Introducing... The Sing Happy Mail-out
/Welcome to the first blog post linked to the all new Sing Happy Mail-out!
These monthly mail-outs are about singing, wellbeing, and what’s happening in the world of group singing. You can submit your news to be featured, and discover tips and tricks for running singing groups and choirs!
Have a look through some of our other blog posts to read about a wide range of topics that might interest you!
New Year, New Community
2020 proved beyond all doubt the value of community. From supporting our neighbours to setting up online community activities, we all relied on the warmth, generosity and connection of others to get us through what was an extremely challenging year. As we stride into 2021, we have been musing on what it really means to be part of something, even when we can’t be together.
For the two of us, living in a big city like London, much of our community spirit is mustered from our network of singers. Members of our community choirs and projects span across the city and beyond, but we all stick together through our shared love of singing. Belonging to this community has proven to be good for our mental health and happiness, time after time. The Starling Arts community gives others support, company and removes a sense of loneliness that many of us feel at some point in our lives.
Even though we’re remote, we’ve stayed together thanks to the internet (however many times we’ve cursed it in the past few months!), and one unexpected benefit to moving our groups online has been an even larger reach, allowing us to work with community groups across the world and also engage with past choir members now living across the UK and abroad. With many more people living in some form of isolation from each other, we are very aware that our Starling Arts community has been more important than ever to our members, especially those not able to work or live with friends or family.
From nine months of singing with communities online, we’ve learnt that the most important gift we can bring is the power of connection. We cultivate this through games, singing exercises and a good dose of humour. More on our approaches, including ideas for warm ups and short songs, can be found on the monthly Sing Happy Mail-out. We feel like we have deepened our understanding of what we do and why we do it. We don’t just run singing groups; we bring people together. Singing just happens to be the tool (and one we dearly love).
Knowing that our experience has been familiar to many others, we also began to reach out to other choir and singing leaders from around the world. From one Zoom meeting, we began to form a community of choir leaders with a common desire to continue group singing, even during the hardest times of the pandemic. This shared interest in singing allowed a supportive environment to develop our practice, where we could share experiences, exchange ideas and ‘belong’ to a group ourselves. And from that meeting, Sing Happy was born…
The Sing Happy Mail-out and Blog Posts
The monthly Sing Happy Mail-out and blog post is a way to maintain this extended community into 2021 and beyond, and help us grow to support one other as we enter a new year with new challenges. The posts will talk about things we’re all experiencing as choir and singing leaders, offering new tips and tricks, with an accompanying newsletter to keep us up to date with what’s happening in the singing world and how we can support other members within the community.
We all know how good singing is for us, so we’re excited to create a community that celebrates that!
Anna and Emily, co-directors of Starling Arts
Want to share your news? Fill in this form to be included in the February newsletter!
If you’re not already a member, we recommend joining the Choir Leaders’ Network on Facebook.
