Portishead Choral Society is restarting rehearsals on 9th September. Please note our new venue is Portishead Methodist Church, and the start time is 7.45pm. We will be working towards a concert on Saturday 4th December, entitled “GLORIA! A CELEBRATION OF SINGING TOGETHER AGAIN”, which will include four contrasting settings of “Gloria”.

New members will be very welcome. If you enjoy singing, please do consider joining us. There is no audition, and you would be joining us as we all get back into singing after a lengthy break. Please contact our Chairman, or another committee member, to let us know you are coming, so that we can greet you.

Message to members from our Chairman, John Turner

We’re looking forward to meeting and singing together again. Thank you for your loyalty to PCS through the difficult period when we could not meet to sing together. Now we will need to build our skills as individuals and as we do, build PCS as a choir. It will be an exciting time and every singer is needed. We have about 40 singers, well balanced between the voices, attending on September 9th and more will join us in subsequent weeks.

We want you to enjoy singing together again, but we want you to be safe. The levels of Covid 19 infection in our communities are quite high and we must remember that some of our singers are particularly vulnerable or are caring for others who are vulnerable to Covid 19. Your Committee recommends observing safety precautions:

• Please avoid coming to rehearsals if you have developed a cough or cold, but let us know you are unwell
• Use the hand sanitizer when you arrive at the church
• Please wear a clean mask at rehearsal. (see below)
• Observe social distancing. Please leave a chair empty between you and the next singer. We will mark chairs to be left unoccupied.
• If you can, please take a Lateral Flow test at home on Thursday before the rehearsal. Kits are available free from Pharmacists, or from the government website, https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests
• Please register your attendance with your Voice Rep

Regarding masks, we are aware that some singers are unhappy with the idea of wearing masks while singing. We sympathise. Members of the Committee have tried singing, particularly while using the surgical type of mask and report it is surprisingly easy. We have also been experimenting with spacers. We will have some masks and some spacers available at rehearsals.

If you wish to buy a specially designed “singers” mask, these are available from various sources on the internet.