## **Chair’s Report September 2023 for Burgess Hill Choral Society. Jane Leng** I shall leave it to Mike Wood to review our musical achievements during this season and limit my address to the underpinning management of the choir over the last season and related social events while also presenting ideas on our priorities for the current season. I remain proud of how we weathered the storms associated with the pandemic and have now emerged in a relatively robust state. I am sure we shall all use the learning from the last few years, not least about how flexible and resilient we are, to our future development. We perhaps do not need to access all the available research to know how beneficial singing is to our wellbeing, one aspect of which is the building of friendships. We have had a range of most enjoyable social events over the last season, including a Christmas Social, quiz evening and annual dinner. We are delighted to welcome new members but also benefit hugely from the loyalty and engagement of longterm members who form the backbone to the choir. At this time we remember, in particular, Canon Alan Spray, who left a generous donation to us in his will. I should like to commend the hardworking committee for their fantastic support which has helped keep the choir’s engine going. We have all gained from the wisdom of Judy Conway as our secretary; Margaret Sheldon continues to be a most conscientious and effective treasurer; Chris O’Connell is a most good humoured and knowledgeable librarian and she also runs the choir’s Facebook site; John Newton has offered great support in relation to Health and Safety, and taking charge of the staging at concerts, as well as development of the choir’s website; Martin Collett runs the Friends’ scheme very well and manages ticket sales; Jo Kyndt always comes up with good ideas and oversees refreshments at rehearsals in addition to spearheading the generation of advertising revenue. There are also many people who, while not being committee members have helped the society a great deal by completing particular roles over the last season: Elaine New heads up front of house duties in a very warm and well organised manner; Margaret Bovill has offered fantastic support with social events and I thank Di Tipler for running the 100 club so well and this role is now going to be taken up by Rhonda Young. It has been very helpful to have Kieron Seth, with all his business and sales experience, join our communications subgroup. I am sure we should all like to thank Jonathan for all his leadership and practical assistance but also the huge musical contribution he makes to the choir. Phillip offers us a great deal in his skilled accompaniment and ability to respond to our needs. I am delighted that Katherine Cole has accepted the appointment as Deputy Musical Director and look forward to all that she will bring to this role. Mike continues to be an outstanding and enthusiastic musical director who maintains such a sharp vision of what we can achieve and uses huge skill to help us get there while, at the same time, having a good time at rehearsals. For all our current success, with particular reference to our musical performance, we are still at a stage of rebuilding following the pandemic. Retention and recruitment of members remains a priority. While, as is shown in the accounts for 2022/2023, our financial position is a little better than this time last year, maintaining this development is critical if we are to be able to do all we would choose to do as a choir. We have generally enjoyed good audiences for our concerts and very unusually, we had rather a modest sized audience for our spring 2023 concert. Growing larger audiences will, therefore, be a focus for this season. 8 88 a 15 88 8 8 MU* 4z E4 8 88 a 15 88 8 8 MU* 4z E4 DJ c o) n