Diary dates

2^nd June  2022– singing at lighting of the beacon for the Jubilee celebrations for those involved.

31^st May is half term but we will keep that in as an option for those involved in the beacon lighting event.

9^th July 2022 – summer concert in St Peter’s Church, Brackley. Please note that as this is a summer concert we will deviate from the usual black & white concert dress. Dress code for this concert will be black trousers / long black skirts & a plain coloured shirt / blouse – ie single block colour of your choice.  

6^th September 2022 start of September term

10^th December 2022 – Christmas concert – work TBC

Carols in the piazza / at rest homes TBC

1^st April 2023 Easter concert – work TBC.

Dates for the diary

Upcoming Rehearsals – April break

There will be no rehearsals on 5^th, 12^th or 19^th April.

Next rehearsal after the concert will be 26^th April.

Next Concert

Our next concert will be on Saturday 9^th July when we will be singing a selection of G&S choruses.  

Half term break, and singing with/out masks

To clarify the different half term dates, we will NOT have a rehearsal on 15^th Feb  but we WILL on 22^nd Feb.

After discussion, it was agreed that we will sing without masks. However, in order to ensure everyone is comfortable with this, we agreed that we should all take a lateral flow test to ensure a negative result  before choir on Tuesday evenings. It would be appreciated, however, if you could continue to wear masks when arriving, departing & moving around unless exempt. We will continue to ventilate the room & social distance.

New term starts 11th January 2022

Just a reminder that we start rehearsals again this coming Tuesday, 11^th January. The committee has decided that, unless exempt, we should wear masks throughout the rehearsal including when singing.

We will be looking at Rutter’s “Mass of the Children”. There will be scores to hire at £1 per copy if you do not have your own. If you could bring the correct change along with you on the evening it would be appreciated.

We will also likely be using the “New Church Anthem Book” for additional material (the black one with the stained glass windows on the front cover). If you DO NOT have a copy of the anthem book please could you drop me a note before Tuesday to let me know – thank you.

A reminder also that we all still need to sign in weekly on the sheet placed on the table at the front of the hall for COVID tracing purposes so it would be appreciated if you could remember to do this – thank you again.

Reminders about the concert day:

The rehearsal on the afternoon of the concert, Saturday 27^th November will be from 2pm to 5pm latest. Please be seated to start singing at 2pm.

As a reminder, the choruses we will be singing from the Messiah are:-

No. 4 – And the Glory of the Lord

No. 12 – For Unto Us a Child is Born

No. 17 Glory to God

No. 22 – Behold the Lamb of God

No.44 – Hallelujah

No. 46 – Since By Man Came Death

No. 53 – Worth is the Lamb / Amen

Dress is DJs for gents with a white shirt & black bow tie. Ladies – long sleeved black top & long black skirt or black trousers.

For rehearsal & concert, please wear a face covering if possible whilst moving around. If you could ask your family & friends in the audience to do the same if possible please although it is their choice if they wish to remove face coverings whilst seated.

If you have hired music, please return it erased at the rehearsal for the carols on Tuesday 30^th November. We will have rehearsals for carols 30^th Nov & 7^th Dec.

We will be singing carols on the piazza in front of the Town Hall in Brackley on the morning of Saturday 11^th December between 11am & 12 noon using the white Carols for Choirs books – we do have some spares if you do not have your own.      

The first rehearsal after the Christmas break will be Tuesday 11^th January 2022.

Christmas Carols in Brackley

We have now agreed with Brackley Town Council that we will sing Christmas Carols on the piazza outside the Town Hall in Brackley on Saturday 11^th December between 11am & 12 noon approximately.

There will therefore be 2 rehearsals after our concert on 27^th November – Tuesday 30^th November & Tuesday 7^th December.

We will be using the white carol books – 100 Carols for Choirs if you have one. We do own a few as a choir if you need to borrow one.

Regards

Karen.

The long awaited news!

I am writing with the long awaited news that we are planning to start Brackley Jubilee Choir rehearsals on Tuesday 7^th September – usual time & place of Brackley Baptist Church at 7.30pm.    

We have booked St Peter’s Church in Brackley for our first concert on Saturday 27^th November 2021 so please put this date in your diaries. For the concert, we will be singing some choruses from Handel’s Messiah & also Vivaldi’s Gloria – popular choices I’m sure you’ll agree.

We believe that many people will already have their own copies of these works. However, please could you let me know in the next 2 – 3 days if you HAVEN’T got either of these works in order that we know how many we need to hire. Alternatively, if you own more than one copy & would be prepared to loan it to another choir member, that would also be helpful to know.

We do need to know these numbers fairly swiftly though to get our order in to the library.

Finally, an idea was put to committee that Brackley Jubilee Choir may consider changing the name. This suggestion was for a number of reasons:-

1.       The choir was formed in 1975 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee which of course is now a distant memory & would not be relevant to new members

2.        If we are to consider changing the name it would be a good time to consider this as it is a fresh start in many ways after our forced break due to COVID and with a new Musical Director & Accompanist.

3.      Other local choirs have “choral” in their title – eg Banbury Choral Society, Towcester Choral Society, Buckingham Choral Society…… which states more obviously what they do – Brackley Jubilee Choir isn’t as obvious.     

Does anyone have any thoughts / strong objections to a proposed name change?

Look forward to hearing from you & of course, seeing you all again soon.

Karen.

Updates on restarting

Brackley Jubilee Choir committee met on 18th May 2021 and we wanted to update you on the present position and thoughts about being able to start singing again.

Firstly, barring any changes to the roadmap out of the pandemic, the good news is that  we are looking to be able to start back at choir in September (7^th).  September does, however, still feel a long way off.

We are therefore considering the idea of meeting informally before then – likely after half term – maybe 8^th or 15^th June for a few weeks to get us back into singing. This will, however, only be possible if we have sufficient interest & we appreciate there will be those among you who may not feel comfortable with that idea yet.

If you could therefore drop me a note & let me know if you would like to take part or indeed if you have any other comments to make & then we can assess from there.

Secondly but by no means any less important – some of you may have heard that after nearly 20 years of accompanying Brackley Jubilee Choir, Cathy has handed in her notice. This is clearly not a decision she has taken lightly and she is very sad to be leaving us. It goes without saying that we shall miss her but understand her need to have more personal time.

We are currently pursuing possibilities for a replacement accompanist but if anyone knows of anyone who may be interested in filling the post, please let a member of the committee know.

Karen       

More delays and cancellations :(

Hello to all Brackley Jubilee Choir members.

I’m sure, like me, you are all missing our singing!

The committee met Thursday September 17th and we thought we would share some feedback with you:

We are awaiting updated guidance from the department of Culture, Media and Sport regarding regulations for groups such as ours to resume. However, with the recent rersurgence of Covid-19 it seems unlikely we will be meeting in the near future.

We would be very pleased to hear back from you, as choir members, as to how you would feel about meeting again if we were allowed to do so safely. (Either to myself or Karen).

We have cancelled the booking made at St Peter’s for the November 28th concert.

We now have a Safeguarding Policy approved by the committee.

The Constitution of the Brackley Jubilee Choir, last reviewed 2001, has some proposed updates and changes. These will be circulated prior to the next AGM for discussion and ratification at the AGM.

The current constitution requires us to have an AGM in October. We propose to postpone this until we are able to meet again, most likely early next year. We need approval of choir members to do this.

Please could you email either Karen Lesniak or Lynne Cargill  IF YOU DO NOT WISH THE AGM TO BE POSTPONED UNTIL WE ARE ABLE TO MEET IN PERSON. We will take silence as assent.

Best Wishes to you all,

Lynne Cargill,

Acting Chairperson,

Brackley Jubilee Choir.

Coronavirus rescheduling

We appreciate it is possible some of this could change in these uncertain times, but at present our current plans are:-

28^th March concert cancelled

4^th July 2020 concert also cancelled – it will not be feasible to do this in light of the coronavirus outbreak

8^th September 2020 – begin rehearsals again

19^th September 2020– a sing day – please let me know any suggestions / works you would like us to consider

13^th October 2020 AGM

28^th November 2020 Autumn concert

December 2020 – carols in rest homes – dates TBC

Karen