Christmas Week

Christmas starts early at Pop Club Choir. Feel free to wear your Christmas-clobber (hats, Christmas jumpers, antlers) next week!

We have to do all our preparation before the rest of the world has even started thinking about Christmas and I’m looking forward to starting work on Merry Christmas. It was a surprise late runner after my appeal for suggestions and, since I’ve been working on it since August, I’ve come to rather like it.

All the resources are up in the members’ area so do take a look and a listen over the weekend if you have a moment.

We’ll also be singing through some carols this week and, if time allows, having a very quick recap of some of the stuff we covered last week.

Half Term

This week will also be our last week before we take our mid-term break. I’ll be spending the majority of this time getting prepared for our grand Halloween Party. I’m sure everyone is aware of this and please do come along. No need to go wild with the dressing up – it’s perfectly sufficient to just pop on a cape, mask or a witches hat.

A quick search on a certain rainforest-based-online seller for something like “easy halloween costume” or “witches hat” brings up a mass of stuff.

Please do come along and support the Halloween Party. It’s month of planning and preparation plus about a week of decorating at Ipswich Sports Club and it's always a really fun night. There's the chance to sing with the band, great food and a well stocked and reasonably priced bar.

Tickets are available in the shop at popclubchoir.uk/shop

Website-Drop-In-Clinics

I’ve long wanted to have somewhere you can come to get help with the website but time is always tight at rehearsals so I’m not sure I always give fantastically useful help there.

You’re always welcome to call me with any questions of course, and where possible I’ll always try and help you at rehearsals. However, I’ve quite often got my hands full in our usual pre-rehearsal tea and coffee time.

To solve this, we’ll be running a few of website-drop-in-sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Kim, Sharon and Elaine (respectively) will be there to guide you around the website, answer any questions you have, and show you how to do stuff like change your password, add a song suggestion or even just sign up for a gig.

No need to book! The sessions will run from 7pm to 7.30pm so just turn up with your phone, tablet or laptop – whatever you usually use to log on to the site.

A huge thanks to Kim, Sharon and Elaine. If these prove popular, and if our wonderful tech-team are happy to do so, we’ll try and make this a semi-regular event.

(Nothing for Thetford yet I’m afraid, but do come along to Bury if you’d like to. Equally, if there’s anyone on the Thetford crew who might be up to do a bit of tech-support then do get in touch.)

Website Improvements

There are a few of tweaks to the Members’ Area to report.

Firstly, when you log in, there’s a new button to click if you’ve forgotten your password. Clicking it will enter a box into which you can put your username (which is also your email address) and you’ll then get a link to reset your password in your email inbox.

One or two of you seem to have several email addresses on the go, so the only thing to note is that you have to enter your actual username-email – not just any random email you happen to use. So, if you’ve forgotten your password, this system will be perfect. If you’ve forgotten your username or any other details, you’ll have to get in touch.

Secondly, I’ve completely rebuilt the “Upload Your Photo” section. It won’t look too different to you but there’s now a handy progress bar which will show your photo uploading. I know one or two have had problems uploading pictures and I suspect that’s because you’ve not been waiting long enough for the photo to upload. So now, the system will also remind you to keep your device open while photo uploads.

If you’re having any problems with either of these then do come along to our Website-Drop-In-Clinics (see above).

Finally, you may have spotted that you can add your car registration number to the “Your Account” section below. For gigs such as Rainbow Ward at West Suffolk Hospital, we send a list of cars registration number over to the organisers so we can park for free and I get you to add your own registration numbers to avoid any errors. I’ve added a small note saying something along the lines that we may share your car registration number, just so that we’re covering our obligations to the Information Commissioner’s Office, with whom Pop Club Choir (or rather our ‘parent company’ Dewson Entertainments) is registers.

Survey

Thanks to everyone who completed the questionnaire. It’s been a busy start to the term and I’ve been doing some “analysis” of the wonderful feedback you’ve kindly shared. I love working on my own and as you know, I’m absolutely not going to turn Pop Club Choir into a huge “empire” with other “choir-leaders” and the like. It’ll always be just me!

So, getting your thoughts on what you like and what you don’t is spectacularly useful.

Here are some of the interesting headlines:

You seem to value the fun and friendly aspect of our little club very highly. Quite a few have asked me to be a bit more forceful with my shushing, particularly when other sections are learning their parts.

Similarly, you like the emphasis being on putting on an entertaining show when it comes to gigs with around 20% of you also ticking the box marked “I’d prefer our performances to be more “professional” (e.g. lined up in height order, a better balance across the different voice parts).”

You love the members’ area and you quite like the video recaps, though a fifth of you admit to not having looked at them at all. Simply having enough time in your busy week seems to be the main problem!

The summer break was too long for a lot of us, myself included. Next year, I’m going to experiment with running sessions across the summer without too much focus on learning as that’s what most of you seem to want. Interestingly, over a third of you said you were happy just doing gigs over the summer.

Finally, the huge majority wanted me to curate the Facebook group and WhatsApp chats a bit more vigorously. Almost no-one ticked the “Anything goes” box so, even though I’m not going to call them “Rules” it does look like you’d like me to give some broad-guidelines as to what we post.

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 X

We’ve well and truly broken the back of Take On Me Mr Brightside and I’m quietly confident that we may get it finished next week.

If you get and time over the weekend, do have a listen to your parts either by downloading them below, or use the music player at popclubchoir.uk/music

We’ll be hitting the carols and the Christmas tunes hard these next few weeks in preparation for the first of our Christmas gigs on Sunday 9th November (more details below).

I’ve temporarily removed the audio for Silent Night so I can redo it. I’ll let you know when it’s back up.

Our new Christmas song for 2025 is Merry Christmas by our local hero, Ed Sheeran, and our somewhat less local hero, Elton John. I’ll be playing it to you at rehearsals next week but you can have a listen to the original version here.

On the subject songs, I’ve added VERY LOUD versions for a few more tunes to the Downloads and Music Player. If you’ve got any that you’d like me to create very loud versions for, just get in touch.

Gigs

A few new and exciting new gigs in the diary.

Firstly, as mentioned above, Sunday 9th at the Norfolk Festive Food & Drink Show, at Norfolk Showground. Thanks to Carolyn W. for getting us in there. As well as being a really fun sing, it’s going to be a great day out too and of course, we’ll be getting in for free.

Secondly, we’ll be helping the good people of Mundford with their grand Christmas Lights Switch On. That’ll happen on Saturday 29th November (5pm) and again, promises to be another lovely festive occasion.

All details for these two are down below in the Calendar section.

Also, we’ve been asked by the Motor Neurone Disease Association to support the MND Patron and Rugby star Kevin Sinfield.

Kevin is taking on another one of his mega challenges this December and will be completing 7 marathons in 7 days, one of which starts in Bury St Edmunds and finishes in Ipswich. We’ll be singing at the Ipswich end, around 2pm, on 1st December.

It’s likely to be a pretty high profile event so I for one am excited to be involved. More details to follow as soon as it’s fully confirmed.

Finally, well done to everyone who came along to the Colour Rush gig at Trinity Park. Breezy, and some! But lots of fun and I’ve had a lovely email from Suffolk Mind, thanking us for our contribution.

Website

I’ve spent the last couple of days creating a “Forgot password” link for the Members’ Area. Now, if you forget your password, you can reset it yourself. Just hit the big Log in button as usual and then right down at the bottom, you’ll see the words “Forgot password?” Click on these words to get an email sent to you with a reset link.

Getting this operational has involved completely re-doing the “log in” architecture so if you’ve been in touch in the last couple of days and found me a bit distracted, that’s why. Anyway, if you have any problems or anything is not working as expected, give me a shout.

Pictures and Badge

A reminder to let me have a picture of your lovely face to help me keep track of names. As our numbers grow I sometimes have a moment of madness and can’t connect faces to names. You can either email or WhatsApp me a picture, or you can use the Upload Your Picture section below.

A lot of you have appreciated the badges. I’m very aware that it feels a little bit ‘school-like’ but I think it’ll really help you to get to know each other a little better. If you’d like a badge you can order one at popclubchoir.uk/shop

Socials

Our fabulous Halloween Party is getting ever closer. Please do come along to this fabulous evening. All are welcome so razzle up your friends and family. It's your opportunity to sing with our fabulous live band. Solos, duets, trios, groups... I can wait to hear you all.

Tickets are available in the shop at popclubchoir.uk/shop

Our Christmas Socials plus our Wreath Making workshops are also in the Calendar below. Do make sure you sign up if you'd like to come along. The Wreath Making may be sold out by the time you read this but Elaine is operating a reserve list so still worth signing up if you’d like to come.

Payment for the Wreath Making can be made either via me (cash in an envelope) or directly to Elaine at Ipswich.

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 X