Since March 2020, due to pandemic restrictions and keeping everyone safe, our choir has been unable to sing together at Meet Me at The Albany.

Meet Me, a creative alternative to day-care, is a lifeline for isolated older people from our community, so we were determined to find a way to continue the important connections between people, and the creative flow, during this difficult time.

Many of our Meet Me people do not have access to Zoom technology at home, so we have found an alternative way to keep in touch – through group phone calls. People can join in from  a landline, from their mobile or via a computer.

Each week , creative ‘clusters’ of 6 to 10 people meet on the phone to sing, make art, knit together, create pieces of performance, or share news and personal stories.

Current technology does not support group singing unfortunately, so our choristers take it in turns to sing solo. Each participant brings a song of their choice to the call, then awaits their turn to sing down the phone while the others listen, encourage, comment and applaud.

One surprising outcome is that people’s confidence in singing solo has started to grow!

You can listen to Grace singing Day O…

and Daisy, singing Under the Boardwalk…

Or Ron singing Strangers in the Night!