We started 2024 on the 11th January with a visit to Cuddington and Sandiway WI and as you can see some of the members enjoyed "having a go"!

 

This was followed by a visit to Knutsford WI on 15th April 

 

We were very saddened in May by the death of Glenys Richardson, one of our members who did most of the conducting.

The third concert was to Goostrey WI on the 23rd July.

We are now getting ready for visits to care homes for Christmas so when we return from our August break in September, we will be looking at Christmas material.

 

We had three outings to groups prior to Christmas as well as playing at a service taken by the Rev. Liz Woode from St. Michael and All Angels Church in Middlewich for the residents of Willowmere Housing Group where we practice every week.  

Sandbach Dementia Friendly Christmas Party

Hartford Stroke and Aphasia Group

Weston Park Care Home, Macclesfield

Thursday, 15th June, 2023

 A recent outing this year was to the Sandbach Dementia Friendly Group who made us very welcome.  We had no trouble in persuading them to "have a go".  and we received the following thank you from the Chairman.

          

As you can see , we had no trouble in persuading them 

"to have a go"  

                                                       

 We finished 2022 giving concerts to the Tangent Club in Holmes Chapel, another Ladies' Club in Winnington and Middlewich WI.  We also played at a Christmas service at Willowmere.  The programme for these events changed slowly from the usual fare of classics and songs to carols and other music for Christmas.

This picture is from the Tangent Club in Holmes Chapel.

 We were invited to the Winnington Tuesday Club to play for them and the ladies told us they really enjoyed the music. We played quite a wide range of pieces from Morning Has Broken to an arrangement of the William Tell Overture.  Unfortunately, we heard not long after our visit that there was a fire at the club house which has caused a lot of damage.  According to the Fire Service this was a deliberate act of arson.  

 We were glad to get back to being able to accept invitations to play for local organsations.  Our first one was in July when we played for Davenham WI.  The programme included Beautiful Dreamer, Country Gardens, Radetzky March and the Can Can.  We closed the programme with the Ukranian and British National Anthems.  Members of the audience also had a go!

We are now preparing programmes for visits to Holmes Chapel, Middlewich and Winnington. 

 LOCKDOWN UPDATE

Following our get together at Lowes Farm Coffee Shop in July 2020 we arranged a pilot practice session at Byley Village Hall.  Due to the restrictions we had a rota as we were only allowed 6 people indoors.  This worked very well and we used the chimes instead of the bells.  We continued with this on a weekly basis until December but it was then curtailed due to a further lockdown.

Since we were all confined our resident arrangers produced 25 new pieces for the time when we could resume practising.

The next get together was in June 2021, again at the Coffee Shop, and we were able to arrange to re-commence our practices at Willowmere which happened on the 26th July.  

Luckily we were able to continue there and finished the year with a Christmas Celebration at Willowmere.  This was requested by the manager and involved the Rev. Liz Woode from St. Michael and All Angels Church and the bell ringers and was well received.  It involved prayers, readings and Christmas music on the bells, and singing carols with the help of a CD!  We even managed a new arrangement of "O Holy Night".

We are now looking forward to being able to take bookings for 2022