Half Term

I’ve a busy couple of weeks planned getting the arrangements and resources ready for the next few songs. I hope to get everything finished for the next term and a half. Then I can I start thinking about Christmas songs again! Phew! It comes round quickly.

I hope those of you that heard it enjoyed Dreams, our next song. There’s some crunchy harmony there which might take a bit of time to work through. I’m going to take it nice and slowly, as I did with One Last Time. I’ll also be doing some recaps and some new warm ups of course, plus bringing back some of your favourites.

Let me know if you like this slighty more thorough approach to the teaching (as opposed to the more frenetic pace at which we took previous songs). I’m hoping it’ll make it easier for you to remember your parts as I know not everyone has time to work through the resources.

We’ll be back to regular rehearsals in first week of March. Check the Calendar at popclubchoir.uk/calendar for more details.

Suffolk Mind Festival 15 August CANCELLED

Sadly this event on 15th August has been cancelled by the organisers. If you’ve signed up for it, please mark yourself as something other than “coming” so that I know you’ve seen this message. Again, the calendar is the place you'll find this.

However, there is a new gig in the diary too. Saturday 18th April at Thetford Cricket Club (which many of you will know as the location for our triumphant performances at the All Out Festival in 2025 and 2026). Exact times are TBC but we’ll be singing at around midday.

Quiz Night Saturday 18th April

On the same day as the Thetford Cricket Club gig we have our ever popular Quiz Night, again at New Green Centre in Thurston, near Bury St Edmunds.

Our resident Quiz Master (Mistress?) Helen will again be hosting the event. Will the 2025 champions triumph again or will we see a new team crowned Pop Club Choir Quiz Champions 2026?

The bar will be open. Feel free to bring nibbles for you table.

Doors open 7pm and the Quiz starts 7.30pm. Organise yourselves into teams of up to six people if you like or if you're travelling solo, we can put you together on the night. Choir members, partners, friends etc all welcome.

Tickets are now available from popclubchoir.uk/shop

WhatsApp and Facebook Etiquette

As you know, I'm not a huge fan of "rules" but I'm guided by you with regards to what it's acceptable to post to the Facebook Group and our various WhatsApp chats.

The mood of the choir seems to be strongly in favour of keeping posts Pop-Club_Choir-related. So if you can avoid posting or initiating discussions about other projects I think that'd be appreciated by the other members. I don't think we want to stifle chat and discussion but as our numbers grow, I can well imagine things getting out-of-hand, if we all start posting about our personal projects, no matter how well-intentioned or worthy-a-cause, they are.

I'd prefer not to be the "moderator" or arbiter of what's acceptable so just take this as a polite reminder that posts should as far as is possible, be Pop-Club_Choir-related.

Videos

You’ll hopefully have seen the new Rehearsal Videos at popclubchoir.uk/player. These are in addition to the regular Recap Videos so feel to share your thoughts as to whether you find them helpful.

As you might imagine, preparing the Recap Videos is quite a big task. With the new, slightly more thorough approach to rehearsal teaching, more often each one will be a recap of the teaching of the entire song. So, most won't be available until we’ve finished the tune.

The idea of the Rehearsal Videos is to bridge that gap, getting them up fairly swiftly after the week’s teaching has finished. They be somewhat less polished but you’ll be able to review what you learned in rehearsal or, if you missed the session, catch up with exactly what was taught.

You may also have noticed that the most recent Rehearsal Video (part 3 of One Last Time) included subtitles. Again, let me know if it’s helpful. If this doesn’t interfere with my efforts to get these out quickly, I’ll continue to add them for videos moving forward. However, as you can imagine, like all things video-related, adding subtitles is anything but rapid!

Website

The new Members’ Area seems to be bedding-in well. Thank you to all who have reported bugs and suggestions. All added to the list!

I’m in the middle of my year-end accounts at the moment, plus I’m making a move to a new accounting system in preparation for HM Gov’s Making Tax Difficult, sorry, Digital. So, not many tweaks to report this week.

I have however moved the videos so they’re all now in the player at popclubchoir.uk/player and not in the resources section.

The player attempts to download enough of the video to get started playing and then works away in the background as you watch it. However, when you access stuff in the resources page, it grabs the entire file in one fell swoop. That’s fine for PDFs and even MP3s. Video files however, are wee bit more chunky so downloading the entire thing can take a few minutes. It can look like “nothing’s happening” which is of course a bit confusing.

Cake Sale

Very may thanks to everyone who got involved in this weeks fund-raising activities, in particular Julie, Sharon, Elaine and Carolyn who organised the whole thing.

As you know, in response to your feedback, I’ve decided to limit cake-sales to just one per term. Fewer cakes, fewer calories, thinner Ed! If we end up with a situation where

Julie has been keeping you all updated via WhatsApp and the Facebook Group and at time of writing, you’ve raised nearly £600 for the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation. Thanks to your generosity, we’ve been classed as Sponsors for the event. I know this dreadful illness has touched many of you in Pop Club Choir and I really grateful, pleased and proud that we’re involved.

Tallulah

Thank you for making Tallulah feel so welcome over the past couple of weeks. She'll be with us until she heads of to university in September.

She'll also be conducting one of the upcoming gigs (April 14th Thetford Wellbeing Fayre) as I'll be away.

So, we'll be getting in plenty of practise over the next few weeks so she's prepared. I've also found it really useful sitting in with the basses. I might even try joining some of the other section over the next few weeks...

If you have any questions then do get in touch. You can email me at ed@popclubchoir.uk, or WhatsApp, call or text on 07973 110075.

Ed