Hi Everyone,

As the saying goes, keep calm and carry on, or maybe it’s keep calm and clean your hands these days. 🙂

While we wait for more advice and guidance from the Government, I want to let you know some decisions Louise, Kieran and I have made today. This week will be the last week of rehearsals until after the Easter break (w/c 20th April).

Essentially we are following the same guidance as the schools by taking an extended Easter holiday. Unless told otherwise, Monday in Wokingham and Wednesday in Bracknell will proceed this week, but ONLY GO IF YOU WISH TO GO. I know how important the weekly rehearsals are to you all, but we do have to heed the advice and start to reduce our social interaction and any risk of contracting the infection.

I also wanted to take this time to share something with you in respect to the longer term considerations of COVID-19.

Singhealthy is a non-profit organisation, our income and outcome are managed very closely and your regular monthly subscriptions enable us to run. Running the business includes the payment of venues, music licenses, membership, website, insurances and of course the salary of people that work for the choir (namely Kieran and Louise). Their talent and expertise is what allows us to function.

I’m telling you this because Singhealthy provides significant income for Kieran and Louise, so I want to make sure they can rely on us also during this time of uncertainty. We can do this if the income remains at a certain level, but if we are forced to cancel our weekly rehearsals for longer than we expect (beyond April), we recognise the possibility that some of you may consider suspending your subscription. Kieran and Louise are currently exploring ways in which we might provide ‘virtual’ rehearsals to keep regular engagement with the membership, and ways that we could make up rehearsal time. We hope that any clever ways we can find to keep you all singing during this time will minimise that possibility.

It’s my intention to be as transparent and open with everyone about running Singhealthy. I hope that we all remain safe and well during this time and I will keep you informed on any progress.

I will be at the start of each choir rehearsal this week to answer and questions, and as always you can email me or call me on 07824 605018 anytime.

Please take care of each other. Please, don’t take unnecessary risks and above all don’t panic!

Best wishes,

Chris