In the beginning...

Helen...

I write this first post from a very quiet CMM office. Roger, Mary and Sally are away on holiday, Annie is working from home, and Lindsay and Katie aren't working today.

This is my first week working full time for CMM, and I am trying to work out what the most important things are in my long list of work to do! My major piece of work is organising what will be Roger's last big tour, Rock, the story of Simon Peter. He and Alison Fuggle are writing it at the moment, and work seems to be progressing fairly well, or as well as things usually progress this far from a deadline. The tour organisation is going well. Most of the venues for tour 1 and tour 2 are sorted out, and I'm just beginning to look at the third tour, to the South East. It'd be fantastic if we can make this the best tour yet.

I'm also organising and sorting out several events which will take place in Birmingham. The first is a dance day with Sally on September 22nd, then there's 'The Inn Crowd' in a day, on September 29th. I hope that over 100 people will come to that one. The other two are a bit further away - a day of singing workshops with Katie (from the office) and Penny (conductor of the CMM choir) on November 10th and a concert with Marilyn Baker on January 25th. Still got a bit of time for them.

I'm also hoping to reinitiate my schools work. Last Autumn I worked with a primary school just down the road from here, teaching the musical Away in a Manger for their Christmas concert. Each class took a different song, and then there were some which the whole school sang. The final performances went really well. Now there's 'The Inn Crowd' resource too, I hope to be able to work with a couple of schools this year.

Photos: top left: Mary, Annie, Lindsay, Roger and Helen at the CMM Christmas dinner 2006

bottom right: Lindsay, Katie and Mary sporting silly hats, Christmas dinner 2006