On Saturday, March 18th at 7.30pm at Shifnal Village Hall, we are hosting Warley Male Voice Choir. We visited them a couple of years ago, and had a great night over there.Our objective has to be to fill the village hall,and hopefully enjoy a similar evening over here.We are being supported by the Co-op and are dividing our takings between ourselves and The Senior Citizens’ group and The Live at  Home Charity, both of which are really deserving local causes.

Please come along and help the local community, and enjoy a great evening!!

Total money raised a fantastic..£76.50p going to Severn Hospice. Well done to all!

Ged

Many thanks to the loyal band who enthusiastically sang their way round several pubs in Shifnal last night. The evening began with a visit to Netherwood, a care home where Jim Jones, a much-valued singer, is now being looked after. Thankfully, Jim was able to help us with the singing, and be rather critical of our “timing”. We were very well received, and fed and watered.

Then it was on to the busy pubs in Shifnal itself, squeezing ourselves into The Plough, The Wheatsheaf and The White Hart in all of which we were warmly welcomed and well received We collected money for “The Severn Hospice” which will be counted, and published here later..

Once again well done to all-it is a good social outing, and crucially shows us enjoying what we do , and involving ourselves in the local community. Happy Christmas to all, and here’s hoping for a busy and successful 2017.

Cheers!

Great to have another local concert, well attended and enthusiastically received.It was a really impressive venue,with great historic interest, and also interesting to be accompanied by a barbershop quartet,just to see how they do things.
Many thanks to Rev.,Pippa Thorneycroft for her help in arranging the concert, and her very warm welcome on the night.

Our selection of songs was designed to show the wide range of the choir’s repertoire,and hopefully attract interest from possible recruits.

Exciting times at the moment with new sponsorship interest from the Co-op.We are hoping to be included in a national Christmas advert  which involves a long day’s filming/rehearsal in Blackpool in a couple of weeks’ time, and hopefully some recording in Shifnal later.More news to come shortly!!!

Next concert in Donnington, on Friday  November 18th.

St.Mary Magdalene Church in Albrighton proved to be an extremely welcoming venue,with a very receptive audience.The choir performed a varied and demanding repertoire, with some new songs as well as some old classics.

The audience was extremely responsive, the Vicar said she had been moved by our performance and our choices of music. Three people stopped me on the way out to say how much they had enjoyed it.!!

What a great way to spend a Saturday night!!

Many thanks to the church, and Chris Cherrington for his help in setting it all up!

Next stop ..Tong, October 15th.

Despite torrential rain, and the counter-attractions of the England match on TV we all enjoyed a great night in the beautiful surroundings of St.Mary’s church in Market Drayton last night.

The programme was very varied, including new material, and new soloists and a wonderful piano recital by Anne and Jade.

It only serves to emphasise how important concerts are in establishing confidence and the feeling of being in a unit together,working with the conductor and pianist to create that wonderful sound !!

I think we numbered 24 or 25, which emphasises how urgent our recruitment crisis is. On the one hand the bass section ,which has been struggling of late, is beginning to come together and sound more confident.On the other hand ,if a couple of people can’t make it on a particular night, we will struggle, which is what happened when we had to postpone this concert late last year

So, we go forward together-next concert-Saturday July 2nd St.Lawrence’s Church,Gnosall, then we are into October,- Oct 1st St.Mary Magdalene,Albrighton Oct.,15th St.Bartholomew’s Tong,and then, hopefully the re-arranged concert with The Jackfield Band.

Onwards!!-Anybody out there who may be thinking that it sounds like good fun, don’t think about  it, give it a go!!What have you got to lose??

After 6 weeks concerted practice,it was really excellent to sing last night in front of a very responsive audience with a very extensive and varied repertoire.Congratulations to all, especially Jade with two really delightful solos.

Next event May 6th , charity concert at The Park House in Shifnal, then June 18th joint concert with Jackfield band.

Onwards!!

After the AGM last week, we have a new chairman, Steve Taylor, and a new committee.

The meeting was useful because the financial report from Dave Shakeshaft brought us all into the picture as regards the difficulties we face.This was partly caused by falling numbers, lack of concerts, and the added expenditure from 6 weeks rehearsing during last summer, together with extra soloist rehearsals, and ongoing expenditure on room hire.

Some good suggestions were made, and will be looked into.

For the future, we have a programme of concerts for the new season, as follows.

April 22nd St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Shifnal.

June 1st Market Drayton.

July 2nd.St.Lawrence Church , Gnossall.

Sep16/22. Bishops Wood

Oct 1st Albrighton.

Oct 15th Tong.

Nov 18th St. Matthew’s Donnington.

All dates were correct at the time of printing , but may be subject to change. Onwards!!

Last night we enjoyed another  shared concert, this time with with Warley Male Voice choir in the Cornbow Hall in Halesowen.Despite our numbers being down to the low twenties I felt we performed extremely well, and once again I thought the selection of music we performed was spot on. We are extremely grateful to Warley, and their MD Steve, for the warmth of their welcome, and the enthusiasm of their audience. The three young men which they had performing with us were a real breath of fresh air-it was really good to see young people enjoying music as much as we do!!

That means that with one concert to go, on December 12th at Wombridge, we have “got through”the busy Autumn schedule-St.Andrew’s, Bridgnorth, Kemberton,and finally Warley-with the enforced postponement of the Market Drayton concert on November 14th., being the only casualty.

As things stand at the moment we are getting 28 people at rehearsals which is really encouraging-we need to get the new people into concerts asap-perhaps the Christmas jollity at Wombridge will give us that opportunity-come along and see!

This evening offered a different sort of challenge,not only were we to sing in front of a large audience, we were to sing to our local “rivals” in the world of male voice singing. By the luck of the draw we had to listen to the other choirs first, and then, after the interval, we had to perform our four chosen pieces.

Starting with the unaccompanied beginning to”What would I do without my music”,which is always a challenge,we did really well, and followed that with the really moving “To where you are”,, “Halleluja” and “Those magnificent men in their flying machines”.

In fact the choice of music was as impressive as the performance, because it showed a different side of male voice singing,less traditional, perhaps lighter, certainly more fun to sing!!

Congratulations to all concerned, and to the other choirs involved, because it really was a”Shropshire Union”, as befits the title we chose for the concert.

Next concert-Kemberton,Saturday, 31st October.