Guidelines for Members

Welcome to Llandaff Cathedral Choral Society. We are delighted that you are joining us, and we really hope that you will enjoy being a member of this great and long established choir.

With your help and support, we aim to perform an exciting programme of three high profile concerts each year in Llandaff Cathedral, as well as the annual carol service in December and occasional performances further afield, for example Oxford 2008 and Cambridge 2010. We aspire to the highest standards of performance and to help us continue in this way we ask that you respect the simple code of conduct contained in the following paragraphs please.

Please try to arrive ten minutes before the start of rehearsals and in order to aim for the highest possible standards in performance, please be aware that it is usually necessary to attend a minimum of 70% of rehearsals to sing at the subsequent concert or service. Please tick the attendance register at each rehearsal so that the conductor will know which voices are fully rehearsed, available and ready to sing in the subsequent performance.

In order to make best use of our rehearsal time together it is important that personal conversation is saved for the break. This helps to establish a positive, professional and polite atmosphere from the outset and it helps every member of the choir to hear the conductor's directions without the need for repetition. Please raise your hand if you have any questions or would like a particular phrase to be demonstrated.

Thanks to the excellent work of our librarian we have a very good reputation with music hire libraries. To maintain this reputation and to ensure that we avoid extra charges or fines, please bring a soft black pencil to rehearsals to add the conductor's markings to your score, but make them lightly so that you can erase them after the performance. Please return your scores promptly after the performance as requested by the librarian and not later than the Monday following the concert. Thank you for your help in returning your scores in good order.

Concert dress for gentlemen is dinner jackets with black bow ties, and that for ladies is long black skirts or trousers with red overblouses covering white scoop-necked T-shirts. Please maintain a very quiet atmosphere in Prebendal Way and the St. David Chapel, process as neatly as possible with your music score in your right hand and ensure that any jewellery that you wear is discreet. At the end of the concert it is our normal practice to applaud our soloists at their second bow. Prebendal House will be locked during performances and you may leave your handbags and other personal belongings there quite safely.

It would be very much appreciated if you would pay your subscription for the year by the end of October, however in exceptional circumstances your subscription may be divided into three instalments by personal arrangement with the Hon. Treasurer. If you have made this arrangement the instalments would be due in the current year at the end of October and at the end of February and May in the following year.

It would also be appreciated if you would help to return the chairs to the appropriate classroom following rehearsal in the primary school hall, thank you.

The experience of singing to a sell-out audience is so special that we strive to generate as large an audience as possible. You and every member of the choir can help by selling one or two tickets, perhaps as gifts for friends, by publicising our concerts as widely as possible through friends and family, by placing posters in your workplaces, local public places, libraries and churches etc.

With everyone's help working together we can enjoy the success and excitement of sell-out performances every time, every concert!

Many thanks for your help and support,

Your Committee.

September 2010.