Sandpiper Song Circle is a group of women who meet monthly to sing together. We are not a choir or ensemble, we don’t rehearse or perform. Instead, we go around the circle, with each person choosing a song that we can try singing together.
Sometimes, we sound like a group of angels. Other times…not so much! But we laugh together, help each other with the words and tunes, and share memories about the songs. We do not criticize each others’ voices or song choices: when it’s your turn, it’s your song and your way of singing it.
As the organizer, I started by posting in a Facebook forum for local women. I outlined my vision for how the circle would operate, emphasized that it was FREE, and invited interested people to contact me. When I had as many attendees as I could fit in my living room (about a dozen), I decided on a date and time for our first meet-up.
At that first session, we discussed some of the logistics–how often they wanted to meet, the best time, how long would the sessions be, and how we would share the songs among us. Then we sang!
The circle has now been going for 8 months and I’ve learned some useful things. The singers are not really interested in food or fancy drinks. Most bring their own water bottles and when I or someone else has provided snacks, they aren’t eaten much. So it’s an easy party!
Because my living room is not gigantic, I had to take care not to be overwhelmed by numbers. I kept a tight rein on how many people were invited each month and gently pushed for invitees to confirm whether they would attend or not.
Since we needed some common lyric sheets to sing from, I solicited donations of used songbooks from the folk community in Vancouver. I also used funding from the NSG program to buy a new songbook for the group and to photocopy song sheets that members brought in. Those are kept in binders (also NSG funding).
For international Play Music on the Porch Day in August, the Sandpiper Song Circle hosted the event locally, bringing together people from the neighbourhood and our singers to raise their voices on everything from She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain to Yellow Submarine.
In the future, I hope to expand the group and see the ripples from this happy circle touch even more hearts!
