We don't need a choir!

'Or the organ:

Or any of the 'old stuff that no one really likes these days!'

With these words, all of English Traditional Church Music's heritage was flushed down the proverbial toilet!

What I don't understand is the fact that the person who uttered those words was the self same person who had waxed lyrical at BBC Television's offering 'The Choir' and had told others about experience of choirs in other places had been a triumph and a joy. Of course, when they spoke of 'choir' they meant groups of people in robes doing 'Gospel' or communities who had been brought together in the same way as Gareth Malone did in the BBC series; and yet this is exactly what Church (and the choir and the organ) offer - along with a rich tradition and the warrant of history too!

The old (and rather hackneyed) joke asks this question:

'What's the difference between a terrorist and church organist/choir master* ?'

and of course the answer is (drum roll):

'Terrorists are willing to negotiate!'

All too often I hear of how choirs or organists or choir masters are 'holding the church to ransom' and how 'everyone' would be so much better off without them. The reality is that this is not the truth.

Who will be out of bed to make the am service in a church and be back again for the evening service?

Is it the rank and file members? I think not, for generally it seems we are a nation of 'oncers'!

Is it the clergy? Quite likely!

So who else is there? The answer is the organist and the choir members, for they can often be found doing the morning service and then returning for the evensong of Sung Eucharist too!

Psychologists tell us that singing in a choir is one of the best ways of ensuring our mental well-being. The joy of making music and being in harmony and belonging is worth it's weight in banana chips.

For those learning to play instruments, the church choir offers the opportunity for the tyro musical type to learn to sight-read, develop pitch awareness and make some beautiful music on the way. It also pays dividends when the practical exam's are upon them because they can do the aural tests with their eyes closed and their mouths open.

For the churches themselves, it provides a source of great music, vocal support for the congregation and something that draws us back to God, for isn't that what music, art and all the other 'soft academic subjects are really all about - being creative is recognising the Creator in us!

So a plea to those who long for the day when we all have worship bands and the organ and the choristers are relegated to the museums that are cathedrals and the like.

THINK AGAIN

Our churches, our children, the adults and God all deserve and demand that the diversity of worship and the richness of the English Church Music tradition bring.

Applaud, encourage, retain and recruit for without it our worship becomes limited and lacklustre.

* delete as applicable

'oncer' - someone who makes one service on a Sunday and knows you should be grateful!

Volunteers - Recruit and RETAIN

As I have been thinking about volunteers I have come to the conclusion that whilst training is a moderately neutral element the real struggles come in the form of the high inertial load in getting people to volunteer and the working against those factors which would cause things to stop that we call retention.

One of the best ways to get volunteers is to get converts because as people come to faith it is relatively easy to harness that zeal and new found passion and make volunteering part of the discipleship package. The problems come when you try to get some of the church members who have been part of the congregation for some time to get themselves moving What one invariably finds is that they are stuck where they are or simply refuse to budge because "they've tried it before'. These people need a good push (a squib up the backside as my dear old Dad used to say).

The real issue therefore, especially if the 'done it all before' camp is to be believed, is that of retention. Keeping volunteers both doing and remaining when they stop doing (which I think is called 'being'. It's retention that I want to think about today:

The issues as I understand them are this:

1. The job gets boring - there needs to be some degree of challenge and development in the things we get volunteers to do,

2a. The organisation needs to be smooth (too many volunteers) - Many of those I meet who 'used to volunteer' ceased to do so because they turned up to find someone else doing the task they thought they were coming to do.

2b. The organisation needs to be smooth (too few volunteers) - Others who did volunteer find themselves 'attacked' because no one was on the rota and they get the flak for not having been present (when they weren't supposed too be!). Let volunteers experience stress and criticism too often and you'll lose them (and the people they fought with!).

3. Approbation - A bit of applause, recognitions, flowers, chocolates, a meal (or whatever) says that what the person does is valued (and so are they). Work without the volunteers receiving a bit of recognition and you'll be working without volunteers (just after the tough and unnoticed event they did)!

4. The 'lone volunteer' syndrome - Leave the job to one person and you can be sure that they will (usually) come to resent it and yet (often) will ensure that they maintain the status quo so that they are both Mary and Martha rolled into one! They make the job their won and ensure that it stays that way.

5. Progression - with some jobs what it is is what it is whilst others lead on to greater (perceived) things. The lack of progression, when it is expected, promised or has been the custom, leaves people feeling that they are not valued or up to the task. Either way, the potential for the volunteer ceasing is great - look at what the role is and where the last few people that were doing it have gone (and why they went too). The other side of this coin is the 'dead end' role. The singe task that leads nowhere and so results in someone being the magazine distributor for twenty years (I've met him) - a job they do with a deep lack of joy and eventual total disinterest.

Over the course of many years I have met volunteers who have served their body well and then folded because they didn't get (often promised) progression, recognition or support. Far too often they found themselves locked into mundane or boring roles and there was just no joy or fun in what they did. Worse still, most people let this continue because they didn't want to get lumbered with the job (and clergy are often very bad in this area).

So if you have volunteers you need to work to keep them. We might not have to do what they do but
we can still come alongside and say 'Thank You' and offer them some form of reward and recognition (and even think about helping the role change or them move to keep them fresh and enjoying it).

The workman is indeed worthy of something and if it's not money then it's respect, recognition and thanks!

HTH

Volunteers - Recruit, Train, Retain

Some scratchings around trying to think about volunteers has led me to these thoughts - feel free to amend, challenge and assist me with them as I know there's something in what I'm thinking but there are many trees in the wood which obscure the view.

One of the big problems with volunteers is getting them in the first place and once you have got them you need to help them become able to to the stuff and then do it on their own. Once you've reached this place it is all too easy for us to start thinking that we are in a 'job done' position but in fact that isn't the reality, for retention is the toughest (and in my experience perhaps less effort) area to be considered.

Formal training is generally seen by many as the middle element in the process:

We go to great lengths devising courses on a Parish, Deanery and even Diocesan level to meet the assumed needs of the role people are to be engaged in. We do Bishop's Certificate courses and follow this with lay ministerial courses and so on (and this isn't wrong) and I have ask myself - is this the right (by which I mean 'only') approach for the volunteering issue?

Now I know that having something consistent across the Diocese (as an example) is a good place to be as it means that we have a benchmark for the role and a consistent, unified, approach to it too. But the problem is that we find ourselves with shelves full of extremely good stuff which blesses and locks us in to rigid processes and procedures (where what we want is happy, consistent and retained people out there doing the stuff).

What I am finding is that what really happens is that having recruited someone we come alongside them and engage in an informal training which is more akin to discipleship or apprenticeship (after all both seek to make the focus of the relationship like the master). We show the volunteer how to do the thing and then work alongside themas they learn to make it happen for themselves and then, much like teaching a child to ride a bicycle, we take our hands off and watch them cycle away. This doesn't then mean that the 'master' leaves but that they remain (with plasters and hugs for the inevitable spills) and encourage until confidence is gained.

Once the volunteer is doing the job it doesn't take long before they start to think of ways of doing the role differently (i.e. 'better) and soon thoughts as to how they can be better and have less spills comes from them.

We now 'respond' to the questions and seek ways of helping them be better at the role and it here that we can either resolve all 'in house' or turn to a process of formal training. What it then means is that whilst the basics can be included in this response it can become, because the people are doing the stuff, essentially a master class. This means that the material on the shelves now needs to have two different course for the same roles - one for those who wish to do a formal course to equip them and another for those who are doing and want to do it better (which those who have taken the traditional three step approach can find themselves using at a later stage too!).

So in addition 'recruit - train - respond' we now have:

Stages 1, 2 and 3 are all 'in house' whilst the fourth stage of formal training may be enacted at deanery and Diocesan levels - bringing about an 'expert group' who then continue to meet once or twice a year to consider developments (where relevant) and best practice from amongst their number. Better still - they can be enlisted to perhaps write the material and so those who know are producing the materials for their own and bringing into the equation a degree of self-regulation and management.

Regardless of the steps and processes the key stages are getting the volunteers in and, more importantly in my book, keeping them. We will have to look at these some time soon - communion and ironing vestments for NMA Royal Signals Service beckons.

Pax