AGM update

The choir AGM was held on the 25th November and some points worth mentioning are as follows:

Last year had its difficulties and was not the greatest financially but thanks to the support of patrons like John Steele, Keith Portious, Mike Todd and Neville Stanyer and a significant donation from the Vaughan-Williams Society we managed to minimise the expected losses.

The performances in the year were generally well received and the Sea Symphony and Messiah received very positive comments from not only the audience but also the participating soloists and musicians.

The change of Musical Director came at an unfortunate time at the start of the year but everyone was involved in the selection process for the new appointee William Waine. Will is starting to work on his approach with the choir and is working well with our accompanist Jonathan Stamp and scholar Alisha Camm.

Will was unable to be present but has started preparing for our concert on 29th March which will feature Mozart's Requiem as the main piece with a little more Mozart to go with it. Summer will be a lighter concert with a collection of items including the Brahms Waltzes amongst others.

Special thanks was extended to Alisha Camm and Jonathan Stamp for their enormously valuable role in keeping the choir going while we recruited Will. All three of them are working well together and show great promise for the coming months.

We also extended thanks to Jane Cook our outgoing treasurer who due to pressure of work is unable to sing with the choir at the moment, a situation that we hope can change very soon.

The choir also extended a vote of thanks to Joe Cooper for his time with the choir and in particular for raising the standard of the choir to an extremely high level.

Additionally we also extended thanks to Jean Kay for her sterling work at break times and to Howard Stride for his work on completing the accounts.

Elections for committee posts were held and the nominated people are Ian Leaver, Mike Todd, Dorothy Bailey, Ian Host and three new appointments Ros Woolner, Judith Harvey and Michelle Pass. Confirmation of roles and perhaps some pictures will follow.  Welcome to the new members on the committee!

Preparation is now well underway for the 21st December concert and follows hot on the heels of the 23rd November Tettenhall Lights extravaganza. Hopefully, we will see some of the attendees of Saturday's event at the concert next month.