Newsletter - February 2003

We will rehearse in Barkway church Saturday afternoon, 2.00 until 5.00 pm. There is a limited amount of parking in Church Lane but we recommend that you park in the High Street and walk up to the Church. It gets very congested in the lane.   Please bring your own drinks if you would like, but bear in mind that there is no loo!

Concert dress; ladies all black, long skirts/trousers, long sleeve, possibly black jacket if the church is cold; men dinner jacket or black suit and black tie, white shirt.

The audience would be advised to bring cushions!

Please remember to return all hired copies of music (except the Stainer and Palestrina) to Caroline before you leave Barkway Church at the end of the concert.

If you have your own black folder to hold your music please bring it with you as we may have insufficient RCS ones to go round. We are currently looking at the possibility of buying some more to address this problem.

The new membership subscriptions are £75 per year (£5 reduction if paid in one lot in advance) payable in three lots of £25.  Concessionary subscriptions are £45 per year, payable in three lots of £15. This covers hire of rehearsal venue, music and musical director (David).  There will be 5concerts per year and we hope that members will attend most rehearsals even if for some reason they are unable to perform in all the concerts.  In exceptional circumstances the committee will consider a reduction in subscription for part of a term. Subs for the spring term are now due. If you haven’t yet paid, please see Rachel as soon as possible.

We hope you are recovering quickly and look forward to seeing you after half term.

There will be no rehearsal on Feb 18th (half term).

We have to extend our stay in the Methodist Hall for one extra week i.e. March 11th. We will return to the Parish Church on March 18th.

Please remember that a subset of the choir is available to sing at weddings. If you know of someone who is looking for a choir, please recommend us! It all helps the coffers. Caroline has details of our charging policy.

At its last meeting, the committee decided to instigate a hundred club. The way it will work is detailed on the enclosed sheet. There will be a monthly draw for £25 and £10 prizes and three draws for £100 annually. This will only work if we manage to get 100 members. Please do what you can to sell the idea to friends and family. It’s a great way to support the Choral Society and have a pretty good chance of winning back more than you stake! Caroline will get the scheme up and running; if there is someone in the choir who would like to take on the ongoing administration, please speak to her.

John Crosher is composing a list of e-mail addresses for choir members. It is hoped that, eventually, we will be able to send out at least some of the newsletters electronically to save on postage. If you have an e-mail address, please let John have it.