When Mike Ferris (Former Headteacher, St Sampson’s Junior School) died in January 2009, many people expressed a desire to show recognition of his 25 years in that post. With the agreement of the Ferris family, friends made plans for a Memorial Service to be held in St. Sampson’s Church on 25th April 2009. Mary New asked former pupils/parents to participate as a choir, singing songs from the shows that Mike had produced at the school. The response was amazing, with over 60 participating in a really great performance.
Many of those taking part in that event expressed interest in supporting a choir on a permanent basis and asked Mary to lead this new enterprise. Discussions followed and it was agreed that the new choir would meet for four consecutive weeks four times per annum, hence the name and logo of the choir! (Sing for four). Phase 1 was arranged for February 2010 with the first 4–week spell.
The first meeting was well attended, with 50 singers taking part. For obvious reasons, we commenced with easy arrangements of fairly well–known items. Considerable progress was made and by weeks 3 and 4, more advanced pieces were introduced. A CD was produced containing all the different parts from our repertoire so that members could sing-a-long to learn their particular parts or to another part – this proved to be effective and popular with the choristers that they had now become. This involved a lot of work for Mary and Chris Ammann (Chris did the electronics!!!) but so worth-while.
Every member supports the financing necessary for the choir to exist by their donations – we have rent to pay and music to buy. We were also supported by the Waylands Estates when they generously financed the purchase of T–Shirts with our logo which has given us a sense of identity. Cricklade Sportsmans Association also funded an advertising banner for us, leaving no-one in doubt as to who we are! This has been aided by our treasurer, Cathy Ferm and donation collectors, welcoming committee and help where-ever needed, Margaret and Pete Rickards and the stand-in help from Graham and Gloria Light. Graham has also used his professional expertise to provide us with some beautiful photography. Chris Ammann has used some of these photographs on the blog that he has created for the choir. Moira Titcombe has provided a lot of music that we are/will be using, and thanks go to Graham New for arranging the music to suit our particular needs and Jean C who has spent hours organising the music files ready for distribution. We know that we have only to ask and the help will be there. Pam, Jan and Jean are ‘Friends’ of the choir and have assisted on numerous occasions. We owe them all our special thanks, as we do to all members who regularly give of that greatest of all commodity, their time.
Our first engagement was to provide musical input for the Twinning Association Reception at Brook House on 20th June 2010 which proved to be very successful – we even managed to sing in French for a song written especially for the occasion by Sue Warren. Arising from this, the Cricklade Traders asked us to combine with the Cricklade Band at the Christmas Tree Lights-on ceremony. We then sang at the Christmas Tree Festival in St. Sampson’s Church and to finish the year off, we sang for the shoppers in Cricklade on Christmas Eve after having to abandon the same engagement the previous weekend due to heavy snow!
Due to illness abroad, Mary could not work for the projected Christmas Concert on 10th December, having only two rehearsal sessions. However, the guest artistes engaged for this concert all agreed to attend an “Open Rehearsal” on that evening and a very enjoyable performance was warmly received by the family members who attended. Those taking part included the ‘Carollers’ Brass Group (Susan and Mark Blackwell, Mike Ostime, Eric New, Debbie Martin, Nigel Donald and Dominic Hedges), Jennifer Bamford (Flute), Steve Jones (Bass), Julian Deason–Barrow (Folk Songs), Olivia Clarke (Piano) and our beautiful little Japanese pianist, Mana Fukutomi. What a treat we could have given if we had been able to prepare properly!!! Many thanks to all of those talented people – they have all expressed a wish to return for further performances.
2011 looks set to be another good year. We are producing our own concert in Cricklade United Church on 10th June and have been asked to participate in a concert with the Cricklade Band in October.
I feel a new CD coming on!!
Mary New, February 2011
