WORKSHOPS

If you're coming along to our final summer Workshops, there's just one more week to go before we meet again.

When you book your place you can vote for the song you'd like me to cover, and I've added some extra ones in. I'm also assembling a new list of Hot Hopefuls (the songs we sing through without any learning) for your consideration. If was fantastic seeing what you made of the ones we sang in the mid-Summer Workshops and I'm excited to see what you'll make of these new ones.

I'll also be revealing next term's songs at the Workshops which means that those of you coming earlier in the week will be sworn to secrecy. There's got to be some showbiz-style razzmatazz after all!

As always, you can book your place at popclubchoir.uk/shop and you'll find the dates and locations at popclubchoir.uk/workshops.

TERM STARTS w/s 9th September

Our regular rehearsals start in two weeks time. Many of you have told me that you go away in the first week of September so hopefully this will suit you well.

It turns out that it's actually quite complicated working out how best to structure the rehearsal dates. Most choirs seem to follow a school term-term pattern and I'd always assumed that this was for you, the members. However, as my youngest goes into her final year at school, it occurs to me that it's probably done like this to benefit the choir-leader. Seems a bit arse-about-face, if you'll pardon the phrase!

This will no doubt form the basis of a future "end of term" Questionnaire. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts, feel free to share them either with me directly (contact details below) or on WhatsApp or Facebook.

QUESTIONNAIRE

A final reminder that you can still fill in a questionnaire for last term. I'll have printed copies with me on the first week of rehearsals, or you can download a copy at popclubchoir.uk/questionnaire.pdf.

CAKE SALE MONDAY 9th September

Bury St Edmunds will be hitting the ground running with another one of our popular Cake Sales which Bury member Emma is calling our Sing And Scoff!

Emma and her son TJ are taking on the Thames Bridges 25km Trek to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease Association.

Please bring in cakes, baked or bought, and some pennies to put towards our donations. Or if you'd like to make a donation you can do so at https://shorturl.at/mzCV7

GIGS

There are several new gigs in the Calendar section below. By default it'll show the Workshops when you first open it. So, click the Gigs button to show all our upcoming performances.

We've got Run Norwich on Sunday 8th September – a perfect way to warm up for the new term – and it's a morning event which means you can have a sing and then a spot of lunch and some light, recreational shopping in Norwich City Centre. Sounds like a good day out to me.

Eagle-eyed folks will also have spotted that we've got two performances on Saturday 5th October. One in the morning, the always amazing Colour Rush at Trinity Park and the Shine Midnight Walk in Norwich, in the evening.

I did hesitate slightly before booking these in as I realise, it's a bit of a big "ask" to encourage you to do two gigs in one day. But both these worthy causes are close to my heart, and many of yours too, so I'm really keeping everything firmly crossed that you'll be up for it, Pop Club Choir.

PICTURES

I've no interest in Pop Club Choir becoming one of these huge behemoths with thousands of members. I've gained a couple of hundred new friends in the last six months and I know many of you feel the same.

It's important to me that I can put faces to names so it's really helpful if you can upload a photo. It doesn't need to be anything fancy – it's only visible to you (and me) and it shows up on the website very small so don't worry too much about making it perfect. I can crop it down to the right dimensions so as long as it's got your face in there somewhere, it's fine!

If you see this little icon next to the Upload Your Picture section it means that you've not yet uploaded anything. If you see your own smiling face then you're all good!

WEBSITE

I've tidied up the Members' Area so that the different sections are a bit easier to navigate. And, as per the above, your picture should now be visible without you having to open any of the tabs.

At some point the main page will need a refresh up as it's already looking a bit dated but my focus will stay on making the Members' Area as good as possible.

Next week I've scheduled some time to bring the famous list-of-songs under control. As you know, everything we sing (apart from the very first few songs we learned) has been suggested by you.

The process is a little opaque: broadly, you suggest a song, I add it to the ever growing list, and then I weigh up how good an arrangement I think I can do, whether it'll work for the voice parts, the current repertoire and most importantly, how many people have asked about it.

At the suggestion of Thetford member Carolyn, I'd going to formalise the first and last bits of that list so I'm currently working on a way to publish the list in the Members' Area and enable you to vote on the songs you'd like to do and suggest new songs.

Coding it isn't the problem. It's how best to do the voting. Do I set it so that you can vote for as many as you like, or just a limited number of songs? Do I make it so you can upvote a song and down-vote others? All this is under consideration. Do feel free to share your thoughts through the usual channels.

Finally, even if you're a Pop Club Choir veteran, don't forget to check the Useful Information, "pinned" at the top of this section. I want this to be a "One-Stop-Shop" for everything you need to know about about your Club.

Let me know if there's anything that you're always hunting for that you'd like included in this bit.

As always, you can email me at ed@popclubchoir.uk, or whatsapp, call or text on 07973 110075. Or hit me up on Facebook!

Ed X