Dovercourt Choral Society raised £330 at a packed concert at All Saints Church in Main Road, Dovercourt.
Patrick McCarthy, the choir’s conductor, presented a cheque to Barbara Wells, chairman of the fundraising committee of the Harwich branch of the RNLI. Louis Roskell, choir member, said: “Harwich and Dovercourt are not usually very interested in choral music, but we packed out the church.
“It was all done by collection too, no tickets were sold.”
The choir, which was formed in the 1880s, is planning to perform a charity concert each year to raise money for different causes.
Members are currently rehearsing for their performance at the Harwich Festival, on July 12, where they will sing music from the film the Madness of King George to tie in with the festival’s theme, the Last Night of the Movie Proms.
A leap into the blue yonder !
Philip Elwell, our pianist took such a leap when he took a tandem Skydive on 3rd July at the North London Flying Club, March, Cambridgeshire. This is his "bird's eye report" of the events.
A sense of awe and wonderment envelopes you. You are the airfield, about to fulfil a longstanding ambition. You have attended your training and the instructions have gone through you and you remember them with clockwork accuracy. You have to ! You are about to skydive 10,000 feet ( 4000 metres) into thin air from a plane, it's the ultimate experience, the words stick, "don't release your hands from your harness when you exit the plane until I tap you thee times on theshoulder. If you do so before that you could DIe !
( I'll leave that one to yuor imagination).
Its a fine day with a little cloud, though not over the drop zone, bright and sunny "okay chaps, lets roll with this ! we're going to give it a go".
We're kitted out with a two part suit, the flying suit with leather harness over plus goggles and gloves. The first plane load take off and are soon up through the clouds, maybe it wasn't right but I didn't feel at all nervous. The good lord must have been smiling that day. Out they come from behind the cloud, the distant hum of an engine - it's my turn next !
Into the plane I go, ADRENALIN SURGE ! I thought I was going to burst out of my skin all over Cambridgeshire. "Get them ready we're approaching the drop zone". Wow "Do exactly as I say" my tandem instructor said to me ( who happened to be the one doing the de-briefing) "Head back, Legs back, keep still" he might also have said "chest up". The door was put back and the wind shot in. The moment I had been waiting for had arrived. I had seen it many times on television and this time it was me. I was the second one out. It had been raining beforehand ( they had suspended the jumps ), the atmosphere was great and as I sat on the edge of the plane there was a fair bit of cloud below me. "Ready, go", we're off.
The force of freefall was electrifying as at 120mph for 33 seconds the wind gusted all around me and then the parachute was deployed. Suddenly an awesomely tranquil descent, scarcely less electrifying, materialised. Then legs bent at the knees,hands underneath them, toes to the sky and I had landed. A thousand thanks to my instructor, and the DVD guy who recorded it for posterity.
Well ! I thought not a bad way
to spend an afternoon.