Welcome

Ashington & District
Male Voice Choir

A community choir with a rich tradition

Ashington Vocal - Spring 2025 Edition

Welcome to the fourth edition of Ashington Vocal, the newsletter of Ashington & District Male Voice Choir.

The newsletter, which will normally be produced quarterly, is aimed at keeping the community, patrons and stakeholders better informed about what is going on or will be happening in the Choir. You will automatically receive future editions, unless you opt out.

Each newsletter will also be posted in a sub-section under ‘News’ on the Choir website, https://www.ashingtonmalevoicechoir.org.uk.

Great Support for Charities and Local Communities – Ashington & District Male Voice Choir continue to look forward but reflect with pride on a series of ‘sell-out’ concerts dating back to last October and culminating in an excellent ‘Charity Musical Evening’ on St. Valentine’s Day.

This latest charity event at Newbiggin Sports and Community Hub resulted in the Choir raising £5,270.60 over the last year for local charities. Charities have included ‘Brighter Storeys for All’, ‘Lamplight Project’, ‘RNLI Newbiggin’, ‘Wansbeck Valley Foodbank’ and ‘Younger Lives vs Cancer’, and St. Bartholomew’s Church in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea.

The Choir is also keen to support local communities. We recently performed ‘An Evening with Ashington & District Male Voice Choir’ at Druridge Bay Community Centre in Hadston Village, Northumberland. The receptive audience did not just enjoy a great evening of music but welcomed traditional bingo and a ‘pie and pea supper’.

We Will Always Remember – This year marks the 80th Anniversary of the end of the conflicts in Europe and the Pacific during the Second World War.

Preparations are now well in hand for some great concerts coming up in May and June. On Saturday, 3rd May, Ashington & District Male Voice Choir will be performing in the ‘VE Day Concert’ as part of the Quayside Festival in Blyth. This will be followed on Saturday, 7th June, when the Choir will be off to Cramlington to perform ‘The 80 VEP Concert’ at St. Nicholas Church in the Village.

The Choir hope to return to Woodhorn Museum on Saturday, 14th June to take part in the Miners’ Memorial Service.

You can learn more about these events on the Choir’s website and watch out for our posts on Facebook.

Positive Promotion of the Choir and Our Rich Heritage – Ashington & District Male Voice Choir’s ‘Annual Concert’ promises to be a popular event this year.

The Choir will be returning to an old but popular venue at St. John’s Church in North Seaton, Ashington on Saturday, 17 May. Kath Ireland will be the supporting artist. Anyone who was at the Choir’s Christmas Concert in 2023 at Bedlington will know what a great entertainer she is.

We expect tickets for this event to go quickly. They will be £10 per person. Full details can be found on the Choir website. If you would like to book your tickets, then contact Colin Prow on Tel. No. 01670 815534.

Being a Choir Member can be So Rewarding and has Positive Benefits - Yes, being a member of the Ashington & District Male Voice Choir can be fun, a great and rewarding social experience, developing long-standing friendships. It has also been proven that singing in a choir can have positive health benefits, both mental and physical. The Choir helps to address the issues of social inclusion for male voices and provides a source for camaraderie.

Individual members directly benefit, and any prospective new members who are attracted through our on-going recruitment drive. Members develop their confidence, presentation, self-esteem, stature and teamwork, as well as their musical skills.

You can learn lots more about joining the Choir by visiting the ‘Get Involved’ section on the website. Here you will also find an expanded area with the views of some of our members and why they enjoy being with the Choir. Alternatively, you can give Kevin Lillie a ring on Tel. No. 0783 728 2202 and have a chat.

Your Support is Very Much Appreciated – Ashington & District Male Voice Choir is extremely grateful for the support of the three local Town Councils during 2024 to 2025 – Ashington, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea and West Bedlington.

The Choir has been building its links with key stakeholders during 2024 as it looks for a more sustainable future.

The support from the Town Councils has helped the Choir to raise the profile of your local male voice choir, engage with extended communities, hold events at new venues, further support our on-going help to local charities and provide positive support to our recruitment campaign and member training.

During the year, we have provided various posts about our associated activities on Facebook and our website. You can learn more about the work which the Choir has been delivering from this support in a new dedicated section, ‘Projects’, on the website. We have and will be producing a series of double-sided information sheets on the deliverables from each support project.

We are also delighted to announce that we have just received confirmation of further support grants from Choppington Parish and Cramlington Town Councils.

The grant of £360 from Choppington Parish Council will help the Choir to purchase new sound equipment to support the new singing group, ‘The Ashtones’, at future community engagements.

A grant of £900 from Cramlington Town Council will enable the Choir to extend our community engagement events in the town and support the recruitment of new members. The grant is in addition to the Choir being booked to perform in ‘The 80 VEP Concert’ in Cramlington Village on Saturday, 7th June 2025.

The Ashtones are Becoming a Reality – We mentioned in our last edition the formation of a new singing group within Ashington & District Male Voice Choir.

Members of the new group, ‘The Ashtones’, have been putting in extra hours each week to develop their musical skills to be able to give performances with backing tracks. The group has already established an initial repertoire comprising of some standard Choir numbers and some new popular songs which they hope you will enjoy.

The group is anticipating their first public performance in May.

Not Long until Our Anniversary – They say that ‘time flies’ and that will certainly be the case for Ashington & District Male Voice Choir.

2026 will be a significant year for the Choir as we will be celebrating 110 Years since Our Foundation back in 1916.

We mentioned in our last edition some of our plans to celebrate local heritage during 2026. Two of the songs from the new suite of heritage music about ‘Ashington’ have been written and arranged by Neil Morton, our musical director. Others are under development.

Members of the Choir will start to learn the new material after they have performed their Annual Concert in May.

The new suite of music will be launched at an Anniversary Concert at St. John’s Church in North Seaton, Ashington n Saturday, 21st March 2026. The programme will also include many songs from the Choir’s coal mining repertoire and a selection of Northumbrian and Tyneside folk songs.

The Choir also plans to hold a series of heritage concerts around the region during the year. Dates in May and June 2026 have already been planned for Blyth and Cramlington respectively. Other venues are being considered.

We will be creating a section under the ‘Projects’ theme on the website for this ‘Heritage’ project. Watch out for further updates on this exciting project!

Kevin Lillie

Public Relations and Stakeholder Officer

Ashington & District Male Voice Choir

April 2025

Forthcoming Events

Saturday 3 May 25 2:00 pm
VE Day - Quayside Festival

Provisional (Details to follow)

Venue: Blyth Harbour

More details...

Saturday 17 May 25 7:00 pm
Annual Concert

Details to be confirmed

Venue: St. John's Church, North Seaton