Games and British Pipe Band Championships**

Thousands of competitors have now signed up for the EFR British Pipe Band Championships in Bathgate next weekend.

The Championships, which attract competitors from across Scotland, the UK and beyond, will run alongside West Lothian Highland Games in the town with the day’s events being called Bathgate 2014.

And West Lothian superstar Susan Boyle has been named chieftain of the event which takes place on Saturday, May 31.

One ticket, priced at £10 for an adult and £5 for a child, will offer access to both Meadow Park and Burgh Muir Park where there will be fun for all the family including Highland dancing, heavy athletics competitions and pipe band competitions.

Matt Purdie, who is on the organising committee, said: “We are absolutely delighted that, for the first time, these two fantastic events are being held on the same day offering a whole day of fun and entertainment for all the family.

“It is going to be a fantastic day out in Bathgate for fans of Scottish music and culture.”

The EFR British Pipe Band Championships, the second biggest pipe band championship in the world and the first major of the year, is set to attract around 4000 competitors. Bathgate hosted the event last year for the first time as part of a three-year deal.

Councillor Tom Kerr, Provost of West Lothian Council said: “It’s a real coup for West Lothian to host the British Pipe Band Championships and we are very excited about the event for 2014 and of course welcoming West Lothian’s very own Susan Boyle – it’s great to have her support for such a prominent event for the region.

“We are very much looking forward to welcoming bands and visitors from all over the world to West Lothian.”

The Calor Scotland West Lothian Highland Games are now in their 43rd year and attract thousands of people to Bathgate each year from across Scotland.

Tickets are available at www.ticketweb.co.uk. For more information visit www.bathgate2014.com.

A full list of competing bands can be found at http://www.rspba.org/html/contestdraw.php?id=21.

Full article, copy link below;

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/susan-boyle-set-starring-highland-3587231

graysea

Gayle Holmes
Susan is so beautiful wearing her Family Tartan! She looks so happy. Photos by Stuart Vance!

Lovely poster done by Gayle Holmes. Thank you for the beautiful poster and for sharing.

graysea

SusanBoyle Fansinternationalinc

9 hrs

"#subo!! #crieff hydro #wedding"

Photo posted on Instagram today but believe it was taken on April 19. We have another photo from Crieff that day with her wearing the same outfit.
http://instagram.com/p/oPCOGQge9b/

Thank you for sharing, Fansinternationalinc.

graysea

SusanBoyle Fansinternationalinc

3 hrs ·

Check out Susan in her new Tartan outfit, ready to be Chieftan!

Photos by Other Images Press

Susan's Family Tartan Plaid.

More pictures on the link below:

http://press.otherimages.com/search/text/serie:1013034373:susan-boyle-wearing-the-boyle-family-tartan:5009

graysea

This is brilliant! Susan Boyle singing "You Have To Be There"

graysea

Posted by:

Jappreet Sethi HR & Strategy Consulting for Start-Up Firms.

Failure Is An Opinion Not Reality : Story of Susan Boyle

How long can you dance to someone else’s tune, it’s time that you try dancing to
your own tune. Go through the records of most successful people and you would discover that some of them were branded as failures at one or another time in their life’s journey.

They could have sulked, cried and taken the opinion of the few naysayers to their heart to relinquish their dream.

The victorious choose a different way; they see failure as an opinion and not a reality.

Susan Boyle is a story of a middle-aged ,not so highly educated woman who has been recently diagnosed to be suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of Autism .

Susan by her sheer determination catapulted herself in five minutes to an international arena mostly reserved for the glitterati.The church volunteer from a small Scottish town became a global sensation when she sang the “Les Miserables” number “I Dreamed a Dream” on TV contest “Britain’s Got Talent” in 2009.

The clip of her audition in Britain’s Got Talent has been viewed more than 500 million times, probably making it one of the most viewed ones in the history of web.Her debut album titled “I Dreamed a Dream” was a super hit, along with her subsequent releases she has sold more than 14 million albums worldwide

Who is Susan Boyle?

Susan Boyle was a small town girl raised in the unknown town of Blackburn, Scotland. Her Father was a miner and a veteran of the Second World and her mother was a shorthand typist. Susan Boyle was the youngest of nine siblings – four brothers and five sisters.

It is said that Susan was briefly deprived of oxygen during a difficult birth resulting in a learning disability. Boyle says she was bullied as a child, and was nicknamed “Susie Simple” at school. In an interview she told one newspaper that her classmates’ jibes left behind the kind of scars that don’t heal.

She did not have an easy life, for most of her adult life she was unemployed and earned a living by performing at local churches and pubs. Nevertheless she won numerous awards at the local level. Boyle is unmarried, and she dedicated herself to care for her ageing mother until she died in 2007 at the age of 91 ,just before her daughter’s seemingly overnight success.

It is said that Boyle abandoned an audition for The X Factor because she believed people were being chosen for their looks. She almost abandoned her plan to enter Britain’s Got Talent believing she was too old, but her coach O’Neil persuaded her to audition.

Susan Boyle says that she entered the musical career to make her mom’s wishes come true and pay tribute to her. That was her calling – so it didn’t matter what others were saying about her looks, age or societal status. She was focused on what she wanted and overturned all the odds to make a new life for herself.

Susan says - “I made a promise to my mum that I would do something with my life, Spiritually, she’s with me all the time. She has had a word with someone upstairs because I wouldn’t have had this otherwise.”

If you watch the audition video you would notice the sneers, looks, judgments, and assumptions that nearly everyone makes – including the respective judges when Susan Boyle comes to the stage. Susan Boyle in her audition declared to the judges and the audience that her dream was to become a professional singer. Everyone frowned including the judges. This did not unnerve her, in fact, it made her will stronger to make it happen.

Within 7 days her audition video had been watched more than 66 million times. Within three years she had sold 14 million records and earned more than US $25m. Is anybody laughing at her now?

Watch Susan Boyle in action

7 lessons from Susan Boyle’s life story

Don’t make age an excuse for not doing something great
Don't use your medical condition as crutches - Everything is possible
Never give up , Never give up , Never give up
Believe in your dreams big time - make it happen
Be focused on what you are doing, don’t let other’s comments derail your plans
God has gifted all of us, in one way or another – We need discover it
Be grateful to God - He has plans for everyone

Human spirit is indomitable by design; we set our targets high or low. What is stopping you from dreaming and making it big in life like Susan Boyle? .

Vince Lombardi said “ The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.”

Human spirit is indomitable by design; we set our targets high or low. What is stopping you from dreaming and making it big in life like Susan Boyle?

If you liked this post, please share it and click the FOLLOW button to stay connected for more.

You can follow me on twitter @TopHRBlog or visit my website - Humanresourcesblog.in for other career resources and tips.

Thanks

Jappreet Sethi

Image credit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Susan_Boyle.jpg

Posted by:

Susan Boyle: Singer and Now Businesswoman

By Marie Sheahan Brown

Who can forget the YouTube masterpiece? She strode and sashayed onto the stage with golden stature and confidence. She sparred wittily with the three famous judges, wearied by their long day of auditions in Glasgow, Scotland. She didn’t look the part of a “professional singer,” although one might perceive that being “currently unemployed” at forty-seven left little extra for beauty-shop pampering. Was she, rather, a comedienne? Susan Boyle audition

Then she sang. The formerly skeptical audience stood enraptured, tears welling as she belted out “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Misérables with stunning clarity and passion.

More than five years after the seven-minute audition video aired on Britain’s Got Talent on April 11, 2009, and promptly hit worldwide news feeds, multitudes in America and beyond remember Susan Boyle. Since she first broke Amazon pre-sale records in September 2009, millions have bought her albums. Each year, a new carefully crafted album has been released in time for Christmas. Since 2009, five albums have garnered sixty-three gold and ninety-four platinum sales levels in forty-two countries. Her sixth album, Hope, will be released on October 21 in the United States.

Scottish and United Kingdom audiences thrilled to Miss Boyle’s first full-length concert tours in 2013 and 2014. Now she’s coming to America—home of an immediate and strong support base—starting in San Diego on October 8, and singing her way across the southern half of the United States at venues in twenty cities. A sweep through the northern states could likely follow in the future.

See http://www.susanboylemusic.com/us/events

Many have written about Susan Boyle’s difficult and graced life. Her 2010 autobiography, The Woman I Was Born to Be, is a good source. Now fifty-three, she carefully revealed late in 2013 that, after decades of mistaken assumptions, she had finally been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. The relief of self-knowledge strengthens and encourages her after a lifetime of dealing with debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, and some difficulty in handling emotions and relating comfortably to people.

“This is a point: People may have problems,” she states in a documentary, “but they’ve got other things as well. And they’ve got a lot more to offer.” (Gammon, Lottie, produced, filmed, and directed. “There’s Something About Susan.” Firecracker Films Ltd. for ITV, 45:37 minutes. 2013)

Fewer analyses have considered her role as a small businesswoman and philanthropist whose personal success has enhanced the lives and small businesses of countless others not only in her native Scotland but also in, for example, America.

Miss Boyle, easily mistaken for a stately five feet ten in the famous video, is, in fact, barely over five feet tall with soft, dainty hands and feet—a huggable China doll. So she does qualify as a smallbusinesswoman despite her multimillions in sales, which also benefit business giants like Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited; SYCOmusic (Simon Cowell); Simon & Schuster, Inc.; Amazon; and, more recently, concert tour bus companies. In significant other ways, she retains her focus on the little ones.

The woman who had “never been married, never been kissed” and remains a virgin has, since 2009, given birth with astonishing fecundity. Lewis Hyde well describes her kind of gift and fertility in his 1983 classic, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property: “I have hoped . . . to speak of the inner gift that we accept as the object of our labor, and the outer gift that has become a vehicle of culture. I am not concerned with gifts given in spite or fear, nor those gifts we accept out of servility or obligation; my concern is the gift we long for, the gift that, when it comes, speaks commandingly to the soul and irresistibly moves us.”

Mr. Hyde first explores traditional “gift economies,” in which citizens are considered wealthy not according to how much they acquire but how much they give. In fictional form, Jean M. Auel’s well-researched Earth’s Children series (The Clan of the Cave Bear and five sequels) describes the creativity and ingenuity that led people to survive, to form communities, and to work cooperatively for mutual benefit. Goods, services, storytelling and musical talents, art, and many other gifts were appreciated in deeper ways than they might be in a typical “market economy.”

According to reviewer JoAnn Schwartz, “Above all, Hyde is interested in examining the effect our current immersion in the market economy and the myth of the free market has both on our view of gifts and on our ability to give and receive them. The market economy is deliberately impersonal, but the whole purpose of the ‘gift economy’ is to establish and strengthen the relationships between us, to connect us one to the other. It is this element of relationship which leads Hyde to speak of gift exchange as ‘erotic’ commerce, opposing eros (the principle of attraction, union, involvement which binds together) to logos (reason and logic in general, the principle of differentiation in particular). A market economy is an emanation of logos.

“In a market economy,” Ms. Schwartz continues, “one can hoard one’s goods without losing wealth. Indeed, wealth is increased by hoarding—although we generally call it ‘saving.’ In contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase—increase in connections, increase in relationship strength. Through this book, Hyde helps us focus on the importance of gifts, their flow and movement, and the impact that the modern market place has had on the circulation of gifts.” (http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html)

Susan Boyle does appreciate the financial security that she had never known, especially in the fearsome years after her mother died in 2007, when Miss Boyle kept her house cold so that she could afford the heating bill. Yet more important, Susan Boyle has said all along, “I sing to make people happy.” When she was a girl, the gift spoke “commandingly to the soul”—her soul. She honed, honed, honed the gift to perfection over decades of world obscurity. She sees with gratitude and humility the effects of this gift on people worldwide. When this gift is pointed out to her in personal conversation, she bows her head and lowers her eyes shyly. “Thank you.”

Miss Boyle’s fame and financial success have boosted tourism modestly in West Lothian, Scotland, with its pastoral more than spectacular scenery, a region that has suffered from bouts of economic depression and unemployment over the past few centuries. In February 2013, for example, following a centuries-old pattern, the main employer in the area—Halls of Broxburn meat processing plant—was closed by foreign owners, leaving 1,700 unemployed.

Lorraine Campbell co-owns and manages The Balbairdie—a nicely refurbished old hotel and pub in Bathgate, West Lothian. When the economy suffers, The Balbairdie feels it. Asked how she copes, Ms. Campbell replied, “You just keep going.” Happily, the local economy has improved some since 2013, according to Ms. Campbell in April 2014.

Miss Boyle has engaged experts like Andy Stephens, manager; Nicola Phillips, publicist; and Andrew Panton, creative and vocal director, to name a few. She has provided jobs for local personal assistants who handle correspondence, scheduling, wardrobe consultation, and myriad other details; gardeners; carpenters to renovate the council house she grew up and still lives in (her first big post-Britain’s Got Talent purchase); a housekeeper; women who fix her hair, do her nails, and apply her makeup for special public appearances and photo sessions; and others who tend to basic needs of a now-busy celebrity who still prefers to live in her home village, stop in at her favorite small shops and establishments, and take the bus.

Miss Boyle has also given seed money and sponsorship for creative business and charitable ventures in her local community and beyond. One start-up, Boyle’s Boutique, is an extended-family cottage industry that sells, among others, products featuring the new Boyle Tartan created for the family. Products may be ordered online.

Susan Boyle’s very capable personal assistant Sadie Boyle (no relation) says Miss Boyle gets about four hundred emails weekly, many requesting her generosity. This kind of response to another’s fame and fortune is not uncommon.

More unusual, and a clearer example of the fruits of the “gift economy,” is the generation of a worldwide community of Susan Boyle supporter-fans who have formed friendships, discovered or rekindled their own creative gifts, invested thousands of volunteer hours, spread financial generosity, and—to a small extent—started creative cottage enterprises for profit or merely to cover expenses.

Several unofficial Susan Boyle fansites live on the Internet. The first and largest, still flourishing, is www.susan-boyle.com. On April 11, 2009, Paul Wood, a London construction worker, watched Miss Boyle’s audition on TV and immediately put up a website. Starting within hours after the audition aired, people from many continents to whom Susan Boyle’s gift spoke “commandingly to the soul” were “irresistibly move[d]” to find out anything they could about her on the Internet. They frequently stumbled across Mr. Wood’s hastily launched site with its prolific discussion threads generating hundreds of written comments every day in the first two months of Miss Boyle’s fame.

To bring some order to the conversational chaos, Mr. Wood launched a companion Forum in June 2009 with more sophisticated software, accessed through the main website. Anyone could (and still can) join for free. The main rules are that one not be an Internet troll (a term and experience many had never heard of), that one behave reasonably civilly as outlined in posted guidelines, and that one not use the Forum itself for commercial purposes (more on that later).

Volunteer moderators and techies keep the discussions and online experience on an even keel. Online advertisements generated by Google AdSense and Amazon sales linked to the website (“SuBo Store”) help pay for the normal operational expenses.

In early 2010, Mr. Wood announced that he was going to auction off the website (some fifty thousand registered members) and its Forum (a few thousand registered members at the time). The worldwide member community could not bear the prospect of being taken over by some unknown commercial entity with other goals. So they decided to bid on the fansite themselves. A few members—by no means wealthy—each voluntarily loaned trusted fellow members a few thousand dollars to buy the fansite during the auction. The effort succeeded in July 2010.

Navigating through some tensions and hurt feelings (typical in any community anywhere), the worldwide Susan Boyle Fans International, Inc. (SBFII) community established itself as a non-profit corporation registered in Delaware, USA. SBFII elects a multinational volunteer board of directors; keeps meticulous financial records and files annual tax returns; maintains bylaws; and holds online annual meetings and elections engaging active members. Technically not a charity, SBFII uses AdSense and SuBo Store income to cover modest expenses and keep a healthy bank balance. Funds left over from voluntary collections (often for tasteful gifts for Miss Boyle for special occasions) are donated to a charity of Susan Boyle’s choice, frequently benefitting children in Scotland. By December 2011, SBFII repaid all interest-free loans given by members to buy the website; it remains debt free. No member gets paid for services to SBFII or personally benefits financially.

From the beginning, even silver-haired grandmothers proficient only with email learned to navigate the fansites in order to participate in a community of people who have experienced an inexplicable response to Susan Boyle—both her singing and her unique way of being—unlike their response to other favorite singers. Within months, members began gathering in person around the globe (often in restaurants, boosting local economies). They attended (and surreptitiously filmed and posted to the fansites for the enjoyment of those who could not attend) Miss Boyle’s performances in various cities (Britain’s Got Talent tour venues in the UK; Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, and more). Supporter-fans flocked to these events even though—until only 2013, when she first tried her own full-length concerts in Scotland—Miss Boyle was slated to sing just one, two, maybe three songs. These gatherings supported local hotels, B+Bs, restaurants, cab drivers, shops, and other travel-related businesses.

Miss Boyle and her team soon experienced that supporter-fans who came to these early events were older or at least more mature than stereotypical rowdies at, for example, Justin Bieber concerts. They saw that typical Susan Boyle supporter-fans are responsible, respectful, fun loving, generative. They include retired or active professionals—teachers, nurses, techies, writers, musicians, artists, farmers, truckers, businesspeople, social workers, radio hosts, professors, lawyers, homemakers, construction workers, postmasters, foresters.

To most gatherings (usually at restaurants) supporter-fans bring homemade memorabilia to share, including commemorative buttons and red scarves to identify themselves in various venues. The popularity of such items led SBFII to add another linked site, “Fan Creations,” linked in turn to the creators’ individual websites. Products include non-Susan-Boyle-related fan creations. Currently, three members offer SuBotique Hand Painted Apparel; Creative Images by tweek (Buttons, Mugs, etc.); and Susan Boyle Professional Singer chronicles gathered from news and other sources.

SBFII members often post creative ideas and images to discuss in writing with one another. Memorably, in 2009, a member from Texas, one from Iowa, and other volunteers, coordinated an international quilting bee. Supporter-fans from every continent, including Antarctica, created and mailed squares for a handmade quilt presented to Miss Boyle at a brunch following her debut solo appearance on the Todayshow on November 23—the day her first album, I Dreamed A Dream, was released in the United States and quickly broke world records in several categories.

Members can upload Susan-related videos that they have created; share poems that they’ve written; upload posters that they’ve designed digitally to document Miss Boyle’s career and accomplishments; upload news reports of supporter-fan activities, complete with photographs; post fine pencil drawings or paintings displaying talent the artists had only recently discovered; and offer a place where members can contribute their own essays. These essays, sometimes written in French or other non-English languages, often try to explain how the wee singer with the big voice; the shy woman who communicates profoundly—cor ad cor loquitur—through music others have written; the multimillionaire who stays in her small lifelong home and still takes the bus—the essentially inexplicable Susan Boyle—“irresistibly moves” them.

SBFII and other volunteers take responsibility to daily and positively post or re-post Susan Boyle news, photos, and encounters on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Their Internet involvement began immediately when Miss Boyle became famous—and once again experienced the bullying known since childhood, only this time inflicted by some members of the media and anonymous commentators. She writes in her autobiography, “What I didn’t know then, because I didn’t have a computer at the time, was that every time there was a mean comment about me in the press, a dozen messages of support would appear in response. On the Internet there was a growing community of fans. I had no idea how many people out there in the world felt moved to stick up for me, and I want to thank everybody for that.” (The Woman I Was Born to Be, pages 188–189)

Miss Boyle’s professional team also encourages creativity from fans. Starting with the first documentary of her life, Susan Boyle: I Dreamed A Dream, produced in 2009 by Talkback Thames, fans were invited via the official www.susanboylemusic.com site (picked up and promoted by volunteer sites) to send short videos of themselves saying “Hello, Susan!” with backdrops representing their locations. Several clips from around the world were chosen for the documentary. As a lead-up to Miss Boyle’s second album, The Gift, she held a worldwide “Susan’s Search” competition, inviting any amateur singer to upload a brief selfie singing “Silent Night.” The winner, Amber Stassi, a thirty-three-year-old paramedic from Brewerton, New York, sang “Do You Hear What I Hear?” with Miss Boyle on the album and at the 2010 outdoor Today show appearance in New York City.

In the 2013 and 2014 concert tours in Scotland and the United Kingdom, Miss Boyle and her team selected local choirs to serve as back-up choruses in every city, receiving standard financial compensation. Already individual choir members in the United States are tweeting: “Aaliyah Buchanan ‏@Itsuko_Sora I’m to pumped, i get to sing for Susan Boyle!!!!” and “Drew Mikuska ‏@DrewMikuska Hahahahaha I’m singing backup for Susan Boyle.”

Already in the twenty cities spanning the southern United States, supporter-fans from as far away as Australia and Scotland are buying tickets. They are organizing pre-concert dinner-camaraderie gatherings for supporter-fans, some of whom they have never met in person but know through their written posts on fansites. Restaurants, hotels, theaters, airlines, public transportation providers, cab drivers, and many small businesses will benefit. Susan Boyle, her team, and numerous music-related vendors will profit.

Yet in Susan Boyle’s “gift economy,” which she neither forecasted nor manipulated, money can facilitate but cannot possibly buy the greatest benefits to the community in which she finds herself to be the generator and principal member. In this higher economy, she is both blessed herself and a blessing to countless others.

As recently reported on her official website, Susan says about her upcoming United States concert tour: “This is a brilliant moment for me. The past five years have been incredible, and it just keeps getting better. I have spoken so often about wanting to tour America and be able to visit different cities for the first time—I’m so excited. This really will be fantastic, and I can’t wait for October. The US embraced and supported me from the beginning, and it really feels like a second home. So I can’t wait to get on the road and perform there.”

Source:Small Business Exchange Northeast