In meerkat's East Midlands thread, I posted an event calendar. I thought it'd be useful to post it again here so you can all note down these dates in your diaries!

January 6th : fluteteacher and livmaestro's Huddersfield band concert

January 13th : petrat's Chester forum concert - hope you all enjoyed it!

January 27th : meerkat's 1st Harborough playday

February 17th : katyjay and AmandaL's Teddington Adult Learner's concert - glad to hear it was a success!

February 24th : meerkat's 2nd Harborough playday

March 24th : Forums CD recording session at Egham - from katyjay and barry-clari - a great success - thank you everyone!

April 10th : katyjay and nicki_flute's Leicester forum concert - well done everyone who performed - a great day!

April 15th: meerkat's 3rd Harborough playday - let's hope the weather on the 5th May is as good as it was on the 15th April!

May 5th : meerkat's Harborough bandstand gig - this was a really great event, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Pictures are now on the East Midlands thread, on the July 8th link.

June 2nd : skylark's Leeds forum concert - great venue, great concert!

July 8th : meerkat's 4th Harborough playday

July 28th : sbhoa's Stalybridge adult learners' concert. - what a lovely day this was, well done everyone!

August 23rd : Flute choir playday organised by andante_in_c in North Hampshire

September 8th : meerkat's 5th Harborough playday

September 22nd : Jo's Woodford forum concert. - A great success!

November 3rd : meerkat's 6th Harborough playday

Other possible events, to be confirmed:

Andante_in_c's instrumental taster session, currently looking to hold this in Spring 2008, in Farnborough, near Orpington in Kent.

A Gloucestershire playday, from sarah-flute

A Singapore forum concert, from fawnfawn

A Scottish event, from neil.clarinet, YAP, StuMac, katyjay and others.

Possible playdays in the Lancashire area, from Fiona.

A proposed social string quartet in Lancashire, from agapanthus.

I'll also add here Sarah's proposal for a flute ensemble in the Gloucestershire area.

I think that's all for now. Thank you to all of you who are organising these events for us!

I'll be trying to sort out verification of the Leicester concert from the uni this week.

Sorry, completely sidetracked from that. I was working with anacrusis, Stumac and YAP, and Katyjay as well. Main obstacles are finding a location and a suitable date, with so many events being planned. We also have to be sure enough members will make it up here and again it very much depends when it falls. We might be lucky. Life is just too hectic just now, but maybe something will happen.

Good idea to start this thread. Could we have it pinned so that we can keep referring back to it?

Even better idea. The mods might not be able to sticky it til Monday though.

Have asked the moderators about that, but as Nicki has said, they're unlikely to be around again 'til Monday.

Would it not be easier to have an event just in very northern England like Newcastle or Carlisle? Or somewhere that's easily accessible from Glasgow/Edinburgh

The north of England is still quite a long way from Dundee, Aberdeen, Oban and so on; whereas Glasgow and Edinburgh aren't too far from the north of England and are a reasonable distance from most of Scotland. Also, Carlisle has no airport, and Glasgow/Prestwick/Edinburgh are much better served than Newcastle.

We are currently looking into venues, and were aiming for around June upon Katyjay's advice, but that's now taken so we're not sure what to do at the moment.

Oh there's people from Dundee/Aberdeen/Oban coming? I vote for Glasgow then.

The Woodford Forums concert will be on Saturday 22nd September, as long as I can have the hall on that date (the school won't be able to confirm this until next April/May).

So, given June is out now, around what time would it be best to place a Scottish concert? July and August are out if we're arranging it. We have a venue in mind but could do to give them a rough idea of dates to find out when it's available and what price they'd be looking at.

Will alter the calendar now Jo, thanks for that info.



Nothing booked for October-December yet. Weather may be an issue in December though. Possibly around the October half-term holiday?

I'd think October would be a good slot for the Scottish concert - when is the half term?

Not too early to encroach on Woodford, though.

End of October katyjay. Most schools appear to be taking Saturday 20th-Sunday 28th October.

Not in Scotland, October half-term is a week earlier.

I always forget that Scottish term dates are different...

That makes it Saturday 13th-Sunday 21st October. I'd say that Saturday 13th is too close to Woodford, so possibly the 20th?

Do we need to worry unduly about Woodford / Scottish dates being close? I know there are those like StuMac and KatyJay who would most likely want to do both, but the venues are so far apart that in the main I would think they will most likely attract different people to them.

Is this an issue or not?

My October half term is probably going to be out of sync with everywhere else in the country.

Do universities even get a half term?

Some get 'reading week' but as a rule - no, universities don't get half term.

I didn't think they did .

Is this right - a Tuesday? Wouldn't a lot of people be working? I definitely wouldn't be able to come on a Tuesday

Well, it is the day after Easter Monday...and the problem was that a) my holiday is silly anyway lots of people couldn't do a Saturday and Sunday was no good c) I had orchestra things on.

You took the words out of my mouth off my computer keyboard! There's also the possibility of having a more general adult learners' event rather than a "pure" Forums one. I expect there are lots of adult learners within reach of any reasonably central Scottish venue. To put some distances into perspective for Sassenachs, one of my husband's colleagues in Bedford years ago decided not to apply for a posting to Dounray in the far north of Scotland because he would be further from his family in Edinburgh.

Aaww, I'm sorry I won't be able to come then. Hope it goes well. And I'll keep an eye open anyway just in case the date changes, cos I see there's a question mark by it ....

I think the two events are likely to attract a different set of people, I'm not sure you'd want them one week after the other, but, thinking about it, if they are quite close to each other, it's not really going to make much, if any difference Jane - a very good point.

I'll change the calendar to reflect a possible October date for a Scottish concert.



The Saturdays/Sundays in the Easter break were unsuitable for too many people - the 10th was the best date katyjay and Nicki could get. A pity you won't be able to come skylark.

Sorry about that, Skylark. The question mark won't change the date, I'm afraid, as we've had real problems establishing any date at all. We just haven't yet had the written confirmation from the venue (although we'll follow up on that this week).

We hoped that most people would still be on their Easter break, or that taking one day off work the day after the Bank Holiday would not prove too much of a problem - a lot of the teachers that take part have to take a day off to manage weekends.

Well...

Apparently, by the time next October rolls around, we'll need passports and a load of Euros to get into the Scottish one!



Also - will the Woodford one clash with DrummerLive again?

When is DrummerLive?

Sorry, am I missing something here?

I don't know...

But from what I've heard, Scotland will become an independant nation following the Scottish Parliament elections next year...

According to my politics teacher, the SNP are well out in front in the opinion polls... And the SNP website states that the first thing they'll do upon getting into power in Scotland will be to open talks with Westminster... Apparently it only took Montenegro 40 days to go from being a province to a fully indepent nation, and a member of the EU/UN... And they say it'll be the same for Scotland... The SNP give Montenegro, Iceland, Ireland and Norway as examples of this on their website...

Yes, but you are forgetting that the Scottish Parliament's nick-name is 'the numpties' .

Seriously, though, the SNP always do better in opinion polls than they do at voting stations; plus, without a system of proportional representation, they don't get that many seats in the Scottish parliament. People say they'd vote SNP in opinion polls as a form of protest against the government, but then there are two snags:

1) Far fewer people can bring themselves to vote in a party whom have never ran a country before

2) The people who say they support the SNP are, demographically, less likely to vote. The stereotypical lower-class Scot will support anything which is 'anti English' but doesn't go to the trouble of voting.

Then there's the whole issue of the dependencies between English and Scottish business: Sterling is not tied to the Euro, so financial transactions would become difficult.

I'd also advise against reading a political party's website for a balanced projection on the likely outcome of an election...

I got confused there too; I was beginning to think I really hadn't being paying attention to the news recently.

Bumping back to the original theme of the thread.....

......and on the original topic, I presume the Surrey adult learner's concert is in much the same situation as the CD recording katyjay.....

Yes, although I hope we're near to resolving that one.

Sorry...

As someone who is about to embark on organising such an event (thanks Meerkat fo offering assistance) I already have a "to do list" with lots of things on to ensure Meerkat and I get things right.

The long and short of it is that these Concerts can only take place in the locality where forumites who are prepared to organise such events live.

It would be unfair to expect Katyjay who is resident in Surrey to research and organise a concert in Edinburgh.

To put it bluntly its a case of being prepared to put yout money where your mouth is, or if that is not direct enough "put up or shut up".

Concert organisers put a lot of work in to insure a successful event, and for that I salute them.

I have limited experience of event planning so feel I have the necessary skills required to join them. There is only one way to learn and that is to do. But at the same time listen and learn. Ask advice and heed it.

I apologise in advance if anyone found the directness of that message offensive. Its just that alot of people appear to be prepared to put in alot of time and effort, and I don't like people whinging rather than appreciating the job that a team of dedicated people are doing.

jod, may I say that some aspects of forum concert arranging can be done 'from a distance'. I'm currently writing pieces and organising various activities for the Leeds concert here in suburban London. And enjoying it very much!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again : thank you to everyone who is taking the time and trouble to organise these events for all of us to enjoy.

Then I hope Primary Academy will start on Sat 29th Sept next year! Can VN play this time, Jo? It's OK if she can't. I just want to know to answer her query. She is not a show-off or a look at me, look at me type and would be very happy to play in any string quartet. The reason she kept asking me this, so many times, is bec she felt guilty Christine gave her an AB badge in 2005 for "performing next year" when she didn't play the following year. Last year's was an adult learners' concert.

I don't see anywhere that we have given the impression that we would expect KJ to organise a meeting for us - the difficulty has been that the calendar is filling up faster than we can find a date, and to be frank, it seems that we are being shoehorned into possible dates at a remove - we're not whingeing, it is just an observation. As others have also experienced, we are not having an easy time of finding a venue which fits all the desirable criteria, and that is the starting point for organising any "do".

I don't think you're whinging anacrusis.

The main reasons why I started this thread was 1) so that people can note forum event dates in their diaries in plenty of time, and 2) so that others can plan events and pick dates that as many others can do as possible.

This thread does appear to have triggered the organisation of two further events (Cambridge and Scotland), which I'm very pleased to see, and I hope the Scottish event both finds itself a date and venue, and is then a success.

The thread hasn't been a trigger in the case of the Scottish concert: I know that anacrusis, AP, myself, and a couple of other forum members have been making enquiries to venues with the prospect of organising a Scottish concert for quite some time now now, after some initial discussions on the forums discussing whereabouts to hold it in Scotland. It just hasn't been worth starting a thread yet to discuss the concert because stating the intention to have a concert of some sort at some venue at some time wouldn't be entirely helpful.

... and it's much appreciated barry-clari, both by me and I'm sure by all the people who have asked to join the activities already announced


... and thanks to all those who are being so helpful behind the scenes...

Anacrusis et al, I appreciate your predicament not wishing to clash with anyone elses events either. My criticism is not at you, more at those who are not prepared to put the spade work in, then moan that there is nothing local.

On a more positive note, don't you think it's great that these concerts appear to have really taken off. I certainly do.

Jo.

Not sure who you did mean then, having just re-read the thread.
Yes, any chance to make music with and for others has to be a good thing.

Probably me getting the wrong end of the stick re comments manek had made. I had just been Christmas shopping, and I am still recovering from a back injury caused when I tripped over the cat last week.

Jo

VN would be welcome to join in the larger ensembles (probably choir, recorder ensemble and Grand Finale, though I haven't even begun to think about next year's concert yet, because I'm busy with other plans at the moment), but I feel that the solos and smaller groups need to be reserved for those for whom the concerts are designed (those aged 14 and over), and more particularly for the adult learners, who get far fewer opportunities to perform generally than do those of school age!

So that's all right then Although seeing as you were aware at the time that your remarks might be seen as offensive, perhaps you might like to make an apology of equal clarity to your original bluntness for having no justification for your comments


Incidentally, I expect to get as much pleasure out of organising the Leeds concert as I hope other people will get out of attending it. I don't expect thanks for doing something which I have willingly and enthusiastically volunteered to do and expect to thoroughly enjoy doing!