Your Pop-Up Proms Needs YOU (whether you sing or not)

My last blog posting contained a bit of detail for the volunteers wanting to sing and perform. This post is for the volunteers doing the other -equally important- stuff.

As you know, The Pop-Up Proms Project is a smiley happy voluntary thingy which I hope will bring as many positive benefits to the volunteers as it will to our audiences. The project has two main thrusts.

'"THRUST" that's a good word, isn't it? "THRUST"'(-one for the 'Miranda' fans...)

The two THRUSTS are:
1) The giving of free entertainment to elderly people in homes and day centres, and all the attached benefits to those people, such as social interaction, a bit of fun, gentle exercise, and sharing reminiscences.
2) The Audio Archive- collecting and recording the memories evoked by the music.

For those wishing to volunteer but not currently (or ever!) performing, there are various things which need to be done in order to achieve both THRUSTS of the project.

Here's a list. Please do let me know which of these you might feel comfortable doing...

• coming along and not doing a solo performance, but mingling as part of the audience and joining in to help get everyone else going in the joiny-inny bits.
• coming along to chat informally to audience members about the music, and encouraging them to think about memories and associations they may have to these, or any other, songs (ie "Is this a song you've heard before? Is it a favourite of yours? What was the first record you bought? etc).
• occasionally using a small digital audio recording device to record some of the recollections for the archive as you chat- with the permission of the participants, of course... 
• gently hassling people beforehand to donate red, white and blue stuff like bunting, flags or balloons for us to decorate the rooms with for performances.
• helping decorating the rooms before performances- nothing fancy; about ten minutes of putting up a bit of bunting and arranging some chairs.
• photocopying lyrics sheets for the audience.
• pressing 'play' on the CD player.
• mentioning The Pop-Up Proms Project to people when appropriate, to help get us a few more bookings.
• anything else helpful you can think of! 

If these things sound feasible, please let me know. And if at any point you decide you'd like to have a go at performing after all - brilliant!

As always, email me or send an FB message if you have any questions. Or, let's be radical, you could even phone me direct!

'THRUST. Ooh, its gone weird now...'