More progress on The Silver Sing

I was in Wellington for the New Zealand Chorale Federation executive meeting. I attended Wellington Anglican Cathedral in the morning, and who should be leading the intercessory prayer, but John Collyns, the CEO of the Retirement Villages Association. Calling him was on my plan for the beginning of this week, but this meeting was indeed fortuitous as we discussed the concept which I was developing for bringing together senior choirs in a festival. John and his team had discussed this some time ago, and were waiting for a catalyst to get it going. I am the catalyst. (This is my summary of the discussion :-))

I was able to take this concept to the NZCF meeting. The reason for naming it the Silver Sing is that the New Zealand Chorale Federation run an annual: Kid's Sing, (for primary and intermediate school children), the Big Sing (for secondary school choirs) the Classic Sing (for community choirs) and the Silver Sing fits that well-accepted set of festivals.

The plan is to formulate the festival through this year, including :

• supporting existing choirs, and starting new ones, in villages.
• getting information out to community choirs who have a preponderance of retired people as members.
• working out the relationships between the RVA, NZCF, and Harmonic Health.
• Deciding the parameters of the choir membership that will qualify them to sing in the Silver Sing (age range, average age, minimum/maximum number of singers, etc)

The current plan is for the festival to happen in Spring 2013

It is going to be an exciting time, which will naturally enhance my opportunity to see my passion come to fruition: to see more and more high quality outcome choirs established in villages throughout New Zealand, and then further abroad!

8 - 80 Concert is on for 2012!!

It is now a fixture for the Hamilton Gardens Summer Arts festival. For the third year in a row, the 8 - 80 choirs will be performing. I have just sent a proposal to the Rotokauri School. Given my new status as self-employed, costs will need to be covered, so it will be interesting to see how they respond.

I intend to audition singers, and give them CDs and music to learn songs independently, before rehearsing every two weeks during the 4th term for 1 hr after school.

The Hilda Ross Glee Club are not yet aware of the approval for the concert, I will talk with them about that this coming week.

It is very exciting and also quite daunting as it involves a lot of work, but it is what I love doing, and showcases the amazing outcomes that are possible for both the children and the seniors

Wonderful Concerts

August 6th and 7th were the latest concert series for the Hamilton Chorale, of whom I am the musical director and conductor. Once again the choir rose to the occasion. Great tone, variety of styles, animated faces, clear words, very entertaining. Our guests were the Mighty River Harmony, the barbershop chorus who are going to compete in Brisbane in September. On Saturday we had the whole chorus, on Sunday what they call a 'large quintet' being 15 singers on the four parts. Entertaining indeed, with an age range of 69 years. However I was able to report that we had an age range of 74 years. Young Sam, who is 10 yrs old had been attending rehearsal with his mother, and when invited to sing along he readily said yes, and was singing the second soprano part with his mother. Ken, one of our Tenors turned '21 for the fourth time' earlier this year, and there are at least four other octogenarians in the choir. I cannot be sure, as singing helps to keep people alert and there may be some who are chronologically older than I think.

For an un-auditioned choir they are exceptional; they work hard, they are very responsive and willing to learn. They bring much pleasure: to each other, to the audiences and to me.

Commercially Sensitive

I enjoyed writing that post title, as I am now in serious negotiations with a company.

Initial meeting was to occur at the RVA conference, but that ended up not being possible.

Meeting was set up for 3.45 yesterday (Friday June 24th), but by 4.30 and no-show, and with guidance from my business wise, and savvy, business manager, I 'pursued' my appointment eventually to the Hamilton airport, and had a very productive 30 minutes.

Thanks again to my business manager's direction, Matt Jackson I had a lot of paperwork already prepared, so talked generally, and left him all the paperwork to peruse, either on the plane or back at his home base. Having missed my presentation at the RVA conference, I had it on my memory stick on my keyring, and it was downloaded to his computer to view, complete with all video.

I look forward to the ongoing dialogue. Life is good :-)

RVA Conference feedback.

Dear Julie

A quick note to thank you very much for your outstanding presentation to our conference last week. The feedback has been universally positive and it seems that people actually enjoyed having a singalong as part of it! I also hope that you will get some new business from the event because, having been part of the Wellington Orpheus for years, there’s no doubt that choirs benefit residents (and everyone).

I would be grateful if you could send me a copy of your presentation please as the technician didn’t actually keep a copy.

Thanks once again for your part in making our event the success it was.

Kind regards

John Collyns
Executive Director
Retirement Villages Association
P O Box 25-022
Panama St
Wellington

The RVA Conference, June 13 - 15, Langham Hotel.

I drove to Auckland to arrive, after the rush-hour, on Tuesday, Some excellent presentations:

1. The National Bank chief economist, who was able to paint a picture of slow improvement, such as the fact that external debt has dropped from 92% of GDP to 80%.

2.from Colin James, and very astute political commentator who has called 13 of the last 14 general election party results correctly. He was not wiling to call this weekend's Te Tai Tokerau election.

3. Diana Crossan the Retirement commissioner, who became somewhat controversial with the presentation of a research report that was plainly flawed, as evidenced by the president of the Retirement Villages association, after Diana's presentation.

4.Cam Ansell, from the Australian RVA association. New Zealand is much lest regulated that Australia.Proportion of people in retirement villages in Australia=5% in the USA=12%

Cam also introduced the U-bend of happiness which is an interesting read, as this re-enforced the presentation I missed first thing on Tuesday, where the speaker was talking about the fact that the only thing that matters is how happy people are.

Wednesday started with a gifted speaker
1. Amanda Stevens talking about marketing to women. An entertaining and very informative presentation, I would be happy to hear her speak again.
2. Jeremy Simpson on investing in retirement living. His bottom line was that people are prepared to pay for quality.

My presentation @ 2.30p.m. followed on from some rather dry presentations and went as well as I could possibly have expected. In addition to getting all of my material across, including video of participants' comments, and video of the Hilda Ross Glee Club's performance level from initial standard in 2006, to the 8 - 80 showstoppers concert in February this year. I concluded with getting them all to stand and sing, and the feedback given via conference feedback was that they enjoyed the chance to sing!!

My next post will be John Collyns feedback email to me. It was a MOST worthwhile event for me!