Wrablers  Rehearsal  29 April 2014 Minutes

CHANGE OF VENUE:
Venue: Linklaters. 1 Silk Street EC2Y 8HQ. Music room in the basement with piano & fan (electric). Very rock 'n roll, and very hot. Fabulous. (Next time it will be Wrablers Undressed.)

Chair - JB
Attendees JB, JL, JP, LS, MS, WT, RM, SE, MM, DD & DC, who turned up due to another fortuitous date confusion with his 'other choir'.
Apols: KM (doing hip-hop)

19:00 - 19:15  Warm Up song: Be Still and Listen -  Louli led this, and once refreshing the parts, we tried a looped beginning. Louli is open to suggestions as to how to 'build' this song. Louli to amend web page with who sings what, JB to add recordings at chosen pitch for peeps to learn from and, perhaps more pertinent for this song as the harmonies are close and clashy, to enable practise singing against other parts at home. 

19:20 - 19:50   Mercy - Sounding much better, and much more fun on second outing. Backing needs to soften up a lot to not drown out the leads or the bass. Robin to update web page with who sings what. 

19:50 - 20:00 - break 

Madrigals sang When I'm Gone - the Cups song - as it's intended to be in the gig. Work in progress.	

20:00 - 20:25	  Sloop John B - Wendy - sounding lovely, with dynamics beginning to happen naturally. Sounded even better when we put our papers down.

20:20 - 20:50   Black is the Colour, including intro - Daniel. Another personnel reshuffle was required for this long-serving song which resulted in it sounding the best yet. Walking around the room singing it put some lilt into the song for the first time ever. Well worth rescuing it - it had been teetering! Daniel to update the page with who sings what please. NB Recordings and music reflecting the introduced rests and the altered Alto solo part are on the website. Black is the Colour is still in Autumn 2013.

20:55 - AOB

1. Finalise gig publicity plan - Juliana explained:
The gig publicity is ready to go out and it was settled that 7 May is the 'release date'. The Mailchimp mailing will go out then. JB will also send the pdf flyer to everyone (please delete the pdf DRAFT version as it has the wrong year on it!) along with a plain text version requested by Seb.

Peeps are urged to add their invitees to the Mailchimp list, or get their friends to do so via our website. This system has many advantages - explained elsewhere - particularly that recipients can unsubscribe themselves, and we can remove people who don't open the email, so keep the list to its real proportions. It's still fine to send out your invitations separately if you wish. (JB will bring a few postcards next rehearsal - forgot to say this. Let me know if you want some).

An RSVP list will be kept on the website (Wendy to set it up) as before to keep track of numbers. Attendance is first come first served. We need to keep an eye on numbers. There was talk of an expected percentage of 'wastage' in RSVPs to bear in mind. At Snow Ball, having been careful with numbers, we ended up with 10 less than the 80 capacity of the Green Man.

Chair's note: 
Some analysis of our gig attendance has been done to address concerns of numbers and fairness of distribution of places in our gigs - eg Songliners vs Other. Here are the main findings and the spread sheet is attached. Happy to explain further on request. JB.

Total Wrabs+Guests in Cellar Bar for Snow Ball:		70		
Total guests expected		72		
Total unexpected guests		2		
Total guests no show		17		
Total guests attended, of which Songliners 20, Others 38		58		
				
Of no shows; Songliners		4		
Of no shows; Other guests		13		
Cellar bar capacity 80 - 12 Wrabs, 68 Guests				

2. Some items of forward planning - Juliana proposed (to a background of audible groaning) that now is the time to fix our Xmas gig, to avert the kerfuffle experienced in finding a date for Be Still & Listen. 
Dates suggested are:
Tue 3 or Tue 9 Dec
or, Fri 12 or Sat 13 Dec.
Positive noises were made about sticking to Tuesday, and it was remarked that the weekend dates are prime Xmas party choices - (hence we should avoid them). A Doodle to be set up to take this issue forward a bit. Wendy to set it up.

Everyone encouraged to find a new venue. Start now!

21:15 	Wrablers left the building, and ended up in the weird Barbican for well earned drinks and snacks. It was decided there that we need to find a good pub near to our new rehearsal venue, please Duncan and Daniel can you advise?

Next Rehearsal Tue 6 May Seb to chair

Songs on the Schedule: Be Still & Listen, True Colours & Mercy, & Seb's choice in consultation with repertoire gang. NB: Son of a …Preacher NOT happening for now.