Well, how else should we encourage gentlemen interested in singing our Christmas programme to come to our final Open Rehearsal this Thursday, 27th September for 7.30pm at our Norwich rehearsal base?

It's not that we want to seem unwelcoming and won't let you join us later on.  If you are already an accomplished singer who can read music, later is fine!  But if you are not...

...we have firstly spent Thursdays this month welcoming not just our own members back post-Summer break, but also visiting non-members who have come to see what we do, how we do it, and whether singing might be for them...!

...secondly, we've been getting familiar with the songs planned for our December 2018 concert to ease everyone back in.  From October though, we'll be meeting twice a week in earnest to fine tune our programme, so new and social singers will notice that the pace picks up from next month.

After what has been for many a glorious scorcher, Summer is sadly fully on its final warmish sunrays.  ‘Back to school/college/university/work' is a reality, holidays away (or here, if you are coming to The Broads!) are for those not bound to academic terms, ‘Strictly' is back and devotees not able to get to London's Royal Albert Hall have been glued to the pomp and circumstance of the Last Night of the Proms (including your scribe of the perpendicular personal pronoun!). OK, football is back too, but in a World Cup year, most would argue it never really went away...?

But as regular as clockwork, something else happens at the end of Summer if you are (or you know) an adult gentleman who loves singing but is at a current loose end, or a gent whose public performances to date consist of tuneful ‘earworms’ (the songs you just can't get out of your head) in the bath or shower – yes, those tiled wall acoustics never lie!   At the end of every Summer, our own Gentlemen Songsters open our beloved rehearsal doors every Thursday evening for a month to non-Members!

All we schedule in September is a run-through and a ‘get to know' of the songs we have in store for our Winter/Christmas programme this year, so it’s a great time to accept our open invitation and visit us!  If you want to get involved in what we do, we can sit you if you want with a singing buddy to ease you in, so do spend an evening with us and find out how we do things!

But what if your bark is worse than your dog’s, your last note was used as a foghorn, or your family and neighbours forbid you from singing?

Don't be put off, because we won't be worried – come and learn with us – it will be a great journey and a fabulous hobby!