A flying start to 2026

You seem to like the new arrangement – nice easy one to start the term – and teething problems aside, the rebuild of the members’ area seems to be working well.

I’m hoping to make these weekly blogs a little more brief and readable in 2026 so expect a slightly more curt style moving forward. Time will tell…

New Members’ Area

Kim has kindly agreed to run a Tech Session at Bury St Edmunds next Monday (19th January) from 7pm to 7.30pm. She can help you find your way around, add your photo and also add our Calendar feed to your Google or Apple Calendar app.

Once all the bugs are ironed out, the next phase will be to make it work when you’re not connected to the internet, particularly the player, which I know many of you use while driving.

Charity Update, plus Bake, Cake and Craft Sales

We raised a whopping £430 for Motor Neurone Disease Association – thank you from me – and MNDA have asked me to pass on their thanks too. I’m looking forward to working with them and other MND charities in 2026.

We’ll continue our association with St Elizabeth Hospice and CRUK and we’ve got several gigs lined up already (the first of which is Saturday 14th February at Ipswich, when we’ll be performing with the wonderful Harry Isaac Presley – Little Bealing’s 9th Best Elvis Impersonator).

In response to your feedback, I’ve decided have one Bake/Cake sale per term. This term’s will be the week of Monday 9th February to Thursday 12th February (details in the Calendar section).

Songs and Rehearsals

We should finish Rock The Boat next week and I’ll have a brand new arrangement for you to listen to next week, ready to start from 26th January.

For new songs, audio downloads will be available straight after the rehearsal for those that attended, or from 9pm Thursday for everyone else.

I’ll vary the level of difficulty of the arrangements, the style and era across the year and I’ll bring you range of stuff that is popular on the website plus stuff that I think will work well.

As always, the place to suggest and vote on songs is https://popclubchoir.uk/songs

Look out for recaps of songs as the year progresses plus a selection of new warms up  as well as revisiting old favourites.

Details of what we’ll cover each rehearsal can be found at https://popclubchoir.uk/calendar

Finally, I’ve started make some gentle changes to the seating plan this term. I’m aware that I often can’t hear much beyond the front row, particularly altos to my left and right. Plenty more of this as the term goes on.

I’d also like to spend a little less time on the learning and a bit more on the singing. To this end, you may see a slightly-stricter Ed during the teaching phase of the rehearsal. I shall be politely asking you to pipe-down a wee bit. That’ll hopefully give us more time at the end to let our hair down for a longer sing-song at the end of the evening.

And as always, “doors open” at 7pm so do come along a bit earlier for a drink and chat. Singing starts promptly at 7.30pm.

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