Promenaders' Musical Charities 2011

[Guest]

As some of you may remeber from previous years, I'm one of the trustees of the Promenaders' Musical Charities trust. This year's charities have just been announced, we will be supporting the Musicians' Benevolent Fund (http://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/, charity no 228089), CLIC Sargent (http://www.clicsargent.org.uk/Home charity no 1107328), Music in Hospitals (http://www.music-in-hospitals.org.uk/ charity no 1051659) and the Cherubim Music Trust (http://www.cherubimtrust.org/ charity no 1088403).

Regular collection updates will be made on our Facebook page http://www.Facebook.com/promenaders.musical.charities and via Twitter, http://twitter.com/prommerscharity, and of course via the traditional shout

[french frank]

And, as ever, best wishes to the rattlers of buckets, donors of cash and totters up of totals

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

D.U. Please keep us informed as the season progresses.

[amateur51]

What a cracking quartet of beneficiary charities, David!

I assume that your donations will be to their general (unrestricted) funds, i.e., without specific stipulation: this makes the donation all the more valuable how they choose to spend the donation is flexible subject to agreement with you, should you wish it.

Bravo Promenaders & Here's To A Rattling Good Year!

[David Underdown]

It varies slightly. With MBF I think the donation is now general, but in the past has usually been used in support of their work with young musicians (at one time there was a specific fund within MBF for this, the name of which presently escapes me). For CLICSargent, and the third and fourth charity which change each year, we normally ask for details of a specific project which they would like funding (this helps when working out how many charities we will be able to support, and in working out the final distribution of the collection). Since the merger between CLIC and Sargent Cancer Care for Children, the donation has usually gone to support music therapy through their centres at the Royal Cornwall Hospital and/or Manchester. This year it's intended that we will support the expansion of the Manchester service to the rest of the north of England. Music in Hospitals have requested that we support their OPUS (Older People United in Song) project, which aims to improve the quality of life of older people receiving healthcare treatment or support (for any kind of illness or disability) through live music intervention. With Cherubim Trust the money will go to buy one or more instruments for loan.

[BBMmk2]

Best of luck DavidUnderdown! Hope you beat last year's total!

[Lee McLernon]

After Prom 4, audiences have donated more than £4,500, for which many thanks!

[bluestateprommer]

total post-Prom 19

From the PMC's Facebook page:

"After Prom 19 you have donated over £16,700."

[David Underdown]

The collection last night after Prom 23 took this year's total through the £20,000 Mark. Thanks all

[Chris Newman]

Well done to everyone concerned.

[David Underdown]

After last night's Prom 33, this year's total is over £30,000

[bluestateprommer]

Nice to see that the total after Prom 73 is £82,400. Will be interesting to hear reports of "audience participation" at The Last Night in the new Peter Maxwell Davies work in honor of the PMC.

[PhilipT]

I'll leave it to David or another trustee to post the final figures one they're in. However, the collection at the Last Night alone was over £3,300 (I can believe it - my bucket had so many notes they jammed the slots and stopped the coins falling through), and it is expected that after foreign exchange and bank reconciliation adjustments ('bank reconciliation' being, I understand, the posh term for 'not counting fake pound coins') the total will come close to £87,000.

I think the dedication of the new Maxwell Davies piece went a little wider than PMC; it was to the Promenaders for their collections for musical charities over many years, and PMC as such was only set up in the last ten years or so, to put the organisation of the collections on a more formal footing when the amounts collected started getting really serious. It was, actually, quite fun to sing, and very easy, because it was basically plainchant, with the note rising between sections. I thought Stephen Jackson did an excellent job of rehearsing us in the limited time he had available.

[David Underdown]

The known figure so far is £85,700

[Brompt1]

Well done all concerned!