Halloween

The final Saturday Synopsis of this half of term.

I’ll be “offline” for most of the upcoming week preparing for our grand Halloween Party THIS SATURDAY (1st November)!

Please do come along and support us. There’ll be “live” music from The SERIOUS Hat Band (my former “day job”) plus an opportunity for you to sing with the band. Solos, duets, trios, groups… the choice is yours.

You can let me know what you’d like to sing in advance if you want, or you can just bowl up and put us to the test. We like a musical challenge.

There’ll be blood-curdling beef or bean chilli prepared by our spooky chefs Dariusz and Gill (included in the ticket price), a well stocked and very reasonably-priced bar. There’s loads of free parking and Ipswich Sports Club will be decorated as you’ve never seen it before.

Get your tickets from https://popclubchoir.uk/shop#!/Halloween-Party-2025-Saturday-1st-November/p/778768528

And don’t forget, all are welcome so feel free to bring other-halves, friends and family.

Next Half of Term

We’ll be back week starting Monday 3rd November for the second half of Merry Christmas and some more prep for our first Christmas Gig on Sunday 9th November. Halloween preparation notwithstanding, I’m hoping to have some audio parts up for our selection of carols soon. If you have time, by all means learn your part, but it’s also fine to just sing the tune through. Sopranos might want to have a go at the descant for O Little Town and O Come All Ye Faithful.

We should have Merry Christmas well and truly completed in one more session so expect to move on to our next song the week after. You’ll be pleased to know the next one is also taken from the suggestions made by you.

Website, photos and Tech Drop Ins

Hopefully you’ve discovered the newly rebuilt Upload a Photo section in the Members’ Area. It’s not too different from your side of things but I’ve completely redone all the stuff “under the hood” to make it a lot more robust.

Please do upload a photo if you’ve not already done so. Many of you ask me how I remember everyone’s name and the simple answer is that I sit down and learn them. So, even as a refresher, it’s really handy to be able to connect a face and name.

Kim, Sharon and Elaine kindly made their time and knowledge available for your website and tech queries before last week’s rehearsals. I know quite a few of you dropped in with your questions. I’m very grateful to them as firstly time is a little bit tight for both checking you all in but perhaps more importantly, what’s obvious to me about the website is probably not quite so clear for you.

So, it’s hopefully more effective to have proper “website users” helping you out. I’d love to run this again next half term so do let me know if you found it helpful or if you have any suggestions.

Video Shoot

Some of you might have seen a new event in the “Gigs” calendar entitled “Promo Video Shoot for Hope To Connect”.

We’re hoping to recreate that scene from Love Actually but with the addition of our choir singing Silent Night. It’ll be taking place in Shotley IP9 on Friday 21st November at about 4pm. The plan is still being assembled but will probably be a short rehearsal first, followed by filming at around 4pm.

More details in the Calendar so do sign up if you’re interested and you can find more information about the charity https://hopetoconnect.com/

Charity Collections

I’m not fond of rules as you know, but I think I might have to work out a bit of a strategy (dare I say policy?) with regards to fundraising projects. You’re all wonderful people that do such fabulous things for charity and that’s a huge part of what makes Pop Club Choir what it is.

Our bake-sales are a long-standing fixture and I’m keen to keep supporting these. Recently we’ve had poppies, YANA, one or two other sponsorships and collections plus of course our events for Cancer Research, Motor Neurone Disease Association, St Elizabeth Hospice and more.

I want to make sure that people are free to come along to choir without expectation of any extra spending so I’m thinking that we’ll try and keep things reasonably low-key so that people can give if they’d like to but won’t feel any pressure to do so.

I need to pull all this together with your views on the Facebook group and WhatsApp groups where, as mentioned previously, the overwhelming mood of congress was that we should try and keep the non-choir-related-stuff for other forums. In case it’s not clear, the thinking on this seems to be that, if there’s too much non-choir-stuff, people will stop using the groups because they’ll just be too busy.

Above all, it’d be amazing if you’d kindly continue getting in touch with me first, before bowling up with your tins or sponsorship forms.

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