Aims and objectives

The choir's aims and objectives are summed up in the following sentence:

The study and practice of  choral music in order to foster public knowledge and appreciation of such music by means of public performance.

The music we sing is selected for us by a music selection committee comprised of three members of the choir - John Bishop (Tenor 2), Alan Davies (Bass) and David Macaulay (Tenor 2) - and the Musical Director, Paul Adrian Rooke.

Our repertoire comprises a wide variety of music of many different types: traditional, blues, sacred, ballads, spirituals, classical, opera, songs from shows.

A large proportion of the music in our repertoire is written for four voices: Tenor 1, Tenor 2, Baritone and Bass.

Uniform

For concert engagements members of the choir wear green jackets with a white shirt (not a dress shirt), black trousers, black shoes and black socks together with either the choir's long gold tie or a standard black dress bow tie. Green jackets are made to measure and remain the property of the choir. Members who leave the choir must return their green jackets in good condition. Gold ties are provided by the choir. Members of the choir are expected to provide their own black bow ties and black trousers. The choir's tailors can, however, make up for any member a pair of black trousers and a black bow tie. A black bomber jacket sporting a choir logo is supplied courtesy of U-POL, one of our sponsors, is provided free of charge. It is used whenever the choir appears at an outside engagement, such as the annual Remembrance Day Service.

Annual Subscriptions

As with the greatest proportion of all such artistice societies, there is a subscription payable by members of the choir.  Subscriptions are currently set at £115 per annum, i.e. just over £2.00 per week.  This sum may be paid as a lump sum or in weekly, monthly, quarterly or half-yearly instalments. New members joining the choir after the beginning of the year will be expected to pay a pro rata amount. This can also be paid in weekly, monthly,.quarterly or half-yearly instalments.

Funds raised from subscriptions go towards the running costs of the choir, i.e. expenses for the Musical Director and for the Accompanist, for the purchase of music to sing and for the hire of the rehearsal room.

Music

All music sung by members of the choir is bought from choir funds and remains the property of the choir. Items for the repertoire are chosen by the Music Selection Committee. Copies of music in the current repertoire are issued to members as required.

Each member is given three folders.  A black one is used for music in the general repertoire; a white one is used for Christmas music; and a green one is used solely for concert performances.

All copies of music belonging to the choir are stamped by the librarian, Hans Meister, with two numbers.  The first is the library number of each piece of music, the second is the allocated number of an individual member of the choir.