Annually the Red Rosettes compete in a national female barbershop competition. This year it was held in Bournemouth. Although the competition is the main focus of the weekend there’s also a lot of fun and a little bit of bonkers thrown in. This year was a particularly special year for the Rosettes, our performance was going to be us honouring our beautiful MD who was taken from the world and her fabulous family way too soon, earlier this year. The six hour coach trip flew by with our bus quiz, singing songs in service stations and learning four part, under the sea, tag, as part of our party piece for the Saturday night party. We arrived in Bournemouth in time to watch the quartet competition, and have a rehearsal that helped get us focused for the competition the following day.
Saturday – Competition day! – with rehearsals, sorting hair, make up, nails, dresses, 5pm came around very fast. Blessed with glorious sunshine, we had a great day for competition. We sang our socks off, under the direction of Emma McManus and we came 9th out of 32 choruses. A top ten chorus, we are so proud.
Saturday night is always party night at Convention and we had lots to celebrate, with this year’s theme being, ‘By the sea’ we went as a bloom of Jellyfish. Clear umbrella’s, fairy lights, organza and bubble wrap transformed into a floating jellyfish parade. We had a fabulous night, singing under our umbrellas.
Sunday was by no means a quiet day, we took part in a sing with the champs session – last year’s winners run a singing workshop – and a room full of people singing in harmony, they even sang a song in tribute to Katy, our much missed MD.
It was a very emotional weekend filled, with love, laughter, and a group of friends pulling together and crying together on occasion, always looking after each other.
A fitting end to the weekend was our Chorus Manager being awarded the Gillian Depledge-Lowe award. Barbershop is full of awards for singing, music, presentation, scores, however this award is about being someone who continually goes above and beyond for others, supporting their fellow barbershopers. Without the strength shown by our chorus Manager, who lost her youngest daughter earlier this year, when the Red Rosettes lost their MD, we would not have been able to achieve what we did this year. We owe her so much and are in awe of the amount of love she gives everyone else when she is the one who should be looked after, not us. Constantly motivating and looking after the Red Rosettes, if you would like to see how amazing human beings can be then look no further than our chorus manager, Teresa Phillips, but hands off she’s ours and we ain’t letting go!
If you fancy joining our Rosette family and being part of this crazy Barbershop world, get in touch.