Who are we and what do we do?

Please click on the links below to find out more about:

§         Who we are

§         What we do

§         Where we meet

§         Our charitable status, and how we are organized

§         Our committee members

§         Our subscriptions

§         Our annual reports and accounts.

Who we are

The members of the Queens Park Singers mostly live near Queens Park in North West London, but we do also have some friends from further afield. The musical director and conductor is Peter Burtt Jones. In 2009 he succeeded David Till, our founder director. Both of them have been singing and conducting for many years….

The principal raison d'etre is to provide the opportunity for local people to join together to make music without the need to go further afield. Since we often have a string orchestra taking part in our concerts, we provide this opportunity both for singers and for string players. There is also a junior choir, Queens Park Junior Singers: this is intended to go some way towards filling the gap left by the current lamentable state of music in schools, and also to ensure that there will be a new generation of singers to join the adult choir.

What we do

We have held workshops -- called Singings in the early days -- presented concerts and taken part in church services at the church where we usually rehearse  - follow the links to see details of music we have performed. You will find that our repertoire is almost entirely from the classical choral tradition, from the 12th century to our own times, with occasional excursions into folk song and songs from the shows. No world music or tangos yet!

Where we meet

We have almost always rehearsed and presented concerts at the church of St Anne and St Andrew, 125 Salusbury Road, NW6 (location map here). The church is part of a new Inter-faith centre, built in 1997 (website here); the whole building has a very welcoming and friendly atmosphere and has all the facilities needed, including disabled access. The church itself has excellent acoustics for rehearsal purposes, and makes an ideal, albeit quite small, venue for concerts.

Status, affiliation and constitution

The choir is a member of Making Music (the National Federation of Music Societies) and is also a Registered Charity (1094265). Please see our entries on the websites run by the Charity Commission and by Guidestar. We have a proper constitution (slightly amended at the AGM on 11th October 2009).

Our committee officers (elected at the AGM on 11th October 2009):

Chair*

Monica Healy

chair@queensparksingers.org.uk

Musical Director*

Peter Burtt-Jones

director@queensparksingers.org.uk

Secretary*

Marion Paul 

secretary@queensparksingers.org.uk

Membership Secretary

Mark Hine

membership@queensparksingers.org.uk

Treasurer*

Simon Judge

money@queensparksingers.org.uk

Publicity

Glyn Jones

publicity@queensparksingers.org.uk

Librarian

Liz Till

librarian@queensparksingers.org.uk

Committee member

David Till

david@queensparksingers.org.uk

Committee member

Jay Banmuller

jay@queensparksingers.org.uk

 

* Office-holders specified in the constitution

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Subscriptions

The society funds its activities from subscriptions paid by members (contact the Treasurer for details - a full subscription for a year is £50, which covers all the concerts and workshops that we do, but reduced subscriptions are available for those on benefits and for those who do not want to sing in every concert).  You can download a Gift Aid form here and a Standing Order form here.

We usually donate a proportion of our ticket sales to other charities, predominantly St Luke's Hospice in Kenton (see their website here) and the St Anne’s project for young mothers in Capetown, South Africa (website here). For the last few years we have also been raising money for a new piano for St Anne’s and St Andrew’s church.

Annual Reports

Our latest annual report, covering the year to 31 March 2009, is available here.

For previous years (and for technical reasons) the annual reports are available in two PDF files – for the report (words) and the accounts (numbers). The page numbers show you how they fit together.

 

1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009

Report and accounts

 

 

1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008

Report and accounts

Minutes of 2008 AGM

 

1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007

Report and accounts

Minutes of 2007 AGM

 

1 May 2005 to 31 March 2006

Report

Accounts

Minutes of 2006 AGM

 

1 April 2004 to 30 April 2005

Report

Accounts

Minutes of 2005 AGM

 

1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004

Report

Accounts

 

 

1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003

Report

Accounts

 

Links to other websites

You can find us on the Brent BRAIN website here, on concert-diary.com and also on choirs.org.uk.

Last updated: November 24, 2009.