- ‘Fizz and Sing’ Night
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Date Posted: Wed, 6 Jul 2022
Wednesday 6th July saw the Barbs entertaining some new faces for our 'Fizz and Sing' evening.
Our guests were treated to a glass (or two!) of Prosecco (and Schloer) and mingled with our chorus members before being welcomed by our MD Emma who explained how the evening would progress. They listened to a few of our favourite and popular songs before joining us in a few warm ups which included the Waterfall and a few rounds of Mr Miller to help warm up our voices and get our ears listening to each other. Emma explained how four part harmony works before inviting the ladies to select the parts they felt fitted with their vocal range and did an amazing job joining the chorus in learning our new song 'California Dreamin'. The evening ended with more bubbles.Attachment: 
- Entertaining church goers at local Summer Fete
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Date Posted: Sun, 3 Jul 2022
Saturday 2nd July saw a small contingent from the Barbs entertain visitors at a Summer Fete held at St Michael & St Mary Magdalene Church in Easthampstead. The repertoire included some of our favourite songs and was well received by those attending.
If you would like to come and see us performing why not come along to Music by the River in Henley on Saturday 3rd September. More information to come.
Also why not come along to our next social 'Fizz and Sing' event this Wednesday at St Nicolas Church in Earley where you can have a listen to some of our repertoire, learn a new song with us and even enjoy a glass of bubbly. For more information please contact Jo on 07917 205605 or by email thebarberettes@gmail.com
- Ladies of Friends Summer Fete
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Date Posted: Sat, 18 Jun 2022
Amazing if chilly (compared to yesterday!) singout at League of Friends Summer Fete in Tilehurst. Despite the threat of rain and microphones falling over we managed to entertain the audience with our rep and even sang ‘Skyfall’ as an encore. Now to get some new songs under our belt. If you would like to come and see what we get up to on a Wednesday evening then why not come along to our 'Fizz and Sing' social and join us in learning a new song and even a glass of Prosecco. Contact Jo Poulter on 07917 205605 or email her at thebarberettes@gmail.com for more information.
- What an amazing night ‘At the Movies’
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Date Posted: Sat, 21 May 2022
Fantastic singout at ‘A Night At The Movies’ as guests of Waltham St Lawrence Silver Band who entertained us with show tunes from Jaws, Harry Potter, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and many many more.
As always it was a pleasure being part of their show and what an amazing way to celebrate returning to the stage after two years away. Hopefully this is the start of many more collaborations with an amazing band that are the amazing Waltham St Lawrence Silver Band.
Well done to 4midable who entertained the audience with ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ and the tune from ‘Mission Impossible’ and Altern8te who sang ‘Moon River’.
Also congrats to four ladies who recently joined us and sang at their very first singout #Joysofentertaining #Returningtothestage
- All Set For A Night At The Movies
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Date Posted: Thu, 19 May 2022
Amazing evening singing through our repertoire for Saturday’s ‘A Night at the Movies’ with Waltham St Lawrence Silver Band. The event will not only feature our amazing group of 26 ladies but also have an octet and a quartet too. #SilverBand #JoysofSinging #ShowTunes
- Xmas in March
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Date Posted: Wed, 2 Mar 2022
After two tough years we finally managed to get together for a social and have a belated Xmas dinner in March - we even had the crackers out - and in true Barbs style even managed to have a bit of a sing!
- Celebrating Christmas
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Date Posted: Sun, 12 Dec 2021
After what felt like an eternity we finally managed to sing in public and ring in Christmas at Bracknell's Lexicon shopping centre. We ended up having to compete with a singing Christmas tree but even that was not enough to dent our spirits. We regaled shoppers with our Christmas repertoire and even managed to put in a few moves and raise some money for the Lexicon's charity.
Unfortunately this was our one and only public event for 2021 but we are hoping that 2022 will give us more opportunities to entertain audiences and do what we love best - SING!
- Welcoming our new members
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Date Posted: Wed, 8 Dec 2021
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The Covid pandemic proved to be a very trying time for the Barberettes. For a group that loved to get together to not only socialise together but also sing having to resort to Zoom wasn't an easy task and unfortunately by the time we finally were able to be back together again physically saw our numbers dimish as the routine of our Wednesday get-togethers became something of the past for some of our members.
We where really pleased with our new home at the lovely St Nicolas Church in Earley and decided to hold a 3-week Learn to Sing course in September where we invited ladies to come and join us and see what we got up to on a Wednesday evening in the hopes that we would get some new members. We were really excited to welcome 15 visitors over these weeks and having shown them just what to expect 5 ladies become fully-fledged members on Wednesday 8th December and even managed to amaze us all by learning 11 songs that formed our Christmas repertoire for 2021 and joined us at our public singing event at Bracknell's Lexicon on Sunday 12th December.
- Celebrating Wendy's 45 years
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Date Posted: Sun, 7 Nov 2021
On Sunday 7th November the Barberettes were honoured to have one our founding members Wendy come back to celebrate receiving her 45th LABBS certificate at an intimate tea party. Being able to host a social event was one of the highlights of 2021 for the Barbs following our last social in May 2020 before we had to close due to the Covid pandemic. Hopefully 2022 will give us plenty of reasons to celebrate our friendships and connections with others.
- Finally back to face to face singing – albeit with a mask!
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Date Posted: Mon, 14 Jun 2021
No one could have foreseen how much life was going to change from March 2020 and the impact Covid would have on all our lives from wearing masks, queueing at supermarkets, working from home instead of going into the office daily, cancelled holidays and not being able to see family and friends for many months. One of the hardest restrictions I found was not being able to sing each week with the Barberettes in person.
Week 1 – Barbs together again since a brief get together in October 2020 So imagine my excitement when the government announced we could meet together in a group of 30 outside. So arrangements were made to meet in a local park on our usual rehearsal night, unfortunately the weather in May had different ideas so we had to postpone that evening and resume back to meeting on zoom.
For our first week back together the weather was much kinder, well at least it was dry but still cold so there we were gathered together, socially distanced sitting on our own chairs with coats on in the middle of a local park. All I can say is that the youngsters on the skate park must have wondered who were these ‘strange’ ladies who put masks on their faces and then started to sing. We were all very tentative on how this was going to work when we had not seen each other in person in some instances for over a year. It was great to see chorus members had suddenly grown their legs back after just seeing their heads for the last 12 months on zoom !!
Week 2 The 2nd week felt much better not only as the weather was much warmer but you could feel friendships were beginning to resume where they had left off in March 2020 and the banter was beginning to return. We sat away from the skate park this week.
Week 3 – more people and a new venue to call home 3rd week – as a chorus we had been looking for a new home to rehearse on a permanent basis so thanks to members of the committee we could now rehearse in the gardens of a local church. To be honest this was such a relief as we had now the use of a toilet. The previous 2 weeks sitting in a local park with no toilets did give some us training in bladder control !! Again we brought our own chairs, sat socially apart and with singing masks at the ready you could feel we all felt so much more relaxed than singing in the park.
Week 4 – ladies back to chit chatting and singing together 4th week – back at the local church which is now going to be our new permanent home with the sun shining – the Barberettes were back with a renewed positivity as we begin to rebuild after the lockdown experience.
5th week – we are expecting some new ladies to come along and join us.
So here’s to the weeks, months ahead as we increase our stamina and vocals and become stronger as a chorus.
