A very Nordoff Robbins December

Without necessarily intending to, December became a Nordoff Robbins month.

As mentioned in my previous post I'd been working for a few weeks to finalise the plans for carol singing at St Pancras but when Claire at Nordoff Robbins asked if I was available to help them with some other events I thought it would be a great chance to get to know more about the charity and meet some of it's supporters.

 

Heal's Christmas Wishes Party

Thursday 5th December

 

There were about 6 of us there on the evening of the Heal's Christmas Wishes Party and the department store had an evening of  shopping and live music from the National Deaf Children's Society choir and cellist Corinne Morris. There were demonstrations around the store and mulled wine for the shoppers.

Although I don't think we made much in our collection buckets, I'm sure the profile of Nordoff Robbins was raised and, once most of the shoppers had gone we sat with a glass of (complimentary) champagne and I learnt more about the charity from Claire and Susie.

 

Carol Singing

St Pancras Station

Sunday 8th December

 

On the 8th December the planning for the carol singing finally came together. I had 18 lovely members of the Gamesmaker Choir who agreed to help me out and at 10am we all met at a venue close to the station to have a quick rehearsal. I was overwhelmed by the support of these people and was impressed that between them they knew multiple carols with harmonies and descants!

We headed over to the station early enough to scope out our spot and to have a spot of lunch.

 

I'd chosen about 10 carols and a few Christmas songs to make up our repertoire which we sang through almost twice in it's entirety. I'd expected that any money donated would come from people with loose change in their pockets as they dashed through the station to catch trains but was very surprised people were stopping to listen and to talk with our collectors. A request for 'In the Bleak Midwinter' led to a donation of £10 being put in one of the buckets and we handed out plenty of leaflets and educated people about the charity.

 

Everyone was in high spirits, fun was had by all and the total made from the 90 minutes of singing was a fabulous £211.41

 

In case you want to hear or see what we got up check out the following:

 

 

Thanks to Sarah Wilks for this video!

 

 

We were very fortunate to have photos taken as memories of the day. Many Thanks to Sam Lane Photography for taking them and letting me share them with you.

 

 

More can be found on Sam's website:

http://samlanephotography.smugmug.com/St-Pancras/Sarah-Barron-Collective

 

Classic FM Christmas Appeal

Thursday 19th December

 

Nordoff Robbins were one of the three charities supported by the Classic FM Christmas Appeal in 2013. I jumped at the chance to volunteer for them on one of the auction shifts. Getting up at 5am on a day off was not ideal but an easy sacrifice for one of my three charities. We arrived at the Capital Radio building in Leicester Square at 7am and were shown to our 'call centre'. Breakfast was put out and we got to know each other. The prize that we would be taking calls for was a holiday to Turks & Caicos and a pre-bid was made for £3000 which meant that the phones were quiet up until the end of the auction. I only took one call from a lady who thought it was a competition and not an auction but it was another great experience and chance to offer support to Nordoff Robbins.

 

 

Getting started.....

A good start.....

3 for 30 was officially launched on November 25th and I encouraged people to donate to the cause rather than sending birthday presents or cards. With £64 donated in total the fundraising is off to a good start. Now comes the hard work of coming up with ideas and schemes to raise the remaining £8,936!

As we are now 'LIVE' so to speak with the challenge I have been trying to get involved with all three charities as much as I can and it's going well so far.

MAD Trust

Last Sunday I attended the MAD Trust annual event "A West End Christmas" and it was fantastic. West End stars of the present day and the future getting together to put their own take on a variety of Christmas songs with a chance for a couple of audience singalong. Highlights for me were the cast of 'Once' doing Fairytale of New York (sidenote: If you haven't seen Once yet... make sure to go in the new year) and Clive Rowe singing with students from Central School of Speech and Drama.

It was a lovely evening and a chance to experience the hospitality of the MAD Trust family.

I had also been signed up to do a spot of carol singing this week but unfortunately the event was cancelled due to low numbers and a double booking at Stratford station.

Nordoff Robbins

Plans are now in the final stages for the carol singing this weekend. There's been a few hurdles along the way with the organisers reducing the number of attendees we can have and then people dropping out but no matter what, we will be singing our hearts out at St Pancras on December 8th so come along to support us if you are in the area.

I shall also be helping out at a collection at Heals on Tottenham Court Road this week where I'm hoping to meet some other lovely volunteers as well as raise some money for Nordoff Robbins!

Just Giving pages are LIVE!

 

 

 

 

http://www.justgiving.com/teams/3for30

 

With just under two weeks to go until the start of my 3 for 30 challenge, I have created JustGiving pages for each charity and a 'Team' page so I can keep an eye on the overall target.

 

Donate and share as you see fit!

 

Event Number 1 - Carol Singing for Nordoff Robbins

CAROL SINGING AT ST PANCRAS STATION

 

DECEMBER 8th 2013

 

The first event is in the pipeline!

Exciting stuff for sure.

As a 'singer' and with music playing such a huge part of my life,there is no doubt that at least some of the fundraising over the next year will have a musical theme and where better to start a year of fundraising in November with some carol singing.

I am fortunate enough to know a lot of fellow singers and who doesn't love a good Christmas carol. In correspondence with Claire at Nordoff Robbins she mentioned that I may be able to help them out with a slot at the St Pancras Sessions in December and I jumped at the chance.

I have my group of willing singers!

We have an accompanist and an amazing venue!

The challenge now is to come up with the repertoire of easy to learn Christmas carols (which either don't infringe copyright or are cheap to get hold of!) and a rehearsal venue in central London which is affordable and has a piano!

Where did it all begin...?

There comes a point in your life when you realise that the hopes and dreams you had as a child or a teenager may not come true. That's not to say that your life sucks, just that all those years ago you didn't really know what you wanted or what life would give you in return.

I have always wanted to do the 'marriage and kids' thing. When I was a young teenager I thought I'd have it by 20. Then University came along and this got pushed out to 25. As I turned 25 I in turn moved this idea forward again to 30 and now as I approach my 29th birthday I realise to make it a reality I'd have to rush through the whole process and that's not going to happen.

This is not something that I am sad or bitter about. I have really enjoyed my 20's and have had some amazing opportunities but the thing that I wish I could have is a big party - a chance to catch up with the people that mean so much and play an important role in my life so about a year ago I decided that if I wasn't going to be married by 30 then turning 30 would be the big party.

After making that decision, I did quite a lot of thinking about what type of party it would be - would there be live music, would it be fancy dress (musical theatre themed of course!), would it be for charity? And then my brain really got thinking.

I've always done a lot of fundraising and volunteering but at the time that this 'party' idea came into my head I had just finished an amazing summer of volunteering at the London 2012 Olympics and I knew that the party somehow had to be about giving back. Would I ask guests to make a donation to charity rather than bringing presents?

And that's where the first spark of 3 for 30 came from.

Why not, instead of just raising money on one night, raise money throughout the year and have the party to celebrate a year of fundraising and volunteering?

The ideas over the next few months got a bit out of hand - one of the initial ideas was to try to raise £30,000 over the year to match the age I was due to turn. However, being realistic was the key. I had to maintain whatever I decided upon for the full year and it had to be achievable.

Bouncing ideas off a select few friends the final plan started to form and here it is.

From November 25th 2013 I will plan and hold events, there will be sponsorship requests and hopefully some fun activities for people to get involved in. I have one opportunity almost fully planned and notes for many others in a secret notebook.

I have chosen the three charities that I will support over the year. It took a lot of deliberation as I wanted them to really mean something to me personally and I wanted them to really use the money that I raised. (I'll explain my reasoning behind them in another blog post.)

Over the year I hope to raise a minimum of £3,000 per charity and then we can all celebrate together at the end of the year.

I am grateful for all of the support I've already received for this and for all of the support I will no doubt receive over the next twelve months. It will be a great adventure and I can't wait for it to start!