What we did in 2024
The Greenwood year began in traditional fashion with the Plough Sunday service at Aslackby – the church full as always with locals for whom as for us this has obviously become a happy fixture in the calendar.
A gallery musician's MS book begun in 1821 and containing the titles and parts of several pieces in our repertoire, and instruments associated with it, were discovered in Horncastle Town Archive: these have been photographed and the result can be seen on our 'Show & Tell' table.
A quartet, or it might have been a quintet, of Greenwoods flew the flag for Lincolnshire at the Mid-
Shires Quires Day in April – always such a happy day's singing / playing.
In May we had a presence, albeit a small one, at the WGMA Singing Weekend and AGM, an event well worth travelling for (and Warwick wasn't really all that far away).
In July we ventured as a body as far as Fishtoft where we gave a programme entitled 'Salt of the Earth' for an audience smaller than anticipated because of the frightful weather: still, it was good to be able to sing for folk to whom West Gallery music may have been quite new (and perhaps they will ask us back some time in better weather).
Violinist Steve, a keen walker, encountered on his travels through Rutland a case of West Gallery instruments in Ridlington church, and has since investigated their history, publishing the results both in 'West Gallery' and on the Greenwood website.
In August we were greatly saddened to lose our friend and founder Pete Shaw, who had done so much both to bring the Quire into being and to maintain its enthusiasm thereafter, bringing the light of West Gallery into darkest Lincolnshire.
September brought us a return visit to the Bourne Methodists with a harvest-themed programme, 'Field and Fen and Rambling Rectors'. This was our last outing with Brian as conductor as, a busy man with many commitments, he felt he had to leave the quire at the end of the year. Fortunately we have been able and very happy to welcome back our previous conductor, Vaughan, though only, alas, for a limited time: meanwhile , we search for a longer-term incumbent.
October took three of us over to Shropshire to join the John Moore Quire for their annual Singing Day – again, always a good one and worth the trek.
Perhaps the high point of the year was the news that St James, Aslackby had been chosen as the National Churches Trust's 'Church of the Year' for 2024, just recognition of all the hard (and I do mean hard) work Chris and Denise and others put in constantly to keep the church warm and welcoming and at the heart of the community.
The last event of the Greenwood year came in December when we turned out in costume for the Carol Cafe, to sing for, among others, sufferers and carers from the local Dementia Support group. A cheering and seasonally appropriate way to end the Quire's year.
This is but a reasonably bare outline of the Quire's year. If you would like more flesh on the bones, please join the West Gallery Music Association, and thus receive the quarterly Newsletter 'West Gallery' – a whole new world awaits.
Julia Jacobs