St Mary the Virgin is a large and ancient building with a rich history. The parish church of Shipton almost certainly started life as an Anglo-Saxon minster and the church is first mentioned in documents dating back to 1115. The present church is mainly early 13th century and the tower, spire and door are thought to have been started around 1200. Given the ancient status of this beautiful church, we were really pleased to support the fundraising efforts for a new heating system. Our contact, Rev. Canon Sarah Sharp, is a great organiser and fundraiser – skills that we discovered when Sarah was vicar of St John’s Bodicote. Last Saturday was just as I’d imagined it would be: lots of people came and their ticket included an interval drink. As ever, Sarah our thoughtful host, provided us with refreshments while we setting-up and in the interval. Given that we were ‘competing’ with the new series of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on TV, we were so pleased that a good-sized audience came and sang beautifully with us throughout.

We have experimented with narrative and visual material in the past and last Saturday, we trialled a new concert format: ‘Roots of Gospel music: A journey in songs, stories and history’ with four short sections of history (accompanied by projected images) read beautifully by Rachel and early photographs of some of the key songwriters in the genre to accompany Donald’s excellent story-telling. Donald, Rachel, Thabo and I were delighted that Adrian could sing and play harmonica with us.

Sarah said that everyone who came along enjoyed our music and that the evening raised £546 towards the new heating system. Thank you Sarah and your fantastic team of helpers for the invite, we’ll look forward to coming back in due course.

Richard