End Of Term

Well this term has well and truly whizzed by! We’ll be taking a short break from weekly rehearsals until week starting Monday 20th April.

Dreams is sounding amazing and I loved tightening up The Sound Of Silence with you on the last rehearsal of term too. Sometimes it's nice to have a reminder of how great things can sound when we stop and give a song some proper attention to detail.

I’m still looking for the perfect formula for keeping it fresh and interesting whilst also keeping our growing back-catalogue available.

Hopefully the abundance of resources are helpful for members new and old but if you're every wondering how to attack the list of songs, my suggestion is to got to the Calendar, find the next gig and open up the set list. Add all the very loud versions of the songs to your Favourites in the popclubchoir.uk/player and stick it on repeat play while you're going about your day!

You'll hate the sound of my voice (if you don't already) by the end, but you'll definitely start getting to know them.

As you know, Pop Club Choir is not, and will never be, a huge operation. I’ve no interest in recreating any of the big national or regional choirs, and I don't think you want that either. I ran hatband (my previous business) for nearly 40 years and whilst I wouldn’t call it “unweildly” there were certainly a lot of moving parts.

For me, small is beautiful, and it feels more like singing with a couple of hundred new friends rather than running a business.

But I’m not resting on my laurels –  lots of exciting stuff in the pipeline –  and if you’ve any ideas that you think would enhance your choir, just get in touch.

Next term’s songs

I hope you enjoyed the little mix of the upcoming songs. Over the next week or so, I might find a way to make that available to you – either on the website or on the Pop Club Choir Facebook group.

In case you missed it, the songs for next term are as follows (click on the song name to hear the original version):

• Days - Kisty MacColl
• I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons / What Is Love? - Haddaway
• Sunsine On Leith - The Proclaimers

Gigs

Lots of new gigs added to the Calendar including the Bungay Fun Day on Monday 25th May.

Against my better judgement, this makes it a three-gig-weekend. Lots of you have indicated that you’ll be able to do all three so I’m hoping I won’t be standing there on my own, on my little wooden box. Do please sign up!

Next gig is Saturday 18th April at Thetford Town Cricket Club, our new Thetford home. Come along and sing, even if you’re a brand new member! You're welcome to use your words and there’s no obligation to know the songs inside out. Stand at the back and just join in when you can. You’ll love it!

After that, you can come along to the Pop Club Choir Quiz Night which is taking place that same evening (18th April) at The New Green Centre in Thurston, just outside Bury St Edmunds

Tickets are available at popclubchoir.uk/shop and are £6 per person. All are welcome.

Song Voting

I realise I’ve introduced potential level of confusion with the songs voting. There are two systems in place to allow you to vote on different things.

Firstly, the long standing page at popclubchoir.uk/songs where you can vote for and suggest songs you’d like me to arrange for the choir to sing. With nearly 500 songs on the list, it was getting a bit hard to manage so I’ve tidied things up and added three new buttons at the top:

• Top Voted - songs that have a high number of votes
• Trending - songs that have recently been added or voted on
• All song - what it says on the tin. All of them.

If you’re on a phone, remember to turn your device to landscape so you can see all the columns.

Secondly, when there’s a rehearsal coming up, you may see a little box pop up asking you what songs you’d like to sing through at that upcoming rehearsal. You can Snooze it, Dismiss it, or click up to three songs and hit Save to register your vote. Once you’ve voted (or dismissed it) it won’t come up again.

I try not to bother you with too many alerts of this kind. So if you’ve recently had an alert about something else (membership expiring, change of dates, new gigs etc), it might wait until the next day to show it to you. If you often attend more than one location you’ll get the opportunity to vote for both rehearsals, but again, it’ll probably offer you one rehearsal one day and another the next time you come to the website.

Our wonderful team of tech volunteers run regular sessions so if you'd like a little bit of help just let me know.

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