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As a member of several mixed choirs I always wanted to sing with a ladies choir. There wasn't one in my area and so, in February 2008 I decided to start one myself. In the first instance I felt I needed to find a Musical Director willing to take on the challenge. At that time I was Front of House Manager for the Leigh Orpheus Male Voice Choir, and decided to approach their MD David Clark. Unfortunately for me, he felt unable to commit the time, and so I made a list of other Musical Directors I knew to ask. Before I had time to instigate this, the following week David Clark approached me and asked if I was serious about the whole thing. I was, therefore he said if I could get together about 40 ladies he would agree to be the MD. Mo Coles, who at that time was Assistant Treasurer for the LOMVC, heard this conversation and later offered his support to me by supplying, designing and printing all flyers, posters, tickets and programmes free of charge. My partner, Colin Ivory, offered a generous interest free loan to cover all the start-up costs of hall hire, music, publicity etc. He also offered to take on the position of Music Librarian. His belief in what I was hoping to achieve was invaluable. I knew I needed further support and so I 'phoned my friend Pauline Sear to ask if she would be interested in helping me to realise my dream. In her own words:- 'On a particular, never to be forgotten Sunday morning, and just as I was about to play my Carpenters CD, the phone rang. It was Lynne. "How do you feel about helping me to start a ladies choir?" she said. Well, the CD never did get played! Her excitement was infectious, and with the adrenaline flowing I responded "Yes" immediately'.
At this time my partner Colin Ivory was Chairman of the LOMVC and he asked the Male Voice Choir members to ask their wives if they would be interested in joining a new ladies choir. The wives response was immediate and in three weeks 30 wives registered with me via their husbands at their Friday night rehearsals. I then formed a steering committee, which originally comprised of myself, Pauline, David Clark, Sheila Taylor, David Blackmore, Erica White and my daughter Vanessa. From that group many decisions were able to be made and acted upon. We were later assisted by other volunteers which made us a very solid group. There later ensued many dedicated hours by David Blackmore, Mo Coles, Pauline and myself of pushing hundreds of recruitment leaflets through all manner of letter boxes in the area, and asking local shopkeepers and libraries to display our posters. David Blackmore arranged for myself and Pauline to be interviewed twice on BBC Essex. This all resulted in many telephone enquiries to Pauline and myself, and more ladies were joining our ever growing list. At this time, Colin and I had many fun discussions at home to choose a suitable name for the choir. Eventually we decided that as the first 30 ladies were recruited from the LOMVC wives, we would call it 'The Orpheus Singers' much to the amusement of John Taylor, husband of our original Membership Secretary Sheila Taylor. He joked "that sounds like 'The Awful Singers'! I know he wouldn't say that now! After asking around I was able to secure the Hadleigh Methodist Church as our rehearsal venue, which David Clark was quite pleased with. Janet Walker agreed to be our accompanist, which was wonderful news because as a pianist she is in great demand. Both David Clark and Janet kindly offered their services free of charge for the first year which was another great boost. Several sleepless weeks later, having been fortified by gallons of coffee, cakes and extended lunch hours, we arrived at Tuesday 29th April 2008, our very first rehearsal evening. We had so many mixed feelings abounding at that time. Excitement, joyful anticipation, worry (would it really work?). Everything was organised and in its place to register the ladies as they came in. What joy, when by 7:30pm, we had registered not 40 but nearly 90 eager ladies who had streamed through the church doors. They were greeted by us all, and a positively beaming Musical Director and Accompanist. We achieved all of this in just ten enormously exciting weeks. The Choir continues to thrive, both in numbers and friendship, confirming my original belief that there was a need for a ladies choir in the area. Lynne Ewins (Hon. President)
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Hearing of Pauline’s readiness to help, her partner, David Blackmore, offered to be Choir Treasurer, another heartening offer which was gratefully accepted.