Success! Thank you again to everyone who supported the Director’s Challenge. Paul and I are grateful for all the donations. Our 96 miles for 96 years of the RSCM bike ride reached a highly appropriate 96% of our target (but we welcome any final contributions). I would also like to thank all those of you affected by the recent faulty communications from Go Cardless, our direct debit provider, for your understanding. We are in conversation with them to ensure we are not affected by their communications errors again. 

In the meantime, it’s entering the season of RSCM UK’s summer courses. Our MYC is in Newcastle and Durham this week, and I look forward to visiting them on Friday. Read on for more updates of other activity and ways to get involved.  

I shall shortly be heading off on my summer holiday. It may or may not involve cycling!

Hugh Morris 

Exciting changes are coming in the way the RSCM will be operating locally. We’re hugely grateful to our Area Teams for all the work they have done to organize local events in support of RSCM’s mission over many years. As part of the changes that are coming, we are now making it possible for anyone to contact us if they’d like to put on an event to raise awareness of the great benefits of RSCM membership, or in support of the work of the RSCM, or – even better – both!  

We’re putting the finishing touches to processes that will make this as simple and supportive as possible and we’ll be sharing those with you at the end of August, ready to go live from the beginning of 2024. In the meantime, why not start thinking about what you could do locally to make sure as many people as possible know about and benefit from all the great things the RSCM can do for them? Let’s spread the word together! 

The RSCM will be holding its annual Celebration Day event in Chester Cathedral this year. Building on the usual Chester Area festival, we hope to welcome singers from across the region to form a massed choir for this special service of evensong. This is a fantastic opportunity to sing under the direction of Tansy Castledine, director of music at Peterborough Cathedral and trustee of the RSCM, and to be accompanied by Chester Cathedral’s own director of music, Philip Rushforth.

The music will include the Dresden responses by John Sanders, the King’s College Service by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange and the Te Deum in B flat by Stanford. The service will also include the presentation of this year’s RSCM Honorary Awards. 

For more information and to book, click the button below. All will be welcome in the congregation for this special service, which will start at 5pm. If you are not near Chester, you can tune in to the live stream via the cathedral’s website. 

Tickets are now available for the 2023 Bath Course concert: Sing Hallelujah! Join more than 90 young singers taking part in this year’s course at Christ Church, Bath on Saturday 26 August for an evening of choral highlights from across the ages and around the world. The programme includes music by Vierne, Brahms, Bob Chilcott, Joanna Forbes L’Estrange and an exciting new commission from composer Jack Oades, with thanks to support from the Prayer Book Society.  

For more information and booking, please click the button below.

RSCM International Chorister Day is a chance to celebrate the many and varied ways of being a chorister, and the transformative impact it can have on young people’s lives. Have a look at the webpage International Chorister Day to think about how you could engage with it, and please do send us your stories. We’d love to add them to the page.

The collegiate church of St Mary, Warwick are hosting the 2023 Once a Chorister annual festival between 15 and 17 September. There is an open invitation to join them. Sign up by clicking the button below.

Do you enjoy setting puzzles? If so, we need your help! You don’t have to be a social media user yourself, but we’re looking for volunteers to assist us in setting up a new ‘church of the day’ social media feature we will be starting later in the year, which will highlight some of our thousands of member churches. We will provide everything you need; you just need to supply curiosity. Please email [email protected] if you would like to join the team.