Christmas Carol Concert 2016 – The Citadel

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It was off to The Citadel in town tonight hosted by Kettering’s Salvation Army, for our annual Carol Concert. As usual, we picked up Lee and parked in Sainsbury’s car-park.

On arrival, it seemed much busier this year, but we were still able to bag our normal seating. David and Valerie were singing in the choir and it was our first opportunity to give the lungs a workout during the communal pieces. Jo, Janet and Helen were also there, and I spotted some familiar faces from previous Concerts and the Computer Class – Joan, Derek and Lydia.

Whether you go to these events for their superb brass-band, the Nativity scene, to get in out of the cold.. or for ‘the Message’, there is always something for everyone. The Band, as punched well above its weight as did the adult choir. The youth choir also sounded fab and the Nativity scene with its ‘Sprog voice-overs’ made us all laugh – if only for the varying style of vocal delivery!

New this year, was a rather enthusiastic tambourine troupe (who reappeared later to support the Band) – it wasn’t really my cup of tea, but you can’t knock their sheer enthusiasm! Boy, did those tambourines get a bashing – literally!

Also new was the dancing snowflakes being projected on the back wall from err, a projector, as well as coloured shapes on the ceiling – nice! It all contributed to give a very Christmassy feel to the venue.

This was the third Concert today and we learned that they’d collected in excess of £1800 this year (which, from memory, was around 50% more than last year). The SA was supporting the Northamptonshire Air Ambulance Service who, from the short talk by one of their volunteers, I learned that ALL of their costs have to be covered by voluntary donations as they don’t receive ANY Government aid at all! – that doesn’t seem right! Apparently, it costs around £1700 every time the chopper takes-off… and it does that three times A DAY!

An hour-and-a-half later, it was all over – and it felt like it had been the best one for a few years (but I’m sure I say that every year!) although this year did feel more varied.

We dropped Lee back at hers, spent some time nattering, before heading home for spot of The Crown courtesy of Netflix.

 

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