Organ Dedication at Hanslope

This evening we (John, our girls and I) attended a very enjoyable organ dedication and celebratory opening recital  at St James, Hanslope.  The newly installed organ, which came from St Andrews, Headington, sounded very good in the church, thanks to the work of organ builders F H Browne & Sons.  It would not have been possible to have installed the organ in the west gallery if it hadn’t been for the vision of Fr Gary and the work of the organ fund sub committee as well as the community of Hanslope.  Their target was £84,000, and they succeeded in raising this in 5 1/2 years, which is a great achievement.

I wasn’t the only member of the St Mary & St Giles organ fund group to attend as David S was also there and Andrew our organist played and sang in the recital.  In addition, Felicity, Hannah and Jude from our church band all performed, and several others from our church were there, so St Mary & St Giles was well represented.  Occasionally our band plays for the Generation Y services at St James, and it was at the most recent one in September that I saw the new organ for the first time.

I asked Fr Gary during one of the two intervals what advice he could give to our organ fund group as we continue to strive towards the enormous target of over £124,000, and he said that believing in what we were doing was really important and not to loose heart: even though all the small amounts of cash from individual events might seem little against the grand total, it was all adding up.  Having a really good team focussing on the job is also important.

Well I’m glad to say that we honestly do have all of that: our organ fund group works well together, we’ve got to know each other as we’ve worked and enjoyed the fundraising so far, we all believe in what we are doing, and we have found ways to smile even when the funds we’ve raised for some events have been less than we might have dreamed.  And many of our fundraising events have realised more than we had hoped, which has always been great encouragement.

So going to the organ dedication at St James has really enthused me.  Although we may have a long way to go (just over £27,000 in the fund, with £4,000 promised shortly from a donation) we have plenty of plans and ideas, and St James has provided added inspiration, and more ideas.  So well done everyone in Hanslope for a great community achievement, and well done everyone at St Mary & St Giles for the work you’ve done so far in fundraising for the refurbishment of our Willis organ.

Musical Bite 1 a great success

Yesterday morning we held the first of the five Musical Bites in the Church. This is a variation on the Coffee Mornings that have been run once a month during the summer in aid of the Church Restoration Fund, however the Musical Bites are raising money for the purchase of a Grand Piano for our church.  The Piano will fundraise for both the Organ and the Restoration Fund, as well asprovide a backup for Church services when there are problems with the organ.  Our current piano is very old, only 85 note compass and doesn’t stay in tune very well, it is also upright and is not of concert standard, which means several concert offers are on standby awaiting a better instrument.

Sylvia and I welcomed people with the Piano Key Raffle – £1 for a key, put a star on the chosen key and write name on numbered list.   David had photographed an octave on his piano, printed it on A4 paper 7 times and I stuck the octaves together to make an 85 note compass, which just fitted the long table from end to end.  After they had participated in the Piano Key Raffle people either made a beeline for the organ loft or for the lovely refreshments we had on offer, including real cappucino (from a borrowed machine).  Marian operated the online video Dan the Magic Musician  in the choir vestry – this video serves as an introduction to the organ (we showed it at the Year 5 and 6 Education day), and my elder daugher ran a colouring in corner for child visitors.  Andrew had taken a few wooden stopped pipes out of the organ and placed them on a table for people to pick up and blow. Dai took 2 of these pipes into the high street and used them as part of his ‘encouraging people to come in’ tactics, which worked well, as we had quite a few unfamiliar faces enter the church that morning.  One person even made enquiries about church services, and we gave her last week’s leaflet.

The first musical bite gave all visitors, young and not so young, a chance to play the organ, inbetween mini recitals from Andrew, James, and Jacob.  Each time a recital was due to start, David rang a bell and announced it.  Visitor experiments at the organ console were supervised by Dave King whilst Andrew talked to people about the organ action.  John fielded questions from several visitors, and also took photos.  One visitor had not realised that every organ is unique, and the same organ would sound different in another church because of building accoustics.

At the end of the morning we packed up and counted the donations and payments for refreshments, the grand total came to £328.42 which is very pleasing.

I would like to thank all the organ fund group for enthusiastically  helping beforehand and on the day, David for the great idea and co-ordinating everything, Fiona, Shirley, Heather and Nina for serving refreshments, Sue for the basket of whole cakes we sold alongside the raffle, several people for donating cakes and flapjacks to go with the coffee and tea and everyone who came along for an enjoyable morning getting to know our pipe organ.

The next Musical Bite is on 14th November, and is a sing a long for everyone.

Andrew playing the organ

Early customers for refreshments

Jacob playing a piece on the pedals

Jacob playing the keyboards and pedals

Anna and Sylvia running the Piano Key Raffle

James playing the organ

A young visitor tries the organ

Enjoying refreshments

Ellie, Rosie and Grace playing the organ

Musical Bites – our new winter programme

David has come up with another brainwave – Spem in Alium was his idea, and now we have the Musical Bites.  This is the Organ Fund group’s version of the Church Coffee mornings, but with a musical twist.

Five Saturday mornings during the winter months have been earmarked for our Musical Bites.  They are as follows:

October 17th – Pull out all the Stops on our 3 manual Willis Pipe Organ

November 14th – Sing-along-a-Lorra-Songs

December 12th – A choral workshop directed by James Wharton

January 16th – A brass ensemble workshop led by Ian Facer and Julia Benham

February 20th – A percussion workshop led by Caz Wolfson

You can find out more about each event at http://www.smsg-organ-appeal.co.uk/musical-bites.htm however the basic principle is to provide people of all ages (children and adults) with a good musical experience whilst enjoying some delicious refreshments (soup, cappucino, filter/instant coffee, tea, juice, cakes and biscuits) during the morning.  It is also an opportunity to complete a pipe sponsorship form or make a donation to the Organ Fund.

The first of the Musical Bites is your chance to get to know the Willis pipe organ a bit better – it is an education morning along the lines of our recent education day for the Year 5 and 6 children of St Mary & St Giles CE Junior School – see http://smsgpipeorgan.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/education-day-for-year-5-and-6/ and this time it is for everyone.  So take a break from your shopping in Stony for some refreshments and explore the pipe organ.  It will be played during the morning, including possibly by one of our young organ-scholars.  If you have sponsored a pipe, this is also an opportunity for you to pull the stop and push down the key to hear it.

Glorious Recital and Cream Teas

What a lovely afternoon and evening for the organ fund. The Cream Teas were a great success, and Jonathan’s recital was the ‘icing on the cake’.

This morning Dai, David, Dave and myself set up the chairs and tables for the cream teas and the recital (all the nave chairs were turned around to face the organ, which meant taking the link rods off, turning the chairs, and putting the rods back on again). Once we were satisfied we had done all we could, we went home for lunch. Jonathan arrived at about 1.00 pm to rehearse on the organ and get to know it again (with Andrew’s help). I got back to the church at 2.30 pm with scones, cakes, cream, jam etc and quietly enjoyed putting sugar and butter on the tables whilst listening to the music – what a treat.

We had some early punters who turned up even before the urn had been filled and turned on, so they went away again, then it was all hands on deck as the others arrived to get set up in time for the 4.00 pm opening. It was a mad, confused rush at first, some of us weren’t used to serving the teas and some were regulars in the church kitchen so knew the ropes, but we eventually worked out how to work with each other.  We almost had too many of us (Jill, May, Sylvia, Marian, Dave, me, with others chipping in too) but fortunately we also had great washing up support (Dai).  There was hardly a break in the flow of people wanting scones, cakes, tea, coffee and squash, all the tables were filled and we put two tables outside the church because the weather had brightened up to glorious sunshine with very little wind (after a chilly grey start to the day).

David was drumming up support by taking a tray of what the cream tea consisted of around the Stony Stratford Town Fayre on Horsefair green.  By 5.00 pm I had counted £150.00 in notes, by 5.20 pm there was £200 in notes, plus all the cash in the basket.  By ten to six when we were tidying to quieten down in time for the recital, I had counted £330.00 – it was amazing.

People were settling in seats by 5.40 pm looking expectant, and they kept pouring in.  We counted over 80 people in the audience by the time Jonathan started playing.  

Jonathan had chosen a lovely varied programme of music for our enjoyment and introduced the pieces in groups, with funny and interesting anecdotes about the composers or the pieces or the state of the organ!  Andrew turned pages for him.  We were able to enjoy the music on a summer evening with the church doors wide open to the town.  At the end Jonathan did a short encore followed by me presenting him a with bottle of wine, and reminding people about pipe sponsorship.  The audience was very appreciative after each piece and at the end, and I heard several very positive comments.

We sold off some leftover cakes and scones which brought the total for the Cream Teas to £356.80.

Tidy up and counting followed.  Several people were hovvering with bated breath to find out the total, as it was clear the donations basket was overflowing.  We had advertised the concert as free entry with retiring collection, and the result was as follows:

£100 cheque donation
£180 + £300 pipe sponsorship
£822.47 cash (including the cream teas and after recital donations)
£181.00 of the above was gift aided
£1372.47 Total
After taking the gift aid into account the Grant total should therefore be: £1,423.15

This is an absolutely brilliant result for the Organ Fund, and exceeds my wildest expectations for the day.

A special thank you goes to Jonathan for making the journey from Worcestershire – it was lovely to see him again and hear him play.  I would also like to thank Andrew for all the hard work ironing out some of the organ action problems and for arranging the tuning during August.  The Organ Fund group and all the parishioners who donated cakes / scones and helped out with serving teas also deserve a huge thank you.  The fund-raising event would not have been such an enormous success without such wonderful contributions.

Crowds for Cream Teas

Demonstrating the paper organ

Fr Ross introducing Jonathan whilst audience arrive

Jonathan introduces his pieces

Jonathan playing the Willis with Andrew turning pages

Click on individual photos for a larger version

Jonathan Kingston Recital 31.8.09 programme

Budding organists

We are very lucky to have two of the younger members of our parish learning the pipe organ, they have lessons via the Milton Keynes Music service. Both of them occasionally use the Willis organ as a practice instrument, although with all its problems, it is providing additional challenges than they already face in getting legs, hands and eyes co-ordinated in order to get music out of it.  The nearest analogy I can think of is learning to drive a manual car, it takes time to get the process and reactions  ’semi automatic’ requiring a lot of thinking at the beginning, so a sticking gear lever is as much a cause for consternation as organ action that unexpectedly misbehaves (such as when keys stick or console electrics do odd things), especially for a beginner.

About 4 months ago, when some of the organ fund group members were having a discussion long after most people had left for their Sunday lunches, Katherine started her practice.  She is very shy of anyone listening in, though has been playing the organ for about 2 years, so it was brave to play in front of us when we were talking.  She did a great job and we wrote her a little note of thanks and encouragement before we left.

Last Sunday after the service Andrew did a voluntary after the final hymn as usual whilst we were all drinking tea/coffee and exchanging news. Then there was quiet from the organ for about 10 to 15 minutes before Jacob shyly sat at the console with his music and played two short pieces. Some of us were ‘in the know’ that he was going to do this, and my children dashed up to the gallery to watch. His godmother Lesley was also there with another child who was keen to see what he was doing. Everyone went quiet to listen and applauded when he finished his first piece (it was his first ‘public’ performance).  It is wonderful that our congregation is so keen to encourage people in this way.

Hearing both our young budding organists play the instrument helped us to remember once again one of the reasons why we are so keen to get the organ properly refurbished – to give people of the future a chance to hear and enjoy this lovely instrument, especially when it is being played for worship.

Listening to the young organist

Jacob the organist

A big smile from the young organist

Organ Fund Logo Design

In previous posts I have talked about the school children participating in a design competition to provide the Organ fund with a logo, and my subsequent drawing of the logo from two of the winning designs. Well at last we are making use of the logo design, on the poster advertising Jonathan Kingston’s Recital, and we will soon put it on the website as well.

The process of design involved the children providing their ideas on paper, David S, the headteacher Mr Morgan and myself choosing winners from each class and presenting them with their prizes in Work of the Week Assembly near the end of term at which I also demonstrated the Paper Organ that David S had put together from a kit.

The four winners were:

Kai Packwood

Amy Jeffcoate

Megan Watters

Eleanor Wilson

Kai Packwood’s design

Amy Jeffcoate’s design

Megan Watters’ design

Eleanor Wilson’s design

Congratulations to all four of you in particular, but to the whole of Year 5 and Year 6 of St Mary & St Giles CE Junior School 2008/09 – your designs were splendid and it was really hard to choose.

After that we displayed the four winning designs in the Church on the noticeboard, along with a brief explanation about the competition. However it wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I was finally able to sit down (at the Treasure Hunt) and do the combined drawing, with lots of helpful comments from the other organ fund group members. Once the group had approved the basic design, I inked it in black (I had drawn it in pencil) and John scanned it as a jpg file. Then the real hard work began – retouching it in Photoshop. It took hours (2 evenings) to get it clean and all the pipe lines straight (when zooming in really close it was amazing how wobbly some of my lines were, and the greyscale of the black needed tidying too).

We are hoping to produce a colour version as well, but I haven’t had the time yet to do this, so in the meantime the design is purely black and white and please note is for the exclusive use of St Mary & St Giles Willis Pipe Organ Refurbishment Fund, so please no copying allowed.

Willis Organ fund Logo in PDF document with copyright

Bank Holiday Organ Recital and Cream Teas

As announced at the Spem in Alium Concert, our former organist Jonathan Kingston is returning on 31st August 2009 to give an Organ Recital on the Willis Organ for the organ fund. We are delighted that Jonathan has agreed to come all the way from Bromsgrove School for this purpose, and it will be very good to see him again. For over a year members of the Parish family have been asking me when he would return to play for us, I finally got down to asking him a three months ago and he very promptly agreed.

The date chosen, August Bank holiday Monday, means that the recital co-incides with the Stony Stratford annual Town Fayre on Horsefair Green, so as another attraction to Stony Stratford that day before the Recital we are serving Cream Teas in St Mary & St Giles Church from 4.00 pm until 6.00 pm, which is when Jonathan’s recital begins.  Once you have enjoyed time at the fayre, come along for Cream Teas and lovely music on a Summer evening.

Jonathan has chosen a programme of music that includes pieces by Bach, Franck, Buxtehude, Swann, Lefebure-Wely, Whitlock and Walton.

Entrance is free, everyone is welcome, and there will be a retiring collection for the Organ refurbishment fund.  As always, gift aid envelopes will be available, and we will have pipe sponsorship forms on hand for anyone who wants to make a contribution which will be recorded on the scheme.

If you are able to display a poster advertising the Recital, please download and print out the Jonathan Kingston Recital 31.8.09 Poster

Hunting for Treasure

On 19th July we held a Treasure Hunt from the church for the organ fund during the afternoon. The concept was simple – provide some clues to lead people around Stony Stratford, charge a small fee (£2 each) for adults with any number of children going free, a prize for an incentive and tea/coffee/squash and biscuits when they returned with their completed clue sheets.

Dave K dreamed up the idea as a summer Sunday afternoon family fun event and the organ fund group fell upon it eagerly. Dave devised the entire trail and did all the work leading up to the event, including advertising it at both St Mary & St Giles Junior and Russell First Schools (and we told the Year 5 and 6 pupils about it at the organ education day). On the day Dave’s wife Fiona was in charge of refreshments, whilst Marian, Dave and I dished out clue sheets, marked out and in times on the sheets and kept account of how many adults we’d collected cash from at the start.

The weather was not friendly – showers and occasional sunshine throughout the afternoon, so we really didn’t know if anyone would be brave enough to turn up. In the event 16 teams came along and participated, amounting to approximately 37 adults and 50 children, and despite the weather, were clearly enjoying themselves and were full of enthusiasm even when they returned with their rather damp clue sheets and fistfuls of artefacts Dave had asked them to collect (red rubber band, pine cone, 2 pence coin 1990, paper clip and holly leaf).

There was one unexpectedly missing clue which caused consternation as it is an important part of Stony Stratford’s history.  It seems that the plaque commemorating the capture of the boy Prince Edward and his brother by Richard III was missing from the house formerly called the Rose & Crown Inn, and the building had been repainted.  In fact the first team to return thought we’d taken the plaque down to tease everyone!  If anyone can cast light on this mystery, it would be good to know when the plaque will be put back in its rightful place again.  Despite this, a surprising number of people still knew the answer (the date on the plaque) which just goes to show that Stony folk do notice things when they go along the High Street.

As Dave said in an email to Fr Ross afterwards:

“It was encouraging that ten of the teams participating were through the schools connection and from the feedback it appears everyone had enjoyed it enormously.  The winning team were the Day family from St Mary’s Avenue who won the £25 voucher donated by John Lewis plc.“

In the event we raised £137.23 from the takings on the door, donations for refreshments and a very generous donation from the main organiser and his wife who had won the raffle the day before at Haversham fete (where the band had been playing)!

Special thanks are due to Dave for the idea and all the work, Fiona and Marian for their part of helping the event run smoothly, Andrew for playing the organ at the end, everyone who turned up and joined in the fun and of course John Lewis PLC for donating the prize.  We are considering running another summer Treasure Hunt next year in early July for the organ fund.

A small bonus to the afternoon was that during the quiet period when the teams were out and about, I was able to do some drawing in which I combined the best design elements of two of the four winning logo designs by the Year 5 and 6 pupils, and have almost finished the logo design.  It was good to get the input of Dave, Marian and Andrew to the progress of the design while I was drawing – it has been hard to find a spare moment during the past couple of weeks in which to do this activity.  As soon as the design is complete, I will publish the four winning designs and the final actual logo in the blog and on the organ fund website.

Fundraising Update – Great news

David has just told me that the Church Treasurer has informed him of the current total in the organ fund. It currently stands at £24,811. This is wonderful news – we are a fifth of the way to our target of £124,000.

On Saturday 13th June, we ran the Golden Spot Tombola at the Church Summer fete and raised £110.12, which was very good going in the space of 2 1/2 hours. We’ve been so busy recently with all the fundraising and other events but it is certainly paying off for the organ fund total, so a big thank you to everyone involved in helping us raise the money.

Education Day for Year 5 and 6

Today the Organ Fund group and other helpers from the Parish ran our very first Pipe Organ Education Day. This one was specifically aimed at the Year 5 and 6 children of  St Mary & St Giles Junior CE School.

There was a dual purpose to the day:

Firstly we wanted to give the children the opportunity to see inside the organ and learn more about it, as most of them, when coming to termly services in the church, were only aware of the organ as something that their Deputy Headteacher played and it looked like two rows of white pipes! (the facade is very dull).

Secondly, we need a logo for the Organ Fundraising appeal, and what better way to get one than to enlist the help of creative local children.

So we set them a challenge: to learn all they could in the space of 55 minutes about the organ in our church, and then to return to school and design logos in their Art Classes during the next week. We told them there will be a prize for each class (4 classes) and that the winning logo would be chosen from the four winning logos from each class.

The first class of Year 6 children arrived at 9.00 am and showed great interest in the organ. To a certain extent we were feeling our way with them, as they were the first to arrive, but despite that the session went very well. We had provided three activities and they rotated around each of the three, so didn’t miss out. Mr King and Mr Page introduced one group to the workings of the keyboards and stops of the console, and also demonstrated the swell shutters opening and closing. Mr Storer, Mrs Salter, Dr Evans, Mrs Kidd and Mrs Page showed them the blower fan, reservoir, actions and pipes.  Mr Storer had taken some of the facade pipes out from in front of the Great and Choir sections so they could look into the organ chamber without having to go in. The third activity was the University of Bradford online video of Dan and the Magic Musician, which basically introduces the child to the concept of the King of Instruments in a fun and engaging way. Mr Scrutton had set this up in the vestry, and after they had seen the video they got the chance to blow some flute pipes, then had the important task of ringing the bell to indicate that changeover time had arrived.

The Headteacher Mr Morgan arrived with the next Year 6 class, and went round with one of the groups.  This lucky group had the fun of watching him blow a flute pipe, which caused some amusement.  The first Year 5 class arrived next and were full of questions about the organ.  We then had a well earned break for lunch before returning to the Church for the second Year 5 class.  They were also full of good questions, however fortunately because of the mix of adults involved in running the day (including two organ builders) we were able to answer all the questions the children posed.

One of the nice things about the day was watching the reactions of Teachers and Teaching Assistants to seeing inside the organ – it opened their eyes too.  We had already planned that we will do future Pipe Organ Education Days, but this was confirmation that indeed it would be appreciated by adults and children alike, so watch this space for details in due course.

The photographs on this posting necessarily show mainly back views of the children, as some parents prefer that their children’s faces are not published on the internet.  However despite that, I think you can see the level of interest and engagement on the part of the children, and Mr Storer, Mrs Salter, Mr Page, Mr King, Mr Scrutton, Dr Evans, Mrs Lovesey, Mrs Kidd and Mrs Page all enjoyed the day too!

Mr Storer pointing at pipes with his magic light

Year 6 at the console

Mr Storer holds up a tiny reed pipe

Year 6 at the console

Mr Morgan and that flute pipe

Mr Morgan tries blowing the flute pipe

Mr Morgan blowing the flute pipe

Mr Storer showing Year 6 the Great pipes

Mr King showing Year 5 around the Console

Year 5 looking into the blower room

Year 5 watching Dan and the Magic Musician

Mrs Page introducing Year 5 to their pipe organ exploration

Mr Storer demonstrating a Stop Action engine to Year 5

Year 5 at the console and the blower room