This has probably been covered elsewhere and I apologise for starting it again, but...
I've been asked to state a fee for a service on Christmas Eve. It will be organ before and after, plus 4 or 5 carols. Could anyone indicate an appropriate fee, please?

Thanks,
Ophicleide

The RSCM recommend fees for 'Special Services' which I guess might cover what you're doing. They recommend them on two scales: amateur musicians and professional musicians (i.e. the latter earn their living from music).

Currently these are:

Professionals £64.50
Amateurs £42.00

These are for a 'normal' musical contribution which I would consider yours to be (music in and out and hymns). If there were choir pieces of special requests then they suggest higher rates (currently £84.00 and £55.00).

These fees are for 2010, though they come out in September; as this is the time when all my other fees come out, I take these to be 2009/10.

Hope that helps!

David

I normally pay locum organists £50 per service, since it is an easy sum to remember. I would say that any fee less than £35 is taking the Michael.

Any chance you're free to play on Christmas Day for me, please, MrC?

There's a tenner and a satsuma in it for you!

£50

We don't get paid at all as musicians at our church, although it's not an organ - one keyboard, one clarinet and one cornet! I think the previous priest used to give chocolate and a small gift at Christmas and Easter, but that was before I joined.

I suppose it's different for children though...

I certainly don't get any extra for midnight Christmas eve; never occurred to me to ask!
Do others? I should hate to be the only wally doing a full day's work and then turning out for a service when my body clock is whimpering for bed.
(I do enjoy it once it's started though )

Not sure if the OP is referring to a place at which they normally play... fair do's if this is a guest appearance.

I took the OP to mean a one-off service at somewhere they don't usually play. If however it's their normal church and they are paid regularly anyway, then I would have thought it would have been included in this arrangement.

Thank you to everyone who has replied. It has been a great help, and I've stated £42 as the fee. I used to play there regularly but since moving 85 miles away it's quite difficult so I'm just back for Christmas!

Thanks again

We don't get paid either, madbassoonist. It's usually only organists who do, unless a church has a salaried music leader (which one of my previous churches did - but even then it was only the music leader who got paid and none of the other musicians did). I'm pretty sure that my current church doesn't pay organists anymore either, and if one of our organists is booked to play for a wedding or something then it would be the people doing the booking who'd be responsible for any fees rather than the church. In our church the organists have less to do than the music groups, so it was probably be quite difficult to justify payment for them and not for the music groups (and then you'd get into a right can of worms about whether the children's groups leaders, student workers, bell ringers, prayer team etc should be paid ). The music group doesn't get paid for weddings either, although I think an organist would and the bellringers do. Not quite sure about the equity of that one.

Imagine if the church had to pay its adult choir members and music group members too....