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!