ALL LIVES MATTER...

Whilst thinking about what to write for this latest blog, there have been demonstrations across the USA and beyond at the shameful treatment of George Floyd, a person of colour and US citizen, entitled to the protection of the US Constitution and those employed to preserve his fundamental rights.  Whilst looting and other violent acts are an inappropriate response and equally subject to condemnation, peaceful demonstration to highlight that equality before the law and in society was lamentably not achieved on this occasion is understandable.  All lives matter, so it should go 'without saying' that 'black lives matter'.  For it to have to be said at all merely underscores the societal failure.

3 years is a long time, but only those not knowing where their missing child is over that time will truly understand how long that feels in those circumstances.  Searching for Madeleine McCann has been publicly funded long after some suggested it should have stopped, but now, more than ever, is the hope that the McCanns' ordeal may be coming to an end, even if not the one so fervently wished for.  Madeleine McCann's life mattered.  Throughout, even when inappropriately named as 'persons of interest' early in criminal investigations, or when a leading police officer implicated them as culpable in his memoirs, Kate and Gerry McCann have shown a dignity far beyond the intensity of their own personal anguish.  In life's most serious challenges, let us hope that, if we need it, we will be able to find even just an essence of that dignity.

Membership of our Choir is deliberately 'open'.  We just require that you are an adult man who will enjoy an active role singing 4-part harmony with our singing men (oh, and the Treasurer will want a membership subscription...), but that's it.  No audition or other barrier to entry, and membership means you can sing in all of our concerts (...when it is safe to have them again).  But none of our Members are from Norfolk's BAME community.  We hope this is purely a statistical thing, with just 3.5% of the Norfolk population from a BAME heritage at the date of the 2011 Census.  Any new member matters to us and, when we reopen, our welcome to any man wishing to sing with us, irrespective of heritage, will be equally warm.

It's just 6 weeks before the scheduled date of our 10th Anniversary Gala Concert, but neither of our Summer Concerts will take place.  It's still the right thing to do.  Our wish to entertain you remains as strong as ever (and a recent well-being 'ring round' of our singing men confirms that nothing would please us more), but the miracle we might have hoped for has not happened.  Our Christmas concert dates are still planned, but our troops need to be safely able to meet and rehearse Christmas Carols in September (as we have done every September in previous years...choir life is fun, but unusual!).

We all await developments while we stay safe...  ...we hope you are able to also and remain in good health meanwhile.