Author Archives: South Downs

FamyShanty – Our New Outreach Project

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Welcome to FamyShanty 🌟

Bringing families closer together through music is the aim of FamyShanty, a new and exciting out-reach project from Southdowns Music Festival.

Funded by a £9300 grant from Awards for All, the project will start on Saturday 26th March (10 to 11.30am) with the initial venue located at the Regis Centre, Bognor Regis.

Monthly sessions will last for around 90 minutes with experienced music tutors leading mainly primary aged children and their parents in learning songs on ukuleles based around well known Sea Shanties.

`Mikes Music` boss, Mike Bosley, one of the Project partners said: “The last few years have been very difficult for families with the Covid Pandemic and other pressures. So FamyShanty is a way of redressing this and offering something that both parents and their children can enjoy, whilst learning new skills and helping improve their overall well-being. We also plan to use IT to make learning resources available on YouTube and other platforms so that participants can continue learning and practising between physical sessions`.

Roger Nash, Chairman of the Southdowns Music Festival said: “We are incredibly grateful to Awards for All for funding this new project, and over the next couple of months, we will be busy contacting local primary schools to make sure they are as on board as much as possible with FamyShanty as well as publicising the project far and wide. Each music session will be free and ukuleles will be provided courtesy of Mikes Music. The aim will be to build up music skills, ability and self-confidence cumulating in a FamyShanty performance at this September`s Southdowns Music Festival, as well as other possible venues.`

All Covid protocols at any moment in time will be adhered to, and numbers will initially be limited to 30 for health and safety reasons plus making participants feel as comfortable as possible.

To find out more or to get involved, just call/text 07751 594285.

Grayshott Folk Club – Niall McNamee & Band

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Sharing a wonderful sounding gig via our friends at Grayshott Folk Club.

Niall McNamee & Band
Friday 28th January 2022 at 7.30pm
Grayshott Village Hall, Headley Road, Grayshott, Near Hindhead, Surry, GU26 6TZ.

From the press release:
We believe we’ve unearthed another hidden treasure for you all and we are delighted to welcome Niall McNamee for his first visit to Grayshott Village Hall.
We saw Niall play his own set with his band on the River Stage at The Isle of Wight Festival in September 2021 and Imelda May sang guest vocals on one of his songs.
Niall then went and performed on the Main Stage with Imelda May.
Niall McNamee live at the Isle of Wight Festival with Imelda May, 30th September 2021
Niall McNamee

Just before Christmas 2021, Niall was then invited to join Sir Rod Stewart and Imelda May at the Nordoff Robbins Carol Concert in London.

Niall’s latest single, All I Need has just been picked up by East Midlands BBC Music Introducing.
You can hear the whole thing here:
All I Need

and my favourite song of his is When She Goes:
When She Goes

I firmly believe that Niall is going places and one of his next stops is Grayshott Folk Club.

In future years you will be able to tell people you first saw him at Grayshott Village Hall… but only if you get your tickets for our show NOW.

Tickets available direct from us on the number below, or in person from Grayshott Post Office.

See you there!
Des O’Byrne
Grayshott Folk Club

01428 607096
grayshottfolkclub@btinternet.com
Grayshott Folk Club

FamyShanty Grant From Awards for All – The National Lottery

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Thank you National Lottery!

We recently received a note from The National Lottery Awards For All:

“We’re really happy to tell you we will be funding your project following your application for National Lottery Awards for All. And we want to give `FamyShanty` £9300 to help your community thrive.”

FamyShanty is a new and exciting out-reach project closely linked to the 2022 Southdowns Folk Festival which aims to bring local families closer together and help improve mental well-being through the medium of acoustic music and the growingly popular genre of Shanty singing.

It is a well documented fact that the Covid Pandemic has put a lot of pressure on families and has had an increasingly negative impact on mental health. The fact that the Pandemic has gone on longer than thought, has only made this situation worse, and younger people of school age have in many ways been impacted the worst. Therefore, with the help of a range of partners, plus a local music shop who will provide hire instruments at significantly reduced cost plus tutoring input, ‘FamyShanty’ aims to provide a platform for children and their parents to work together using different instruments and singing styles loosely based around Shanty and ‘Songs from the Sea’.

The project will be located in a local primary school plus other appropriate and accessible venues and will run every month between February and October 2022 and will be an integral part of the Southdowns Music Festival to include key performances and workshops at different festival venues around Bognor Regis. There will also be Zoom and other online sessions the extent of which will depend on how the pandemic changes and alters.

Our project partners will play the leading part in publicising it plus recruiting appropriate participants from amongst the ‘harder to reach’ and more ‘vulnerable’ members of the local community. It is envisaged that each monthly session will have a maximum of 30 people so as to provide closer learning support, as well as a safer Covid environment in which all safety protocols will be followed.

If you’d like to be involved, please contact rnash10@hotmail.com for more details.

Ukulele Sessions

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Learn to play the ukulele, or brush up on your skills – come join our Ukulele Sessions!

Following the success of our December ‘Making Your Mark’, our ukulele sessions return for 2022 on Wednesday 19th January.

Funded by the Sussex Community Foundation, Making Your Mark aims to combat social isolation and promote positive mental health by helping people to learn or brush up on their ukulele skills.

Our popular Making Your Mark returns Wednesday 19th January, between 10am and 12 noon in the Waverley Function Room on West Bognor Regis Seafront. Free car parking is very near by.

Making Your Mark is one of the reach-out projects of the Southdowns Music Festival.
For just £1, you can get all the tea and coffee you want! If you don’t own a ukulele, don’t worry as there will be some there for you to try and buy if you want to, and when the session is finished, you’ll be very welcome to stay on for the regular `Waverley Ukulele Jam` at the same venue between 1pm and 3pm.

Keep in touch by joining our mailing list: Southdowns Music Festival

Ukulele Sessions

Grayshott Folk Club

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Our friends at the Grayshott Folk Club have some wonderful shows in the pipeline.

On Saturday 18th December, for example, they have a Christmas Special with Melrose Quartet.

They say ~
After another year of upheaval and uncertainty, what we all need is an opportunity to sit back, relax and enjoy a proper, old-fashioned, Christmas “do”. Who better to play for us, than Melrose Quartet?

Top Folk musicians Nancy Kerr, James Fagan, Jess Arrowsmith and Richard Arrowsmith will royally entertain us with their very special seasonal show, which they call “A Bright New Year” (I’ll drink to that!). The show will be based upon “The Rudolph Variations”, their full-length album that features a range of joyous seasonal songs, from traditional carols to contemporary wassails.

This will be a fun evening of music and song, dressing up, games with prizes, lots of choruses to join in with, and an award for the most memorable Christmas jumper.

Tickets £18. Available from Des O’Byrne on 01428 607096

Please keep an eye on www.grayshottfolkclub.co.uk for updates.

Free Ukulele Sessions

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A very warm and welcome return for ‘Making Your Mark’.

Funded by the Sussex Community Foundation, Making Your Mark aims to combat social isolation and promote positive mental health by helping people to learn or brush up on their ukulele skills.

Our popular Making Your Mark returns Wednesday 17th November between 10am and 12 noon in a fabulous new venue – the Waverley Function Room – on West Bognor Regis Seafront. Free car parking is very near by.

Making Your Mark is one of the reach-out projects of the Southdowns Folk Festival, soon to be re-branded as the Southdowns Music Festival. Festival Chairman, Roger Nash said: “It`s great that Making Your Mark is starting up again, and November 17th will be the first in a series of regular monthly sessions at the new venue, and for just £1, you can get all the tea and coffee you want! If you haven`t got a ukulele, don`t worry as there will be some there for you to try and buy if you want to, and when the session is finished, you’ll be very welcome to stay on for the regular `Waverley Ukulele Jam` at the same venue between 1pm and 3pm.

Ukulele Lessons

Successful Funding Bid – Thank You Sussex Community Foundation

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With huge thanks to the Sussex Community Foundation, which has awarded the Southdowns Folk Festival a grant of £4000 for future festival projects.

‘Your application to Sussex Community Foundation has now been considered and I am pleased to inform you that your project has been awarded a grant of £4,000 made up of funding from the Frank and Lorna’s Fund and the Inspire Fund at Sussex Community Foundation.’

We will be using the funding to create and manage a Shanty project which we will be launching at the festival this September.

Do check back, as more news will follow soon.

Win Tickets To Ports Fest

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Win tickets to see The Longest Johns at Ports Fest next month.

Click on the original Facebook post (clicking ‘Last Friday’ or ‘See More’ will take you to the correct post) below, for details of how to enter.

This Bristol-based a cappella folk music band were born from a mutual love of traditional folk songs and shanties. Rocking maritime songs alongside more unusual reworkings and less traditional folk tunes, this male four-piece takes harmonies to new heights, whilst retaining just the right mix of quality and hilarity and delighting audiences wherever they go. As the face of the 2021 sea shanty revival with their track Wellerman, the Longest Johns are reaching millions of new fans across the globe.