This summer, because of the global pandemic, many of our socials and events like our Spring ball and concert had to be cancelled but we didn’t let this get us down! Our incoming and outgoing committee members worked really hard to get Contemporary Choir running virtually!
Our first challenge was to figure out a way to move our rehearsals online, which is harder than it sounds. The main issue we faced was timing. If you’ve ever tried singing happy birthday over zoom in a group to a relative you will know what I mean when I say that it sounds more like a jumble than a song as everyone is singing at different times. Getting around this was hard and to do it our rehearsals became fun sing-along karaoke sessions where everyone would mute themselves and we would sing along to ourselves singing from on our CD recordings. I’m not going to lie it was a weird thing to be sat in my room singing along into a camera without being able to hear anyone else but to see them all singing too.
Socials were somewhat easier to move online. We had everything from games evening, to a netflix party to a quiz night and even Cardio, yoga and dance sessions! All of these socials were run on zoom and were open to all our member and their families! Although most of these events were one off we also started to hold a more weekly social through the introduction of a book club. Throughout lock-down our book club read a huge variety of books and met up to discuss and review them. It was such a success that the book-club is still running today and if you have any interest in joining, get in touch with one of our committee members.
This year mental heath awareness week fell in the middle of lockdown and we felt it was super important to run some virtual well being events for our members during this time to help keep spirits up during a tough time. This included a craft-er class by one of our Fundraising Secretaries, Megan Cox as well as a guide meditation and coffee morning! During the weekend our Publicity team, Bekah and Maddy, ran Self-care Saturday on our Instagram which was a day jam packed with activities and tips for everyone!
Another of the events we ran during lockdown was The Great Contemporary Choir Bake Off! Each fortnight we had a new category and asked members to send us photos of their bakes and then the whole society voted on which ones they liked the best on a range of criteria. The standard of baking was so high and we had some stunning and creative bakes which looked delicious, but it was just a shame we couldn’t taste them!
So despite the lockdown restrictions our summer was jam packed and full of fun! We are hoping to keep the same level of energy for our virtual events in term one and fingers crossed by next summer we might be back to normal socials! 💙
Bekah (Marketing Sec) xx