Tom and the choir performing at Forever Manchester's birthday celebrations
Friday 9th February saw the Rhodes Bank Choir head to the Kimpton Clock Tower Hotel in Manchester city centre to headline the Forever Manchester Birthday Party. Forever Manchester is a charity that raises money to fund and support community activity across Greater Manchester. Over 400 supporters gathered at the Kimpton clock tower to celebrate a year of support for the 1500 local community projects across Greater Manchester over the next 12 months. £100,000 was raised during the evening, a record-breaking amount.
Forever Manchester has supported our charity in multiple projects throughout the years, including cook-a-long, performing arts projects and the setting up of collection and distribution of surplus food. We have formed a good relationship with Terry, who is the community engagement officer for Forever Manchester, who after meeting our service users multiple times, put our name forward as the headline act.
The day started at 10am, when service users gathered at Rhodes Bank to be pampered by the lovely students and staff from Oldham College. They came armed with hair, makeup and barbering students to help our service users get ready for the evening, which us and all service users really enjoyed. Once this was done, it was time for staff and students on placement to prep the activity space and food for a two course meal to be enjoyed at 5pm.
Karl and Adam getting a fresh new trim from Oldham College students
Lasagne with garlic bread followed by Bread and Butter pudding, accompanied by Nosecco, was enjoyed by all, before it was time to get ready into our black shirts, trousers and pink and green ties and neck ties, ready to head for the tram to Manchester. Once we arrived at the venue, we were able to watch the other performers, the Acapolla Choir and the Ward-Mallinson Irish Dance Group, before it was our time to take to the floor. Elliot introduced us and we took our places ready to perform. Throughout the performance of Rule the World by Take That, the audience sang along, waved candles and applauded and once finished we received two massive standing ovations. It was an absolute honour to perform at the party, and we were stopped multiple times on our way out of the event whilst people told us how much they had enjoyed our performance. We have since received multiple views to our Facebook page and messages of support from people who saw us perform.
The choir absolutely loved performing at such a huge event, and we hope to work closely with Forever Manchester again, and thank them greatly for the opportunity. Stay tuned for some lots of pictures and videos of the event over the coming week!