Chair’s Annual Report 2023-2024
By far the best thing about the past year has been the music, but I will leave that to Steve Kings to report on. We have celebrated the tenth anniversary of Steve’s appointment as our music director and, like a fine wine, he is better than ever.
Membership numbers and the age profile of the choir remain our main concerns. In spite of a membership of 60 we managed to field only 42 singers for our summer concert, three of whom were very welcome singers from Monmouth Male Voice Choir. We were also greatly helped in that concert by the assistance of the four soloists. The absences of members can be explained mainly by illness, infirmity and other commitments, but the conclusion is that in order to sustain that level of nonparticipation we need to have a much bigger choir to start with. The younger and healthier it is the better. We need to keep recruitment as our top priority in the coming year.
Attendance at rehearsals has been rather low at times. The recording of the rehearsals is of course a great aid to enabling absentees to catch up with the learning covered in the rehearsal, but there is no substitute for being there, singing side by side with the other singers, giving them your support and receiving support in return. Choral singing involves a lot of tuning-in to others, and even watching the conductor occasionally.
Membership numbers have obvious implications for the financial sustainability of the choir. This has led to our shortening the year by about one month and reducing the number of concerts from four to three. While helping to reduce our expenditure, I think many of you will agree that this has made the summer break too long. We are re-extending the year a little in 2025 by arranging for the summer concert to take place in early June. But there will again be no spring concert.
Fundraising has been a major achievement of the past year. The main event was the long-promised Auction of Promises and Supper. The auction was extremely successful, thanks to the donors and the bidders. The supper was a feast, thanks to all the cooks. It was so enjoyable that we are organising another social this autumn: a curry and quiz night. The main purpose of this event is for the choir, and the Friends of MCS, to have an enjoyable evening, but we hope it will also raise some money. The Come and Sing events used to be a significant fund-raising mechanism for the choir, but they have not been so in recent years. However, if they are successful in attracting new members and maintaining contact with the community, they are still worth doing. The monthly cake sales and raffles have raised steady amounts of money and have provided additional fun in what used to be the tea breaks. These things are all good for social bonding, which is a major part of the joy of being in a choir, and of course helps to improve the sound that we make together.
Connected with fund-raising, the MCS wedding choir has performed once in the past year (at a funeral) and has one wedding booked for May 2025. It is good to have plenty of notice as we can rehearse beforehand and give a good account of ourselves. And apart from earning a fee, it is another way of publicising the choir,
Our efforts at community outreach have yielded mixed results. Despite our best efforts, we have failed so far to build a link with Monmouth Comprehensive School, but this remains a work in progress. More successfully we have re-established our links with the national, local and regional government officials and they were well-represented at the last concert. The Mayor of Monmouth was so impressed with our performance that he initiated discussions with the town’s Twinning Association about our going to Carbonne in 2025 to sing as part of the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of twinning. We now know that we have enough singers to field a four-part choir for
such a trip and are in negotiations with Carbonne about what would be the best time of year for our visit.
In addition to our three concerts this year we still have Sam Bayliss’s organ recital to look forward to and, of course, a party afterwards. Sam has now been our accompanist for 12 years. As well as being a brilliant musician he is very sensitive, not only to Steve’s requirements but to our needs as a choir. He knows when we need a note! Thank you, Sam.
I would like to thank the other members of the committee and all the choir members who have stepped up to do extra jobs. It has been a pleasure to chair such a willing and hard- working crowd.
41 Balare Sheet as at 301h JuTre 2024 2023 2024 Llquid Assets . Lloyds Bank Current Account £3,661.20 £10,275.71 £9,264.48 COIF Deposit Fund £9,746.01 £12,925.68 Total Llquid Assets Add Sundry Debtors: (cheques/BACS paid 2022/23 clead 2023124) £20,021.72 £261.00 Total: £261.00 £20,282.72 Totsi Assets Less Llabllltles . Sundry Crodltors: (uncleared cheques or BACS unpaid at 3010612023 but to be included in 2023-2024 £55.00 Total Liabilllles £55.00 Total Nett A88ets 2024 carrled forward £20,227.72 Balance Sheet Test Total Liquid Assets Year End 2023 Add Current Year's Surplus or- Deduct Current Year's Shortfall Balancing Totals £12,925.68 £7,302.04 £20,227.72 In connertion with my examination, no matter has come to my attention . {1) whlch gives me reasonable cause to klieve that in any material respect the requirement5 . {1} to keep accounti ng records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act . and (li) to prepare accounts w hich accord with the accounting records and to comply with the accounting requirements of the Art. have not been met; or {2} to which in my opinion, attention should drawn in orderto enable a proper unde tanding of the accounts to be reached Signed: )rtv",) Ilndependent Examiner) Counter-signed by: M V Bradley {Hon Treasurer) J Craven (Hon Chair) Date=
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