Tenby Male Choir – Supporting the Civic Parade

There were no concerts to report on last week so we had two very successful rehearsal sessions including some good progress towards the songs we have to learn for our attendance in the massed choirs’ concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2018. We did however, receive a very nice message from Barnados to thank the choir and to tell us that the charity benefited by £1300 from the concert we held in the previous week.

On Sunday 25^th September we attended the Civic Parade and Civic service for the blessing of the new Mayor. Six members of the choir attended but two of them, chairman Paul Varallo and Ken Sanderson had to rush off before the photo opportunity. Shown in the photo with Mayor Laurence Blackhall are Peter Neate, Tony Hesselgrave, Secretary David Stewart-Walvin and Allan Keating.

This was also the commencement of the Arts Festival week and by the time this report appears we will have attended our last two concerts for the year. One at the Giltar Hotel and one for the Arts Festival at St. Mary’s church. So with the concert season over it will be concentrated rehearsing and learning for some months. If you have ever thought of joining a choir there is no better time than now to come along and see just what happens. You don’t need to plunge in, just come along and meet us or watch a rehearsal and maybe enjoy a drink and a chat with members afterwards. Even if you don’t feel you want to sing you can still take part in choir activities and the social side by joining the Friends of Tenby Male choir.

The Friends of Tenby Male Choir are people who support us in various ways and enjoy joining in the social side without necessarily being singers. It is small at the moment but we want to encourage it to grow. Details of this can be found on our website (details below).

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir. These videos are all live so they may not always be our best performance but they are still enjoyable.  Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926.

Friends of Tenby Male Choir – Poems and Puddings

The group met for a social evening last Friday at the County Club on the Croft, Tenby with 30 supporters turning up to read poems from varying sources. It was interesting and very entertaining with perhaps the stars of the evening being nonagenarian Duncan Hilling and his allegedly much younger wife Audrey. Breaking all the rules of the evening by not reading a poem they did instead a mini two person play about a husband trying to tell his wife something but being constantly interrupted. It had everybody in stitches. As they criticised and argued with each other it was difficult to tell if it was still part of the play or not. Very funny.

Interspersed between three sessions of reading poems from such poets as Pam Ayres and Roald Dahl and even Dylan Thomas as well as personal contributions were breaks to enjoy a fine selection of home made puddings and of course the club bar was open. Thanks to Phil Mumford for manning the bar at short notice.

The history of the Friends of Tenby Male choir is that this originated as a ladies section being formed by wives and partners of choir members but it has now been reborn as a group open to males and females, choir members, partners and absolutely anyone else young or old who wants to come along.

It doesn’t have an official set of aims yet but in simple terms it has been formed to support the Tenby Male choir in any way it can. The group believes that the choir serves a great purpose in the town putting the town on the map, raising charity funds with its concerts and providing a platform for young musicians, often from Greenhill School.

So this is a way of supporting the choir. One member, Jim Cornwell, for instance has now become the choir photographer something we have struggled with in the past as we have to be on stage and we can’t sing and take pictures. Could you help in some way?

If it has another aim it is to have fun and we intend to have a variety of evenings such as the Poems and Puddings evenings to further that aim whilst raising a bit for the choir at the same time.

If you would like to join us or know more or if you have ideas on what we could do you can email Allan Keating on allangkeating@gmail.com or by phone on 07967 370481.