Annual General Meeting

4 October 2021

Earlier this evening the choir held its Annual General Meeting, followed by its usual Monday night rehearsal. We were warmly welcomed by the staff at The Old Savoy, our usual rehearsal at Northampton High School being unavailable this week, and swiftly sorted out the arrangements to ensure we could sing in a socially distanced fashion.

At our AGM we elected our new Treasurer, Prof. Jackie Campbell, and our new Concerts Manager, David Tristram, and very warm tributes were made to retiring holders of those posts Tim Daily and Mark Gibson.

The Old Savoy on Arrival

Members Award for Jennie Woods

Our President, Sir Peter Ellwood CBE DL gave one of his trademark stunning speeches, paying special tribute to Lee and the committee for steering the choir through one of the most remarkable - for good and ill - years in the choir’s history. Further tribute was paid to our “Rebuilding Team” who have countered the inevitable losses of the last year with an astonishing tally of sixteen new members so far this term, with a further three auditioning later this week! As we weren’t able to meet “in reality” for our AGM last year, we had two years of our Members Award to present.

John Tye singing in our Christmas concert

Long Service Award for Karen Emmott

For the first year this went to Jennie Woods, who was for a time our Chairman, but retirement from the committee hasn’t prevented her from being an avid fundraiser for the choir, not least in masterminding the visit of John Rutter back in September 2019. For the most recent year this was awarded posthumously to John Tye who was for many years our Bass Voice Part Secretary, and whose untimely death at the end of July shocked us all. In addition Long Service Awards were made to members who have recently marked their twenty-fifth anniversary of singing with the choir, including Karen Emmott, and a special award was made to long-serving Voice Part Secretary Mary Montague on her retirement from that role.

Retiring VPS Mary Montague

The evening concluded with our fifth Messiah rehearsal of the term, and once we had acclimatised to the acoustics, we continued work on polishing and honing our interpretation of this masterwork in preparation for our concert on Saturday 6 November.