Sunday 29 January 2012

Shouting from the rooftops!

We thought it would be nice to hear from someone else for a change and the lovely Jane from Westbury GGCC has sent us a story for the blog! Take it away Jane...

"Where to begin, I have a granddaughter who is now 11yrs who I haven't had any contact with since 2007 due to family breakdown, equally my son, her dad, has also not had any contact. As was illustrated last night when we go through these dark times in our lives it is so easy to let the darkness take over, and desperation become all encompassing.
I made a decision to swim not sink and set up a support group for grandparents who are denied contact.
A lot of my time is taken up with grieving grandparents, and suicidal grandparents, I can talk to them through those really bad moments and hopefully between us we pull each other through.
But just sometimes I selfishly wonder who is supporting me?
Finding GGCC, has been my support and thank you so much.
When I am 'singing' I think of Liandra, my granddaughter, and its my way of shouting out from the rooftops how much I miss her and love her."

What an encouraging story and truly an honour to be able, along with the rest of GGCC to support such a lovely lady.

Thursday 26 January 2012

Week 1 - Shirehampton & Easton

Well, this has been such a great week! First Westbury Park gang do a fab job and then Shirehampton & Easton go and do the same!

First Shirehampton then. On a dark drizzly winter evening it was great to be back in the "toasty warm" Beachley Walk centre. There was still a definite buzz going round from the concerts before Christmas, people were really glad to see each other again after the break and there was a real sense of achievement from last term and excitement about this term. It was lovely to have some new faces too, especially a new man and our wonderful three men were particularly pleased to become four!!!

Then today it was Easton's turn. Again a grey, wet day outside but inside we were able to forget about that and enjoy catching up with good friends, reflecting on the amazing journey we had last term and sing brilliant songs of hope and freedom...what more could you want!!!  We've loved teaching the new songs to all the choirs, they've been picked up so quickly...we can't wait for next week!!!

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Week 1 - Westbury Park

Wow, what a great start to the term we had last night at Cairns Road with the Westbury Park GGCC! Lots of new faces as well, I think at least one person had brought four or five new people alone! We will do our best to try and learn names but might try name labels next week to aid our brain cells. We started two of the songs, Strength will rise (Everlasting God) and Happy Day (not the Sister Act one!) and they're already sounding great.

So, tonight Shirehampton GGCC starts at the Beachley Walk centre and then tomorrow it's Easton, we'll let you know how we get on!

Friday 13 January 2012

New Year, New Term!!!


2012 is here and so it must be time for a new GGCC term! It's a slightly shorter term this time, just eight weeks as Easter is earlier this year. So here are details of start dates:

GGCC Westbury Park, starts on Tuesday 24th January, 6.30pm-7.45pm @ Cairns Road Baptist Church, BS6 7TH (rest of rehearsals are Jan 31, Feb 7, 21, 28 and March 6, 13, 20)
GGCC Shirehampton starts on Wednesday 25th January, 6.30pm-7.45pm @ Beachley Walk Centre, BS11 9PU (rest of rehearsals are Feb 1, 8, 22, 29 and March 7, 14, 21)
GGCC Easton starts on Thursday 26th January, 11am-12.15pm @ St Mark's Baptist Church, BS5 6HX (rest of rehearsals are Feb 2, 9, 23 and March 1, 8, 15, 22)

All three choirs are for anyone, they're free to join and there are no auditions! There will be three concerts at the end of term, dates to be confirmed.

Last term we launched our Friends of GGCC scheme, a way of people supporting the work of GGCC financially...if you're interested in either giving a one off donation or a regular gift then email Emma gospelgen@googlemail.com .