The green bottles return!

Much as we love performing, our primary focus is raising money to give away and we were delighted to see three very worthy causes receive cheques from our MD, Gerry Palmer: Cirencester Opportunity Group, Mindsong and RoboCap.

In the second half the men's enthusiastic performance of Lydia, the Tattooed Lady raised a well-deserved laugh but the highlight for many of this year's December concerts was our closing number, a new arrangement by our accompanist Barrie Cooper. His Bottle Lament, a sideswipe at the familiar counting song Ten Green Bottles has been a hit wherever we have sung it, so we had high hopes of his new Breaking News!, in which Barrie again subjected much loved melodies ranging from Danny Boy to Edelweiss, and the William Tell Overture to Nimrod to the "Bottles" treatment. The audience's foot stomping and clapping which accompanied the familiar Proms Hornpipe told its own story: we had another hit on our hands!

Minchinhampton Church

The title of the concerts came from our rousing opening number, which blew away a few cobwebs, as did our penultimate piece Born in Song. In between them, amongst our new repertoire we spent some time In these delightful pleasant Groves, enjoyed Cole Porter's In the Still of the Night and the ladies told us that He ain't heavy, He's my Brother.

As always, we look forward to giving away money which we've collected at previous concerts and this June's recipients were the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society (to support therapy for sufferers) and two very local good causes: Minchinhampton Surgery Trust and Minchinhampton Rugby Club, who are buying some land for a permanent home.