13 September 2008

It isn’t very often that the Pinkies are at an event both organized by and for us, but that was the slightly odd situation we found ourselves in on Saturday, the 13th of September. We were attending the Various Voices volunteer rally, a chance for the choirs organizing the festival to get a feel for what it’s all about and how members can help.

Of course, I’ve been involved in planning Various Voices for just over a year now, but with a little under 8 months to go, things really are starting to loom large on the horizon. I deal very much with my own little website niche, so I am grateful for opportunities like this to see the bigger picture. And ‘big’ really is the operative word. There are over 60 choirs registered already with over 1,000 delegates so far, and the numbers are only going to go up. What’s more, the venues are large – we have the whole of the Royal Festival Hall booked up for four days – and to fill the space we are expecting another 2,000 or so members of the public to come along and listen to the various choirs perform and participate in many other activities.

Events of this scale make me feel slightly queasy, but the organizing committee, led by Martin Brophy of the LGMC, have a clear vision of what is to come. Jude Kelly, the artistic director of the Southbank Centre and arguably the most important figure in Britain’s arts scene at the moment, gave the opening talk: she spoke of the history of the Southbank Centre as an emblem of modernism, and the post-war hope for a better, more inclusive world, as manifested by the architecture of the building. This dovetails perfectly with Various Voices, an encapsulation of that dream. It is very reassuring indeed to have the Southbank Centre behind us, and is quite the coup for Team London, the group made up of our city’s 3 largest LGBT choirs.

Other presentations followed, including one on recognition of volunteers by Robert Dufton of the LGMC and one on the overall artistic vision by Andrea Brown of Diversity. What impressed me the most, however, were two impromptu speeches by our very own Philip R and Martin Bartsch from the LGMC. Philip can always be depended on to be both witty and entertaining, and this he was, but his talk was peppered with anecdotes of his experience of the equivalent festival in London 20 years ago. It was a different time then, with a more oppressive atmosphere, but perform these LGBT choirs did, and with pride, at the Hackney Empire. Now we are on all four stages of possibly one of the greatest performance venues in the world. Oh how far we have come!

Martin gave a wonderfully heartfelt speech which served as a perfect counterpoint to the slightly more formal presentations we had heard earlier. He talked about what it meant to him to be in a choir, about the kinds of experiences and growth he had had just being a member of a singing group, and how he was looking forward, not only to adding his voice to thousands of other LGBT singers, but also giving a little bit back to the choir and the community. It certainly got me thinking about what Various Voices means to me.

My first Various Voices was the last one, under four years ago, in Paris; I had been in the Pinkies for just three seasons and so was still feeling a little wet behind the ears. Besides, it was my first ‘gay’ group. I had already heard all these stories of Various Voices past, but you really have to be part of it to see just how amazing an experience it is. From a musical perspective you have hundreds of different singing styles, different levels of theatricality and two dozen languages, but at the heart of it is the network of LGBT singers from all around Europe getting together to have a good time. It was just wonderful to be a part of that.

We took over the 18e arrondissement with non-stop song and celebration, and I think London can put on an even bigger show, in an even grander venue. Achieving that means supporting delegates, providing information, catering to the front of house, running the backstage and accommodating visitors. The mind boggles! That’s why I’ve signed up as a volunteer, and why I saw many other Pinkies like Hester and Mel, who were not previously involved, filling in the volunteer forms at the end. The volunteer rally was inspiring, but it is the volunteers themselves who will make our festival great.

Hsien

29 January 2008

Update

Dear Pinkies

As many of you will know, I am our choir’s elected member on the Various Voices 2009 Planning Group. To clarify, the responsibilities of Planning Group members are as follows:

- to represent the interests of the stakeholder choir to which they belong (whether this is the Pink Singers, LGMC or Diversity)
- to act as a conduit for communicating information between their choir and the Planning Group and vice-versa and
- to work collectively as a Group to ensure the successful planning and delivery of VV09.

In addition, individual members of the Planning Group will be responsible for leading on specific strands or activities related to the Festival. For example, I am taking forward LGBT Youth participation in the Festival. Whilst I am our elected member, it is important to acknowledge that other members of the Pink Singers are have been involved in the past and are currently actively involved in VV09, including Hsien’s work on IT infrastructure for the event, and the participation of Simon, Michael D, Liang, Tanya, Annie and Lynne.

So what’s been happening so far?
VV09 is still in relatively early stages of planning, but here is a summary of key activities to date:

- VV09 registered as a company;
- the stakeholder choirs have committed to participating in VVO9, including financial outlay;
- much of the technological infrastructure is in place to support the event (such as the VV09 website and project planning tools);
- the Director has held fruitful discussions with the South Bank centre (as the venue for VV09) to discuss planning for the event;
- choirs across Europe are about to be invited to express initial interest attending VV09.

How can you get involved?
It is anticipated that choir members will be able to get involved in many aspects of VV09, not just as participants at the Festival itself but to play a role in planning. For example, once we begin to define the details of the format and workshops for the event, your ideas and assistance will be much in demand. One way you can participate now is to register to provide Host Accommodation for VV09.
and users can navigate to it from “Visiting London” / “Accommodation”. When a host submits a registration using the form, the host gets a confirmation email containing a personalised hyperlink that will allow them to edit their accommodation details at a later date.

Anyway, apologies for not doing an update earlier. I will be feeding regular updates to the Management Committee as well as to the Pink Singers, and be rest assured we will be looking to exploit YOUR skills, expertise and enthusiasm for VV09 in the near future!

Adam

24 April 2007

We Are A Stakeholder!

Hello fellow Pinkies!

Last Thursday was the latest meeting of the strategic planning group for the London festival in 2009, it was fast moving and very successful as well.

Top of the agenda was the draft agreement to be signed by the three choirs(LGMC, Pinksingers and Diversity) and Various Voices London Ltd. This document lays out the commitment of the three choirs and that of the festival company in order to produce a successful and profitable festival. In short it gives each choir ownership of the festival and what is expected in return. It was agreed that the document was a very competent first draft and it's gone off to have the few amendments that we recommended.

We are still waiting for the company formation to be finalised with Company House and ! in the mean time I have been asked to get the ball rolling on the opening of the company bank accounts. I have also offered to keep the initial accounts for the festival company. They must think I'm mad because no one had any objections! May be I am, I'll let you know in a years time.

The group of three who have the mammoth task of collating all the choirs information have sent out their first contact emails and letters, in various languages and are waiting for all the replies to come in. This first contact is just to get confirmation of the details we hold for each choir and to see whether they are contemplating attending the festival.

Finally an event at the National Portrait Gallery on the 12th July, part of the Sing London event was discussed. It is to be a casual singing event of no more than twenty singers drawn from the tree choirs, all performing under the Various Voices banner. The idea is for the group to wonder around the gallery at the special event, pausing by preselected portraits and singing a suitable song that goes with the subject of the picture. The main task for the singers is to encourage the public in the gallery to join in, so the songs will be popular ones people can sing along to. This is a joint event with the NPG and details are well under way. It should be a fun night for those that volunteer and will bring some good publicity for Various Voices.

There is another meeting next week, before a delegation go to Frankfurt on the 12th May to report on progress at the Legato meeting.

Finally, we have a visit from Martin Brophy, the chairman of Various Voices London, before rehearsal this Sunday at 1.30pm. I hope as many of you will attend as possible as it will be a good opportunity to ask any questions you have about the festival and our choirs involvement.

So I'll see you all there.

Simon

12 March 2007

Can You Help?

Good day fellow Pinkies!

Firstly apologies for the lateness of this report on the last meeting of the Various Voices Planning Group, the meeting was on the 27th of Feb. No excuse, I must try harder!

So to business and the main business of the meeting was to finally sign all the paper work connected with setting up the limited company that will be responsible for running the festival. It was decided to drop 2009 from the company name so when the Various Voices festival is over the organisation can continue working on future choral and musical projects around London with the ultimate goal of a mass LGBT choral event for the 2012 London Olympics.

Three directors and a company secretary have been appointed to start, with one director being chosen from each choir. I was asked to be one of the directors and have accepted the position until the first AGM when we will all have to stand down. I must say it’s quite exciting; I’ve never been a company director before. Once the company is officially registered as Various Voices London we will start the process of applying for charitable status.

Also covered in the meeting were promotional material, the issue of Patrons (the pros and cons) and the next meeting with the artistic team from the South Bank and a tour of the new site.

Finally I would like to make a request to any of you that have pictures or video footage of choral events and ask if you would like to donate copies to the organisation so they may be used in our promotional material. If you have anything it can be sent to the our webmaster.

My next meeting is at the end of March so see you back here early April.

Simon

30 January 2007

Musical Direction

Hello Everyone. January 16th saw the first meeting of the New Year for the Various Voices Strategic Planning Group and I was joined this time by Michael Derrick and Andy Mitchinson as representatives of our choir's music team. We kicked the evening off with a presentation of the artistic vision for the festival, from Charlie, the MD of the LGMC.

Growth through celebration and interaction: this is our goal for Various Voices 2009.

We want London’s festival to be the best yet by making it accessible to as many people as possible, including the general public. We intend to mix the format up so choirs won’t necessarily have the one 25 minute slot on stage. We are hoping to be able to give choirs multiple opportunities to perform in various venues in the South Bank complex and in central London. We would also like to promote interaction by mixing choirs up and giving them performance opportunities.

This is just a fraction of what is envisaged for the London Festival, Martin Brophy; the Festival Director will hopefully be giving a small presentation to our choir in February.

After Charlie’s presentation a lively discussion followed with some useful points being made, especially by our very own Michael Derrick. By the end of the first hour we all knew a lot more of what we hope the 2009 Festival will be about and a small working team was set up to finalize the artistic goal and direction of the festival. I pleased to say Michael is on this team along with Charlie and Kim, the MD of Diversity.

The rest of the evening was taken up with the regular business of early stage planning: company formation, charity status, web site, funding, etc. etc.

More to report next month.

Simon

29 August 2006

Singing Out

Hello Pinkies. Hope you've all enjoyed your summer break. While you've been off sunning your bones the Various Voices 09 team have huddled together again to work out how to make the festival in London the biggest and best it can be. This latest meeting was a touch smaller than the first with not a huge amount to report back on unfortunately. We're still waiting for everyone to reply to the skills questionnaire so we can work out who is going to organise what. This should get moving at the next meeting.

The good news to report is that the Sing Out website has been reloaded and can be accessed through the links section of this website. For those of you who don't know Sing Out is the association of gay and lesbian choirs in the UK and Ireland which was formed to bring all the organisations together in harmony, geddit? The site needs a bit of work but keep checking it back as hopefully this is the first step in getting us together for a big meet, perhaps somewhere in England, possibly next year. Those of you who have been before will know that these events are great fun with lots of singing and drinking, followed by some more singing. We'll keep you posted about what's happening.

If there is anything else you'd like to know then please get in touch and I'll see what I can do. Otherwise I'll see you around.

Bye for now!

Ritchie x

28 July 2006

First Meeting

Hello Pinkies. So I've been to my first meeting for Team London. I was amongst a group of twelve men and two women (thanks to Lynne and Tanya) who met in a beautiful part of London, just off St. James Park on one of the hottest days of the year. Us new Pinkies were made to feel very welcome by the others who were representing LGMC, Diversity and Design for Diversity.

What strikes me overall is how much work is involved and we're just at the tip of the iceberg - things are certainly going to get bigger and busier. It also makes me realise that for all the festivals to be a success we're going to need a lot of people to help, more than those present at the meeting that's for sure. Watch this space guys as your help is going to be needed.

The meeting mainly centred around establishing a structure for the team and what needs to be done to make sure the festivals happen on time and on budget. The plan is that eventually we'll be put into separate teams to look after every aspect everything from fundraising and volunteers to administration and marketing, then we can really get off the ground.

Lastly, we discussed the need for Sing Out (the association of gay choirs from UK and Ireland) to have a big conference next year. This would act as a dry run and also drum up interest for Various Voices amongst the domestic choirs. Some dates and locations in and around London were discussed - I'll give you more details as when I can let them out of the bag.

That's it for now, I'll update you after the meeting next month.

Ritchie x