What a Session is Like
Fun, Free and Easy
It isn’t necessary to have any experience of singing or reading music to join in with our sessions. They are fun, free, non-obligatory and created to be enjoyable and beneficial for all who attend.
Face-to-face meetings
1.5 hours
When you arrive at one of our centres you are always welcomed with a personal greeting and a smile. We know the importance of making people feel right at home from the start and we pride ourselves on making that count.
Once everyone has taken their seats, our sessions take the form of some general chat, distribution of songbooks and introductions for any new attendees. We then have a brief physical (seated or standing), and vocal warm up led by one of our experienced singers.
Musical Accompaniment
Our pianist Steve is also on hand to provide background music.
If Steve is unavailable for that week, we have musical accompaniment in the form of a pre-recorded track.
Throughout the 1.5/2 hour session we sing familiar songs in order to evoke verbal and emotional memories. We also sing some newer songs to help challenge and extend skills.
Fun Socialising
Approximately halfway through our session we have a short break for refreshments. This provides an opportunity to socialise, discuss experiences and thus provide support to carers as well as the ‘cared for.’
Throughout the year we often have themed sessions too such as VE Day, Easter, Christmas etc and we can’t forget our optional Christmas lunch!
Online
1 hour
Covid wasn’t going to stop us from meeting up weekly and having a good old chat and sing. Therefore, when we were stopped from meeting at our usual centres, we took our sessions online. We use a secure link and carry out the programme in a very similar way to our face-to-face sessions except it is slightly shorter in length. However, each fortnight we also run a small quiz with the questions all related to the songs that we are singing for that day.
We send out the link and the songs that we will be singing that week prior to the Monday session.
We intend to keep the online sessions going even when we are able to return to face-to-face meetings.