Blog

We had the most glorious day of singing with our guests, Chaps Choir and their leader Dominic Stichbury, from London on this World Singing Day 2026. The sun shone and showed the Lakes off in all its beauty.

We busked, we visited Growing Well, our beloved charity of choice for this event, we made a gorgeous sound singing The Book Of Love and a uplifting Sami inspired joik in our harmony workshop in the afternoon with over 90 singers and we performed to a full house in the Brewery Theatre in the evening. The liquid refreshment of 98 Highgate afterwards was so very, very welcome!

Thank you to all who came and supported us – the audience was in particularly full cheery mode – we loved it all!

Thanks so much to Rachel, singer Jill Airey’s daughter, who very kindly offered to take some professional photographs for us on the night. Here is a selection – aren’t they just wonderful –  many thanks Rachel!

Oh my goodness. 9 of us from The Growing Singers turned up for a full day of work at Growing Well today and LOVED it.

We picked and packed (beans, tomatoes, kale, cavolo nero and more) and harvested and dried (lots of onions) and weeded and weeded and weeded (mostly leeks). Loads of happy times!

We were joined by Julie and Jill from H&H Land&Estates and loads of regular community volunteers. It’s such a lovely place to volunteer. What a team they are!

Vegetable joke of the day at the 11 o clock meeting:
Which is the best travelled of all vegetables?
Wait for it . . . . . . . . .
Abroad bean!
(Thanks Jen for this one!)

What an absolutely lovely (hard work!) day we had at Growing Well today!

You may know we support them as a choir with a percentage of the fee income for the choir going directly to Growing Well every month but we also join in with their Field Friday community volunteers now and then. Today, a small group of us were there doing ALL SORTS of different job. Look at that list of jobs ticked off at the end of the day! So satisfying.

Needless to say, the 3 of us did NOT do all those. A delightful crew of regular Friday volunteers were there too. It’s a fab volunteering role – if you’re interested contact Growing Well directly.

Thanks for hosting us today Growing Well and we’ll be back next month!

This time last year we started a trial month of drop in Chorus Sessions to see if there was an appetite for our style of singing in the day time in the gorgeous Victoria Hall, Grange-over-Sands. Very happily, it turned out there was and we began regularly sessions in September. I wonder if we can be like the King or Queen and have two birthdays – one in July, one in September??

Wonderful Julie bought along a cake, along with a number 1 candle and we ended the session with a jolly rendition of Happy Birthday.

Many thanks to all the marvellous regulars and visiting singers of Grange Chorus – we are delighted to be building community and connections through our singing with lots of laughter along the way!

Oh my word – we were delighted to be given these gorgeous flowers and two very pertinent tea towels at the last session of The Growing Singers.

The tea towels, for anyone who can’t quite make them out, are the words to Bread and Roses – a favourite newish song for us and a quote from John Ball in an old favourite baster of a song – Sing John Ball.

Thank you so much everyone for these thoughtful gifts.

We so love singing with you all, building our community and confidence together. When we hear things like “Tuesday nights are the highlight of my week!” it fills us with pride and thankfulness for such a supportive and amazing group of people.

x x

We enjoyed a Growing Singers’ session with a difference on Tuesday evening, the last before our Easter break.

The call out for performers to intersperse with choir songs during the evening was greeted with a wonderful 6 volunteers. We were treated to great solos and a duet, along with highly entertaining poems. We also tested all our memory banks with singing through a whole host of songs – from our most recent numbers to ones we have sung for a good while.

Thanks so much to everyone who was able to be with us for a brilliant evening of much laughter and a celebration of such talent!

Happy Easter and see you all again in a few weeks.

Liz, Jeanette and Etain, wonderful Tuesday Dawn Chorus singers, organised a Christmas meal at Comida in December. It was a splendid way to spend a few hours after our usual singing session. We turned the tables and had an extensive tapas selection followed by delicious churros and chocolate sauce! Thank you so much to the amazing staff team at Comida, who always make us feel very welcome.

During the summer, members of The Growing Singers had a brilliant couple of visits to Growing Well and see for themselves how their donations are being put to excellent use and to volunteer their services. Most Fridays Growing Well welcomes community volunteers to crack on with the weekly list of varied jobs that need doing. We picked lots of French beans, weeded the kale patch, pinched out tomato plants and planted seedlings among other jobs too. What a pleasure it was to spend time there, chatting and getting to know each other better as we worked away.

Over the Summer The Growing Singers were delighted to sing in Grange-over-Sands as part of their special Bandstand concert series. We entertained the gathered crowd basking in the glorious sunshine and, together with Kendal’s Flutes & Co, raised a wonderful £201.00 for Growing Well, the local charity based at Low Sizergh Farm, Kendal. Growing Well have helped hundreds  of people recover from mental health challenges, with their unique approach to recovery through supported activity in the outdoors, within a real-world horticulture enterprise, supported and guided by experienced therapeutic growers and mental health support staff.   Thank you to Jo Knox and others for these photos. We are hoping to do this again next year – would be ideal to be able to book the same weather – we’ll see!