A resounding success – Musical Bite 3

To quote David S (who did the lion’s share of the organising) “What a splendid morning!  Many thanks for your efforts and enthusiasm“.

Our Choral workshop musical bite proved to be an inspired idea.  On the face of it running a workshop of this kind close to Christmas when people were so busy and pre-occupied was potentially risky, how could we be sure that anyone would turn up.  However on the strength of our first two Musical Bites we made preparations with enthusiasm.  David’s publicity drive paid off wonderfully well.  Flyers distributed to various groups, posters up in Stony, emails to those already on our news distribution list, a special page on the website and word of mouth resulted in some people turning up even before doors officially opened at 9.30 am, and then they poured in.  Sylvia, Marian and I did a brisk trade for the piano key raffle all in the space of about 20 minutes, David S and Dai dished out music, then James had everyone seated for the first run through of the pieces, so at first there was little demand for refreshments.

At 10.30 am we had a 20 minute break for all the singers to get their much needed lubrication of Mulled wine (kindly provided by Waitrose), cappuccino, tea, juice, mince pies (also donated by Waitrose), cakes and flapjacks with the refreshment team of Shirley, Nina, Fiona and Heather doing a star job.  A trickle of people came for refreshments and to listen throughout the morning and this turned to a flood at 11.30 am which was the advertised time for the ‘performance’.

During the course of the morning I took photos and recorded some video clips of rehearsals on my digital camera (it is not a dedicated video camera, so the quality is not great, especially once transferred to Youtube).

Rehearsal clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZNZA4vVqaM

We estimate there were about 70 people singing, and at least 70 people in the audience.  The majority of singers and audience were not regular worshippers at our Church though we did have quite a few parishioners there, so this was definitely not a fundraising event that relied only on Parish family to come up with the cash.  There were several younger school/student singers – one on crutches!  We doubled our email list by the end of the morning.  No doubt the choice of music was an attraction:

• The Heaven’s are telling from Haydn’s Creation  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P0_-d_5Gbk

• Hear my Prayer Oh Lord by Purcell (sung in the gallery) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5NQJ0PN6Tg

• Handel’s Halleluja Chorus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2QHx5Zn2U4

All the music had been selected to celebrate various composer anniversaries in 2009.  Only a few of the singers were familiar with Hear my Prayer, but as James said when introducing the pieces to the audience, it is surprising what it is possible to learn in so short a period.

The Halleluja Chorus was included as part of the BBC Children in Need ‘Sing Halleluja’ event http://www.bbc.co.uk/sing/hallelujah/map.shtml so we had a collection bucket for the campaign.

For the Grand Piano Fund we raised £553.00.  This means we have already raised £1,229.82 towards the purchase of the £5,000.00  Grand Piano for the church, which will be used for worship as well as fundraising events.

For BBC Children in Need ‘Sing Halleluja’ we raised £100.00

Feedback from several of those who sang was along the lines of  ‘please can we do this kind of thing again‘ and ‘I loved it, I don’t sing very often but this has inspired me to sing more/join a choir‘.  It seems that we have tapped into a desire for something that isn’t often available to those who have too many commitments for regular singing – the chance to sing occasionally in a large choir with good tuition, accoustic and pipe organ (and of course delicious refreshments).

To quote David again “We are indebted to James for his energy, style, musical ability and wit“.  Special thanks are also due to Andrew for playing the piano and organ, David K for turning pages and Fr Ross for the music copies.  I would especially like to thank David S for so much work behind the scenes – without his imagination and drive today’s Musical Bite would not have been nearly so slick or successful.

Dai and David S dishing out music

James conducting the first run through of Haydn

James and the Musical Bite choir from the gallery

Looking towards the tenors and basses from the gallery

Altos and Sopranos

Nina sorting out cups for Mulled Wine

The refreshment queue at break time

Singers enjoying their refreshments and a good chat

The soloists rehearsing

Dave K and James and the old piano

Discussing cakes!

James and the singers in second rehearsal

Shirley on a refreshment mission for a thirsty visitor

Final rehearsal of Musical Bite choir in concert position

Stony Lights and SMSG Christmas Fayre

Every year Stony Stratford dedicates a festival day to the switching on of the town’s Christmas lights and this is always done the day before Advent. Lots of local groups and charities have stalls in the high street, there are fairground rides and the 89 key Gavioli organ from the Emmett family, and St Mary & St Giles Church holds a Christmas Fayre. We’ve had a Golden Spot Tombola for the organ fund at the past 2 fairs and once again used Sylvia’s winning formula for a Tombola to great effect at today’s event. We were lucky in being given a table just within the West Door entrance, so although we got cold from the door being open most of the time, we did a brisk trade most of the day with the call of “3 tickets for a pound, and you get to choose your prize”. This novel version of a Tombola still works a treat and we had some wonderful prizes this time, and were able to replenish the stall during the day from boxes under the table, which made the Tombola continually attractive to the people pouring into the Church.

The Church also hosted the model railway, the local Archaeological society, Traidcraft and the Kidney Research stalls in addition to our own Bric a Brac, books, Raffle and Refreshments in aid of the Church Restoration fund (we’ve got the new parish hall to build, more interior painting, a roof to repair…).  During the afternoon Lesley and the parish children mixed up their Christmas puddings.

Sylvia, Marian, Dave K, Dai and myself looked after the Tombola, Marian’s Christmas goodies, Sylvia’s knitted scarves and name a dog cuddly toy stall all day from 10 am until 4 pm. Because we had such a good team taking it in turns to operate the stall, I was able to get out into the high street and take photos of what else was happening in the town and was still able to do my fair share of the work.

The grand count up showed that all our efforts had been well worthwhile for the Organ fund, as we raised £331.71 from our stall alone. I believe the Restoration fund raised more than £800 which is great.

Marian and Sylvia at the Organ Fund stall

Dave K helping with the Tombola

Dave K having a go at the Tombola

The model railway – always popular

General view of the Christmas Fayre

Refreshments and Tomboa under the Organ gallery

The Book and Bric a Brac stalls

St Mary & St Giles Church with the Christmas lights at the ready

Some of the parish children mixing up their Christmas Puddings

Some of the parish children mixing up their Christmas Puddings

Instrumentalists playing Carols by the Font

The Kidney Research stall

The Traidcraft stall

The Jewellery stall

Somewhere over the rainbow

Our second Musical Bite was a roaring success, despite the inclement weather outside.  We set up in good time so did not feel rushed or unready.  Ray had brought along his big screen, data projector and laptop with words of all the songs loaded in it to display on the screen, and the old upright piano was wheeled to the front of the aisle.  Shortly after 9.30 am the first punters arrived, and were soon buying their piano key raffle numbers, cappuccino, cake and sitting down to sing.

I laughed when the first song played was ‘Mud, Mud Glorious Mud’ followed by other silly songs, as it seemed so appropriate for the weather.  Later we sang ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ – it seems raindrops were a theme to the music!  At the beginning there weren’t many people, possibly because of the stormy Friday night which meant people hadn’t come to Stony to do their shopping as early as usual but they soon came in steady and greater numbers.  Dave K and Andrew took it in turns to play, and turned pages for each other.  Marian, Sylvia and I ran the Raffle, cake and soft knitted toy stall, Shirley, Fiona and Nina did a great job in the kitchen, and Dai and David S went out in to the windy, spitty rainy weather and encouraged people into the Church to sing.  We noticed that quite a lot of them stayed for considerable periods of time, they weren’t just dashing in for a quick cuppa, and had clearly come with a view to enjoying a good sing.

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud!

Sylvia checking the Raffle and Cake takings

The Cakes and soft toys

Somewhere over the rainbow

Having a good sing-a-long

Somewhere over the rainbow

During the course of the morning I videod the singing and serving of refreshments. Daisy Bell is an old favourite of mine, and this short 2 3/4 minute video has more action towards the end, though singing throughout.

For some reason (probably the weather) we all thought we wouldn’t do as well this time as the first Musical Bite, but when we counted the cash at the end of the morning we were delighted to discover we had raised £326.40, with 4 home made cakes still to sell.  These were sold after mass on Sunday so a further £12.00 was raised from this event towards the purchase of a Grand Piano for the Church which will assist in fundraising for both the Organ fund and the Church Restoration fund, as well as be useful for church services for certain hymns and backup for the organ.

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