Peter Bryant: Hello and welcome to Tune In, the official podcast of the British Association of Barbershop Singers. my name's Peter Bryant, I am your host, and I am joined once again by Alistair Lamiman. but for a different reason. Hello, Alistair.
Alistair: Peter. I've just I've just noticed when I waved then that my hands are still dirty from the day job. Terrible situation there. I've
Peter Bryant: You you've just you've literally just arrived home from your rounds.
Alistair: just arrived, yes, and this is because this I forget sometimes that this is also video content. 'Cause I don't listen to it on
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: video, I listen to it audio only. so I need to make more efforts to to to to remember that that's the case. but yeah, sorry. I missed the first part of the question. W was there a question?
Peter Bryant: Alistair, you look excellent, don't you worry? No, there wasn't a question. Is everything alright? Th that's a good question. Good. Are you doing well?
Alistair: Yes yes, no everything is fine. Everything is grand. I'm doing well. Yeah, everything is good.
Peter Bryant: That's good to hear. yeah, you're here because I mean we we spoke to you for the last episode, the most recent episode. but several things have happened since then. In particular, several things have happened to you in in Babsland, 'cause you've become the chair of Babs.
Alistair: I have ascended, yes, to the
Peter Bryant: Y yes.
Alistair: the the lofty heights of the the chairship of BEABs. Yes, I have.
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: yeah, it's very exciting time actually. the the chair is sort of always something that I wanted to do at some point. I I said to the people in my the rest of the board when I was interviewed by them That I originally put my name down to be vice chair back in 2019. when
Peter Bryant: Wow.
Alistair: I'd been doing barbershop for I want to say about 18 months and thought that would be a great idea and I'd be absolutely fine. needless to say, I did not get the vice chair role at that time. I think Alan Hughes became the vice chair of Babs at that point, which obviously was quite fitting. They then said, Well, why don't you interview to be the director of membership of Babs? I thought, that sounds like a good idea. I could do that as well. And then I was unfortunately the the the the worse of two final candidates in that role. no I can't remember what happened to the guy who became director membership.
Peter Bryant: Th the the the other guy went on to become a criminal or something for what I heard.
Alistair: Yeah, something like that. It was of course one Mr. Peter Bryant, ladies and gentlemen, for the for the record. For
Peter Bryant: It was I, yes.
Alistair: the record. But no, I eventually got there.
Peter Bryant: You did manage to wiggle your way onto the board eventually, didn't you? Via a circuitous route.
Alistair: Yeah, eventually got there. And then no, we interviewed a couple of candidates for the role when the role was advertised, but as a collective board we couldn't agree on on either candidate who put their name forward and therefore off the back of that I was I'm going to say gently persuaded by Calvin, who did who was our previous vice chair and then was interim in the role of chair to put my name forward for the role and here I am. So
Peter Bryant: Very good.
Alistair: yes
Peter Bryant: Why why do you why would
Alistair: Very exciting.
Peter Bryant: you want to be chair of Babs? It seems it seems like a thing that's like we we sort of joke about yeah. Anyone want to join the board? Lol. anyone want to be chair? Lol. what's what what's in it for Alistair? What what are you hoping to achieve?
Alistair: Well what's in it for me is I get the bling, so the bling's good. the the
Peter Bryant: You do get to wear the bling. It's pretty blingy.
Alistair: the yeah, so that's that's up there. but no, what's I guess what's in it for me, in of its own reward, for want of a better phrase, because so so far since I became chair in July, so I introduced a little thing called chatting with the chair, where I Wanted to make sure all Babs members and both mainly predominantly chairs of clubs had an opportunity to talk to me and I could see where they were, see what was going on with them, and see what was happening. I've had twenty two conversations so far,
Peter Bryant: Wow.
Alistair: and not a single one has been the same, but everyone has had different themes running through of areas where we maybe need to focus and we maybe need to tackle. Why do I want to do this role? i it's I I've tried in the last three minutes, because I anticipated you asking me this question, to find the Jim Hacker quote from Yes Prime Minister, but it's something along the lines of, well I will just simply go where my country needs me to be, or some pithy quote to to that to that end. And I want to continue to be on the board for as long as I possibly can do. Because I love this organization and I want to continue to serve this organization and I want to continue to drive this organization forward. And you can do that by balancing both having a really good team around you, but also seeing what everyone is saying. And that's kind of been what my job has been for the last ten years not my job currently, I put letters in people's doors. but all of my previous roles have been about talking to people, seeing what they need, helping them out, sculpting their ideas, putting them in the right direction, and then building something greater than some of its parts by putting all of that together. And I believe that's something that I can do in the chair role with Babs.
Peter Bryant: Outstanding. Very good. yeah, and I have to say you've you kind of got off to a a pretty pretty exciting start, 'cause last month, I I guess this it's about three weeks ago now,
Alistair: Mm. Yes.
Peter Bryant: you chaired your first members meeting. It was the the autumn members meeting.
Alistair: Mm.
Peter Bryant: and I'm I'm just reading down the the summary document, which is available, I believe, to to any member to go and read through as well as the sort of formal minutes, but you've put together this very, very helpful three or four page four page summary document, just outlining everything that was sort of agreed and discussed.
Alistair: Cause if people do want to read the minutes, they can. The minutes are thirty pages. They they are incredibly thorough, but yes.
Peter Bryant: I wouldn't recommend it, no. so Yeah. yes, so there's there's this very, very helpful summary document that's available through the Babs website. but it's it it was a pretty meaty set of announcements and updates
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: for your first kind of f first event out the gate as chair.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: and so I thought it would be helpful for our listeners who maybe haven't had a chance to catch up on what was talked about and what was announced and was discussed. let's go through it in on the podcast.
Alistair: Mm-hmm.
Peter Bryant: talk about all the tr try and s sort of pull out some important highlights, and just get a sense of where the board and where the organization is heading over the next couple of years. 'Cause it's
Alistair: Nice.
Peter Bryant: As I say, it's pretty wide ranging. We're covering events and we're covering education and subs and all sorts of other things. lo
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: lots of sort of convention centric updates, which I think is is gonna be important to to cover. So I I I I think let's just let's just get into it. So
Alistair: Sure.
Peter Bryant: one of the big purposes of these members' meetings is is obviously to talk about the financial governance and the the budgets and all that sort of thing. and the way that the timing works is that the board has a meeting in like July where they agree the budget and then they present
Alistair: Correct?
Peter Bryant: it to the council at the autumn members meeting and then the budget is is set in place for the next financial year which starts in October. So
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: the budget for twenty twenty six-27
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: you have budgeted for a deficit of thirty eight thousand pounds, which basically means, if if if any listeners are not accustomed to financial speak, that basically means you are gonna end the year with thirty eight thousand pounds less in the bank than you started with. Is that fair to say?
Alistair: Yes, we are going to have spent we are going to have spent thirty eight thousand pounds more than we anticipate earning. Yes.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, so let's un unpack that number for me. What's what's going on there?
Alistair: So there's a key driver behind that, and that key driver is convention. Now,
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: I believe that the majority, if not nearly all, of that £38,000 figure is a deficit on convention itself. and so I did go into quite a lot of detail of this at the AMM, but I'll try and crib note it now. conventions are expensive and they are really really expensive compared to where they have been in the past. So I found a really interesting document from Harrogate Convention Center from 2022, in which they had given us projected costs for the next five conventions at Harrogut. And they predicted that the 2028 convention happening in Harrogat would cost 46,000 pounds. We recently received a quote back from Harrogate Convention Center saying that they The convention in twenty twenty eight will be eighty seven thousand pounds.
Peter Bryant: So that's up pretty much double what they quoted for the same event four years ago. Yeah, yeah. Christ. Okay.
Alistair: Pretty much double what they originally anticipated four years ago. Yeah. So that's kind of where we are in that in that that's the ballpark where we're operating.
Peter Bryant: So the so the costs of just putting on an event have have bubbled and skyrocketed far beyond even the venue's predictions from a
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: f from n like three or four years ago. Yeah.
Alistair: From yeah, the three or four years ago. Yeah. And bearing in mind, I so I did a quick look through old Harmony Expresses and such. In twenty sixteen, the cost of a ticket to come to convention was eighty-five pounds.
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: So ten years ago that was. When my first convention in 2018, it was pushing a hundred. It was I think it might have been a hundred pounds. So Whilst convention venue costs have nearly doubled, we have not doubled the cost of a convention ticket. Because for those who go who maybe don't necessarily follow everything ins and outs Bab's finances, we do try and run our events as a break even cost. So we try and match the ticket price directly with where we are as far as our venue costs are concerned. We did a few calculations for this year for the convention in Brighton. And for it to be a break even event, tickets would have needed to have been a hundred and forty seven pound a person.
Peter Bryant: Which is forty seven
Alistair: And
Peter Bryant: pounds more than last year's event, right? 'Cause I think I well am I r is that is that roughly right? No? of course, 'cause it was a shorter event. Of course.
Alistair: No. Last year's event tickets were seventy-five pounds. Because it was a shorter event. So it would have been three pounds shy of doubling the costs of convention from last year. And we decided that we couldn't w w the from a from every sort of perspective you look at that, from a 'cause there becomes a point with convention as well. There is a sweet spot almost on overarching cost of If you make it £150, £175 a person, so few people will then attend that you actually make less money than if it had been £135 a person. And it's trying to find out roughly where that is. Brighton, of course, is a slightly more expensive venue. it costs more for us to run. We were anticipating as well doing another two-day event. And when we received all of the feedback from SYNC 2026, which was quite substantially in favor of going back to three days, we had to contact Brighton, having already signed the contract with them for two days, to add an additional day. So we're anticipating figures in our head of venue cost plus hotel costs plus etc., which then suddenly inflates again in order to respond to. member desire and member requirements. And then in doing that, because we knew that the reason why we'd done that was ultimately because there had been a lot of change on the board and there hadn't been that that that necessary elements of forward planning, etc., that we couldn't put all of that burden directly on the members. So we set a a price that we felt was reasonable, which is a hundred and fifteen pounds, raising to a hundred and twenty-five pounds in January, if you don't book before January. which is in line with what the labs convention is this year as well, which we thought was reasonable. And that also ties in with the fact that the past two years we've had pretty sizable surpluses. We've done quite well. we had a forty thousand pound surplus. Two years ago and a sixty thousand pound surplus last year. So we can take a forty thousand pound loss, yes, yeah.
Peter Bryant: Okay. So that that was gonna be my next question, like th yeah, that was gonna be my next question. The organization is gonna be okay because there'll be people looking at if they go in and look at this and and they see we're projecting a thirty eight thousand pound
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: effectively not overspend, that's the wrong word, but deficit
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: but budget deficit, people are gonna look at that and go, my god, is Babs gonna be okay? That's
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: that sounds like an awful lot of money.
Alistair: Yes, ultimately Babs is gonna be okay. Yeah. Back in twenty twenty
Peter Bryant: Okay, good.
Alistair: four, we made a long term plan for our reserves to try and get our reserves up to two hundred thousand pounds by twenty twenty nine. And
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: at the end of last year, we had a hundred and seventy five thousand pounds in reserves. So we were already
Peter Bryant: Okay. And and reserves is the money
Alistair: that's the money in the bank, basically.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, the money that's sort of set aside, we're not planning to spend it, that's there as our as our sort of our our our buffer almost.
Alistair: It covers the cost of a convention if something goes absolutely AOL, is basically the situation. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So so effectively yeah, we've got a we've got a hundred and seventy five thousand pound disaster slash emergency relief buffer.
Alistair: Babs is doing f financially I d in a weird in a weird sense, the the the accounting term for it is we are a going concern. Which just means everything is well despite using the phrase concern in that title. But yes. The auditors
Peter Bryant: Okay, very good.
Alistair: will look at our books and say, good, you're a going concern. So
Peter Bryant: Great stuff. That's good news.
Alistair: Yes, very.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, we like it. Okay, so convention's happening in Brighton. We're back in Brighton for the first time in I wanna say twenty five, twenty six years. Twenty one years, okay, so that that would make it two thousand and five, the last time we're in Brighton.
Alistair: Twenty-one years. The yes. Two thousand and five. I have documents somewhere down the side of me from which Derek Parmenter gave me from all of his physical planning documents when we were back in Brighton in two thousand and five. And the cost of the hire and the entire convention back then was thirty thousand pounds. So yes. Agreed.
Peter Bryant: great. What wow. What a time to be alive. have have you or anyone else been to see the venue this year?
Alistair: I have not been to see the venue yet, but Steve Morris, who came onto the board last year as part of a well, he was a director without portfolio at the time, which effectively meant we we to put him to do tasks that we needed doing. And one of them was searching for a venue. so Steve sourced out Brighton. And then since then our convention manager Danny Sawyer and our events director Sam Wallace have both been to the convention centre since and they say it's fantastic because I I believe we get the we're getting the entire convention centre. Now normally because Harrogate is massive, there are parts of the Harrogate Convention Center that despite the fact I mean you and I have probably been to Harrogate Convention Centre thirty five times between us. and there are parts of that convention centre that we have never seen.
Peter Bryant: Yes. Yeah, 'cause I mean i if if people remember the twenty fourteen convention, which you you wouldn't have been at, Alistair. But the twenty the twenty fourteen convention, that was the
Alistair: No, I was not. That was the was that the Flood one or the power cut one or
Peter Bryant: that was the power cut one, yeah, and we had to move the entire convention to a different part of the Harrogat Convention Center. And I was like, my goodness, there's like an entire other convention centre inside Harrogate Convention Centre.
Alistair: It's like when you unlock like a map in a video game almost and you think, New area unlocked.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And you suddenly realize this the scope is much larger than you ever realized. okay, so we have the entire building in
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: in Brighton to to do our thing. That's cool.
Alistair: Yeah. So that will be cool.
Peter Bryant: yeah, it'd be nice to be at a new venue, for for convention. and as we're talking on Monday the fifth,
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: chorus registrations opened yesterday.
Alistair: They did, yes.
Peter Bryant: That's that's exciting. And I'm sure there will be many ls many listeners curious about how it's going. I don't know if you are able to share any numbers because of as we know, as as listeners might know, we are having to we're we're in sort of the slightly the the the nice but also not super nice position of having to limit the number of chorus entries this year. just
Alistair: Hmm.
Peter Bryant: because j we we we can't go crazy with the the timings. And we're doing
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: mixed and mail courses all on the same day these days. so how how are we doing?
Alistair: Correct, yes. It's a combination fine, we're doing fine, as I anticipated, as there is with anything where you create a sort of an anticipation of scarcity or something of that nature. The chorus registrations opened at five PM. By five past five we'd had four registrations. And by quarter past five, we'd
Peter Bryant: Very good.
Alistair: had eleven. it was a big flurry in that first people were like, my god! and they did it, and that's and I applaud that.
Peter Bryant: Ha ha ha.
Alistair: That's great. by 7 pm yesterday, we had 21 registrations so far. so for those maths nerds amongst us, that still means there are nine spaces left. That's not how you do maths. Wow, that's really embarrassing. I was doing basic subtraction and I
Peter Bryant: Yeah, try again.
Alistair: forgot how to subtract twenty-one from thirty-two. So that still means there are eleven spaces left. and no one has filled in the form today at all. So people filled it in
Peter Bryant: Interesting.
Alistair: yesterday and they got it out of the way and they twenty of these were in the first hour. One was the hour afterwards, and then we've had nothing for twenty four hours. So if you haven't registered your chorus yet, you still have plenty of time to do so. There's still
Peter Bryant: Yeah, when when does it when does it close?
Alistair: it closes so again, time of it's the what the fifth today. So we said it would be open for three weeks. So it will be
Peter Bryant: Cool.
Alistair: closing before the end of October, but obviously of course everyone will get reminders about it before before then as well. So yeah.
Peter Bryant: So there is there is still time if you've not decided yet or you were waiting to see what registrations were were looking like, there are still spots available for mi for male and mixed courses both? Great.
Alistair: Yeah. And we for male and mixed courses both. Yes, correct. Yeah. And we know as well, there are a number of 'cause when we were discussing the the limit, w there are known quantities to the board of courses that are not competing. It was always in their plan to either not I case in point, I'm sure they won't mind me saying but Granite City chorus who are up in Aberdeen don't come to our South Coast conventions for very obvious reasons. Because I think it would I think it would
Peter Bryant: It's a long, slung way away.
Alistair: be quicker for them to go to a convention in Norway than it would be
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: for them to go to a convention in on the South Coast. So
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: fair enough to them. so we there are known quantities of when we were thinking about what this limit would look like of what of how we knew who wasn't going to attend anyway. So yeah,
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Alistair: but there's still time. So get yourself in.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, definitely. We wanna we wanna fill this contest up. That's the
Alistair: Agreed.
Peter Bryant: that's the point. Speaking of speaking of the the chorus contest though, there's there's I know I noticed a new
Alistair: An excellent segue.
Peter Bryant: excellent segue. There's a new addition addition to the chorus contest, which
Alistair: Mm.
Peter Bryant: is kind of aimed at folks who might not be a member of a chorus but wanna participate in the chorus contest in in some way. It's called the Spotlight Chorus.
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: This sounds cool. Th this is this kind of borrowed a bit from the Dream Chorus idea that international do? Yeah.
Alistair: Yes, a little bit, yes. So if you are familiar with that, yes. but just to briefly explain the the concept of the of the spotlight chorus, w it is something I am very excited about. I think it's gonna be a really cool idea and it's I think it'll be a really cool experience. I I have said as well, I personally I am going to be in the spotlight chorus. 'Cause I'm currently not singing with anyone. Myself, so
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: I will be singing with the spotlight chorus. But the idea behind it is that if you could be anything, you could be any person who likes singing, who is in a barbershop chorus, isn't in a barbershop chorus, is interested in singing in general, the only thing that prohibits you from being in spotlight chorus is if you were in another chorus that is competing in the contest. Those are the only people who are prohibited from this. So, say for example, if your chorus has decided to not come to convention this year, but you really wanted to go to convention yourself, you now have an opportunity to also still sing in a chorus. If you are a Don Amos member and you've never sung in a chorus before, because you've always been a quartet singer, you can sing in this chorus. If you are a member of Labs and you've regularly come to Babs Convention just to support because you enjoy coming to Babs Conventions and enjoy going to conventions in general, you can be in spotlight chorus. If you are a if you're a music GCSE music student in a Brighton school, you can sing in this chorus. Anyone can sing in this chorus. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we have if this is the biggest chorus on stage.
Peter Bryant: That would be amazing. So so so outline the the whole experience. If you if you're a if you're a spot if
Alistair: Yeah. The concept, the whole experience.
Peter Bryant: you're a member of the Spotlight Chorus, you arrive in Brighton, what's gonna happen to you?
Alistair: So what's gonna happen is as follows. You will have arrived you will arrive having already had some learning music, some both teach tracks and some notes, and there is gonna be something going out in the next couple of days, but I feel like I I can probably tease it here, just in case it gets people going. The ballad is You Are So Beautiful is the ballad that they'll be singing. And the uptune song is Let's Go Fly a kite.
Peter Bryant: very good. Arranged by Doctor Nick. S someone, Doctor Nick.
Alistair: Yes. Someone who I don't yeah, s someone no, yeah, no. A very talented young arranger, my favourite Brian. no I'm joking.
Peter Bryant: Wow.
Alistair: no, I'm kidding. No, that is very true, I we're still plenty of time left and we're about to get into the awkward bits. So no, back
Peter Bryant: I don't have to be nice to you on this podcast, Alistair.
Alistair: to where we are. So you arrived in Brighton having had access to learning tracks and cheap music for those two songs. there may have even been a couple of Zoom rehearsals beforehand, so you if you are unfamiliar with Barbershop, you want to know a little bit more, those are optional. You will turn up on the Saturday morning and you will open the contest. So you may at this point, it will be highly unlikely that you will have even sang through the songs together. You maybe will have had one or two run throughs in the warm-up room before you go. You will be fresh out of the out of the out of the box, you'll be singing a song, singing two songs to warm up the contest. Following on from that, you will then spend the day going through a coaching process, not only with some of our own Babs judges and coaches, but also our international guest, the twenty twenty five International Quartet Champions Lemon Squeezy, have also agreed to help with the coaching aspect. So you will get some tips and tricks or and like whether or not we can elevate certain parts of the songs or improve certain parts of the songs over the course of the next six hours, like during the chorus contest. And then you will close the chorus contest. You'll go back on and everyone will get to see what the fruits of your labour have equated to throughout the course of that day. You will be scored in the morning and scored in the evening. And we can see what does six hours of intensive coaching with international level coaches do to a chorus of that's never sung together before. That is the experiment,
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Just
Alistair: effectively.
Peter Bryant: This is cool. This is really, really awesome. So
Alistair: Yeah, I'm so excited.
Peter Bryant: that yeah, so they won't be they won't be in the contest itself. They won't be like a a competitor, but they will get a score and so they'll know
Alistair: No, they will not be a competitor. Yes.
Peter Bryant: we'll we'll know what they score. That's really cool. And and it just requires you to be in Bournemouth for the Saturday, so there's no rehearsing on the Friday or anything like that. So if you
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: if you're a quartet singer, for example, you could do this. If you're competing in the quartet contest,
Alistair: Yeah, absolutely.
Peter Bryant: you could do it. This this is this is outstanding. This is I I would really, really encourage everyone to do this. I'm I'm thinking about doing this actually. I think this could be cool. Do we have do we have a director?
Alistair: Yeah. Cause I think I don't believe we do have a director right now. I
Peter Bryant: Okay. There's gonna be a big reveal at some point for who's gonna direct it.
Alistair: Well, potentially, but I wouldn't go out thing is, I given how much effort and time Simon Lakovsky has put into this already, I wouldn't be surprised if he want to be the person who directs this chorus. But I'm also know that he probably has a lot of other things to do that weekend. So I don't know if it
Peter Bryant: Doesn't he doesn't he direct a mixed chorus that might be competing in the contest? Which would preclude preclude him. they're not? Okay.
Alistair: They are not competing in this contest. No. No, not this year. So maybe. Maybe. I
Peter Bryant: Fun. Okay.
Alistair: don't know. I also don't think anyone in Lemon Squeezy is a director in the say in the way that like if you had Ringmasters or like so you know someone would be a director, but I'm pretty confident they have the capacity and the ability to do so. So
Peter Bryant: Sure they can all they can all direct, but then yes.
Alistair: so The more information will be coming out about that very soon. Simon's done a video about it where making the forms do things in I've discovered how AppScript works recently. So that's thank
Peter Bryant: Congratulations.
Alistair: you. so I'm playing around with that a lot. 'Cause obviously another thing that we want to ensure is part ballot. What we don't
Peter Bryant: Sure.
Alistair: want to happen is seventy-five high sopranos sign up to sing tenor. And then have three bases. So we're just designing the form so that it basically gives you an opportunity to put your first choice and your second choice. It will assign you based on where that where the spaces are to fill, and then it will continue to open up slots as they become available. and that will be happening. I want to say within the next week, we'll be putting something out on that. ticket, the price for that is it's basically it's just it's £10. on top of where you your registration would be. So if you are coming
Peter Bryant: Okay.
Alistair: just for the Saturday, it's you buy a £50 registration and then you pay £10 extra. And if you come for the full weekend, you buy a £115 registration and then it's £10 extra. So what we'll do is as well.
Peter Bryant: Okay. All right, so yeah.
Alistair: Yeah, we'll likely launch the £10 extra part of the ticket as well. So people can sign up and they can secure that and they can side so it becomes we can start distributing tracks and things like that. Because the actual box office doesn't open until the ninth of November. So when that opens, you'll be able to buy the rest of your ticket.
Peter Bryant: Very good. This sounds very exciting. I hope it's well supported and well received. 'cause I think this I think this is cool. Yeah. This this
Alistair: Yeah. I'm very confident it's gonna be a good event. it'll be a good time.
Peter Bryant: thing so that the BH for for for folks who don't know, the Barbershop Harmony Society International has d has done a similar thing. They call it the Dream Chorus. And it's actually been so popular that they've had to do two dream choruses for the last couple of years. 'cause
Alistair: Yes, they did.
Peter Bryant: so many people have and and each one has like filled the risers on the international stage. So it's a really, really popular thing. I'd encourage folks to get involved 'cause it's it'd it'd be a fun opportunity to sing in a what what I anticipate will be a very, very good chorus, actually. with
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: some great education and yeah. All you've all you've got to do is learn a couple of songs and and rock up. that sounds great. Okay. shall we zoom out a little bit from convention? Woof
Alistair: Let's
Peter Bryant: and and let's let's just sort of go over the music calendar for for the next sort of contest cycle year, Okay, so we've got convention is happening in May, but
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: also in the minutes or in the notes for the autumn members meeting, it talks about the return of Harmony College in 2027.
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: I'm hype for this. do we have d how how much detail do we have about this? Is this definitely happening? Is th are we hoping for this to happen? Like I I know there are will be lots of people who are dying to know everything about Harmony College 'cause 'cause
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: it's great.
Alistair: So this is one of those things where we are in the final throes of being about to sign the contract. But because we haven't signed the contract, it's one of those things where I if I say something right now, you can't hold me liable because we haven't signed
Peter Bryant: No.
Alistair: the contract. There that's that's how it's gonna be. So I am ninety-five percent confident. Harmony College is in person and will be going ahead in the same way as it has done in the past. Well I will also say this is gonna be my please. It's gonna
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: be in a new location.
Peter Bryant: Whoa
Alistair: Mm-hmm.
Peter Bryant: That is a tease, okay.
Alistair: Yeah. But again, because nothing is signed yet, I can't tell you that information.
Peter Bryant: Very good. And it and will it will it have roughly the shape that a sort of traditional Babs Harmony College would have? So you so you get to choose a stream, you could do like a chorus stream or a personal development stream or a quartet stream or directing or that sort of thing.
Alistair: So what we'll be so on the directing is that's a really good point. So again, what you may have noticed in the minutes, or as part and parcel, is we aren't doing the traditional two-day Directors Academy weekend in January this year. We are going to incorporate that directly into Harmony College.
Peter Bryant: Okay.
Alistair: So where there would normally be that same level of education for directors. that will take part within Harmony College and the the free element that you would have normally got for your director's academy situation will be the heavily discounted price that you then receive to go to Harmony College.
Peter Bryant: Okay. 'Cause 'cause Directors Academy was partially subsidised for directors, right. So okay.
Alistair: Yes, correct. So you will still receive that same level of subsidy, but it will just be on your Harmony College correct.
Peter Bryant: It will just apply to Harmony College instead, right, got it. Yeah.
Alistair: So you still get the same opportunity of doing the that event and the opportunity to mix with directors and to have that element of talking you know, amongst directors, but also having additional opportunities within the wider Harmony College space and bringing everything together under one roof.
Peter Bryant: Very good.
Alistair: But every other aspect of Harmony College, I again, I don't think we've discussed the complete finer details on that yet, but I can't imagine it will be much different for I imagine your old favourites of audition chorus, college chorus will likely remain. if you have quartets, there will likely be an opportunity to get additional coaching, as there has been at Harmony College, and there will likely be a series of additional streams, like that there was in 2023, of f learning from individual educators about specific parts of barbershop and the barbershop style, how we sing, why we sing, what makes us sing, et cetera, et
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: cetera.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And th and this will be like a a multi day event with the traditional sort of social time baked in and all all that good stuff. A lot of the reason why mo many of us love Harmony College.
Alistair: Correct. Yeah, one thing I can confer it will still it will still be here's here's an additional level of tease. It will
Peter Bryant: Okay.
Alistair: still be base at a university location. So
Peter Bryant: Okay, just not necessarily the Nottingham University location. Yeah, okay.
Alistair: the pr where the previous no. Correct. So imagine as you will, the same sort of style of everyone gets a dorm room, everyone has a fun time, everyone eats together, in the sort of canteen communal areas. There will be the equivalent of a quad where people can tag sing and get told off by people who are trying to sleep, etcetera. Like that the all of these things will continue. All the good stuff
Peter Bryant: All the good stuff. Yeah. Great.
Alistair: you expect from Harmony College, and that's likely And we're looking at again same weekend where it normally is, the late August bank holiday weekend.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, that sounds grand. We haven't had one of these. For for one reason or another or another, we haven't had one of these types of Harmony College events. Twenty twenty three was the last one. So I
Alistair: Since twenty twenty three. Yeah, correct.
Peter Bryant: know that people have been missing it. And I and there's lots of good reasons why we haven't had one. Like last year
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: there was just too much going on in the wider barbershop world and everyone was just like, I'm going to Europeans or I'm going to Ireland or Spain or s or like something else or there were loads of people going to international last year and there just wasn't space in people's barbershop either calendars or money pots or both f to for a Harmony
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: College to fit in. The year before there was a a different format. We did the sort of North and South Harmony College days, the the sort of chorus days, which were really cool actually. yeah.
Alistair: Yeah. Which I think which w which went down really well. Yeah. I went to both. which yeah. I was I was staying at my I was staying
Peter Bryant: Yeah, yeah, you did you ch yeah, you literally did both across on on two days of the same weekend. That was a lot.
Alistair: at my in laws in Manchester, so I got to go to one and then I got to go to and then I came back home and I went to the other one in the south. It was great. Great time had by all.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Outstanding. but yeah, I'm I I'm I'm sure many people will be excited for a sort of old style Harmony College to come back.
Alistair: Yeah. No, I'm I'm really excited. Correct.
Peter Bryant: so yes, I'll certainly be looking at at getting involved in that. and then I wanted to there's there's like just just
Alistair: The final big ticket item.
Peter Bryant: buried Alistair, if you don't mind me saying so in this document.
Alistair: is it? are we burying the lead?
Peter Bryant: If you don't mind me saying that this is this is a a a a boulded some bolded text under a subheading on page three out of four, is like a brand new event
Alistair: Mm.
Peter Bryant: in the British barbershop calendar.
Alistair: There's probably two whole pages of it if you read the thirty page document, Peter, so really that's on you.
Peter Bryant: Sh I'm but possibly. okay, that's on me. I didn't I d I'm only reading the summary. but the working title for this for this
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: brand new event in September, eighteenth and nineteenth of September is you're calling it the British Open. What's going on? What are you plotting?
Alistair: Mmm. What is going on? What are we plotting? So, how this all started was. So for those who aren't familiar with the International Barbshop calendar, the Barbshop Harmony Society in America announced their convention dates and locations years in advance. And the convention in 2028 has been planned for Chicago. Now The interesting thing about Chicago is for groups coming from Britain and Europe for that matter, Chicago is a very easy location to get to. Because Chicago is a direct flight from London, and I believe there might even be a direct flight from Manchester, going straight to Chicago.
Peter Bryant: I think there is, yeah.
Alistair: So you don't have to do anything else. It's one flight, it's relatively cheap as far as transatlantic travel is concerned. So we are an Anticipated that a large number of quartets, because we are now in an era where we have a lot of quartets who are around and above the qualifying score to go to international, would want to aim to go to international in 2028. Now, as we're already in a position that we've mentioned before where we're restricting chorus limitations on our convention weekend. And we already have a quartet prelims, which limits the number of quartets that we have at our convention weekend. If we found ourselves in a let's say a fortunate position where five, six, seven quartets wanted to go to international, to try and fit them in to sing four songs at that event would prove Logistically difficult. So we needed an alternative. And we built on this alternative from what we could have done is hire a school hall, say any international quartet who wants to come in front of a panel of six judges, come sing four songs, we'll give you a number, we'll record it, and you can and go home. And isn't that a guess? Or We can do what we actually have done with this event. So we contacted the Barbershop Harmony Society because again, this is another thing where for people who maybe don't know, what happens when a quartet scores something from either Babs or Labs? that score has to be re-scored by BHS's own judging panel to determine whether or not it meets what they deem is the standard for to a qu go to an international competition. Again, that doesn't necessarily translate sometimes over a video interface. And we have had a couple of quartets that I know have been burnt, shall we say, in the past, where they have maybe met the qualifying score given to them by our own judges and then they have Being subsequently let down when that has been re-scored via video interface by a BHS judge. The simple solution round this is to get BHS judges to come directly to this event. Because BHS introduced another rule in the last two years where if half of your panel is BHS judges, it still counts from a qualifying perspective. So we will have three BHS judges and three BABS judges judging the event, which means anyone in that competition who meets the qualifying score, which is now 81. That's a big w that's a big number. But anyone who meets an 81 will get an automatic invite to the BHS International Competition. No need for rescoring, no need for any additional toing and froing between me and the BHS CEO. It will for all intents and purposes count as one of the BHS district prelims. It will be another
Peter Bryant: Sure.
Alistair: prelims.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, because that that's kind of how a a a BHS district would do it. Like BHS districts
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: do actually separate their contests in this way. They have their own district championship, but they have a separate contest for their quartets to c which they call
Alistair: They have a pre limbs contest to go to international.
Peter Bryant: which they call prelims, which obviously we can't call 'cause we have our own prelims, but they
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: have a prelims, which is a prelims to go to international and that's separate to the district's contest, right?
Alistair: Correct. And then we got to thinking Well it might not just be Babs Quartets who want to compete in this event, who want to go and take ac advantage of a cora of a competition at BHS being in an accessible location. we've seen A number of labs quartets go to BHS in the last two or three years, putting out some absolutely stonking scores in that regard. we have seen and we've also had contact directly at Babs from both a Spanish quartet and a Snobs quartet who have emailed us Asking if they could come to Babs to obtain a qualifying score for themselves to go to international. And we've had to say no on ever on each occasion that they've done that because either we've not had space or because we don't have the mechanism to give them that qualifying score that they require, because it would still need to be re-scored anyway. So with all of those things combined, this event is a European level prelim preliminary event. Four quartets to go to international. So if you're a Swedish quartet as an example, you could come to this event, sing, and if you don't meet a score, you could sing again at your own convention in May. It becomes two bites of a cherry in that regard. If you're
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: a Babs quartet, you don't have to go through the pain, potentially, of having your score remarked and lowered, meaning you are no longer able to attend convention.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, you sort of know you literally know on the day are we going to Chicago or not? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Alistair: You know, on the day you are going. and when we went through the list of quartets who we think around because obviously Europe is a relatively small place in the grand scheme of things, compared to America, that we anticipate that this there could be anywhere up to twenty-five quartets who might want to take part in this event. It's limited at sixteen places,
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: and we are gonna obviously earmark a certain number for Babs Quartets, because it is a Babs event. But once we know that if those quartets aren't gonna want to compete, we can we'll we'll open it to to everyone.
Peter Bryant: This sounds cool. I th I think this is this is a neat solution to a number of issues. The the other issue that we haven't talked about is around the fact that Babs kind of only gets one automatic nomination per year, right? So so
Alistair: Yes, of course. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: we get we get to say to one quartet and we and we get to decide who that is, but we've d we've historically decided that it's the highest scoring quartet.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: that that they that that that one place is the guaranteed place, but then everybody else has to go through that kind of rescoring process, right? So
Alistair: Correct, yes.
Peter Bryant: so that's another problem that this solves is that we we no longer have to say to all of the non-qu qualified or all of the non-automatic places like just you'll have to wait for BHS to make their decision, which is cool.
Alistair: And that can take a number of weeks as well. And it becomes a case of you will know so when this event happens in September, you'll know then in September, yes, you are going to you are going to BHS. Or you you can, you have qualified. And that is yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Yeah. And that's really cool. Yeah, 'cause I c like just just to illustrate what this is like for 'cause obviously not a a lot of listeners will not have experienced this process firsthand. so my quartet
Alistair: Sure. Yes, of course.
Peter Bryant: actually went to IABS last year and sang last year? No, the year before. No, last year, twenty twenty five, and sang in the contest and got a score, and the score was not actually the qualifying score. so we were like, okay, fine, we're not, we're not, we didn't qualify for international, that's it. we we won't we won't plan a trip. so we didn't plan a trip because we didn't get the score. But but BHS have this sort of weird wildcard system where if they don't fill all the places with people who get the qualifying score, then they sort of go down the list and they start inviting. So we got an email in May, say like the end of May, saying, hey Limelight, Congratulations, you've qualified to compete at international in six weeks' time. See ya there. And we're like, No you won't. We can't do that. so that so that there's that whole situation as well. But that could that could equally happen the other way around.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: where you think you've qualified and then six weeks later you get the you know so so that the this this helps with the the timeline as well. I have a question about the British Open event in particular, which which does sound very exciting
Alistair: Different.
Peter Bryant: and very attractive. Where's the audience gonna come from?
Alistair: Where's the audience going to come from? The audience
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: will come from two potential locations. So, number one, do you like barbershop? because if you like Barbershop, if I had an option between well, it's not even an option between anything, it's it's an opportunity to see Imagine watching a Babs Final, but like a a good a really good quality Babs final and then watching it three times. Like that's the level of barbershop you're gonna be getting. realistically. These are quartets. So just to give you an idea, Brit there have been 17 quartets in his in British c barbershop history that have scored higher than an 80. And the highest and the score you now need to qualify for international is 81. So we're it's we're expecting 16 quartets to come to this event. So it would be the equivalent of if Ev the the greatest British quartets of all time were all on stage in one event at one
Peter Bryant: Yeah, all singing together on the same
Alistair: time.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Yeah.
Alistair: So amazing. there is also then gonna be there's coaching opportunities for those quartets the following day. So there therefore it does become the opportunity for it to be in a longer event. So there will be your more traditional afterglow, your etc. etc. side of things as well. There might be, there's talk, we haven't got there just yet. There's talk of also having a guest. because again, if we get the opportunity to utilize BHS judges, the number of BHS judges that are also within their own quartets, and if we're using one of the judges, then there's an opportunity to use that judge to then subsequently also be do a few songs. That's makes a lot of sense. And as I've previously mentioned, because there is coaching opportunities the following day, we also have use of the venue the following day and rooms adjacent to the venue. So what better opportunity than to have the Babs Autumn members meeting in person on that Sunday? So if you are a Babs Council person, Babs Council member, I don't believe we'll be doing the AM the AGM in person this year, in March, what we normally do. Because as we discovered at this year's AMN with its 30 pages of minutes, that's where you get the more meaty conversations happening. That's where the the the bigger issues are talked about. And I'd rather that have an opportunity. Yeah, it's like, do you want us
Peter Bryant: Yeah. A GM's like formal business elections, blah blah blah. Yeah.
Alistair: to still be here? Yes, cool. Good. Here's what we're doing so
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: far. Because we haven't had the planning meeting at that point. We have the planning meeting in July, then we have loads of cool ideas to tell everyone about, and then people pick us up and tell us why those cool ideas are ill thought through. And I am eternally
Peter Bryant: No.
Alistair: grateful. Genuinely, no, I said this at the meeting, I am genuinely grateful for the role that the council does. Because when we come up with because we are but nine people, and sometimes we can be quite guilty of Perhaps, you know, liking the smell of our own farts, for want of a better phrase. And then Yeah,
Peter Bryant: Hair brain schemes. Yeah.
Alistair: and then other people can say, actually that's wrong. And it works and it helps us to look at things a slightly different way and make things that are more agreeable for everyone. And I'd rather have the opportunity to do that in person. So what we are gonna do is say, if you are about to council person, you will get a discounted ticket to that event. 'Cause she'll be coming for two days anyway. So that gives you an opportunity to go.
Peter Bryant: That's cool. Okay. This this this is very exciting. we are running at close to an hour on our podcast episode. This is I I knew go go ahead. Sorry, come.
Alistair: Cool. one thing I will just stress, I just want to stress something really quickly on the British Open. So although it is open to other organizations to compete, so Labs Quartets, both female and mixed quartets from Labs, European Quartets from Snobbs, Bieber, Bing, Holland Harmony, IABS, etc., it is still fundamentally it is a BABS event and it was done by Babs. Like we it was our idea there that's where it it it came from. So there may be just as make that clear that it's not a joint event with any or any organization or anything, it is it's a it's a Babs event. But much like convention, every organization is welcome, but just in this instance all the quartets are welcome to come and see on stage. So yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Very good. I yeah, I did actually have one quick question about the British Open. Is there I
Alistair: So
Peter Bryant: I imagine you're gonna put some kind of entry requirement on there. Like it you can't you can't just be anyone to get involved in this, right?
Alistair: Yes. Yes, correct. I can't remember we there's definitely a a score number that I think it we had in mind that I can't remember if it's either seventy-six or seventy-eight. But it's something like if you have scored above X score, s seventy-six or seventy-eight, within the last two slash three years, then you are you will be able to Yeah, 'cause what we'll obviously,
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And I
Alistair: of course if we're able to get to sixteen places and you I've only ever scored sixty five three years in a row. U unfortunately, this might not be the event for you.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, and we d we don't want to like give a place away to and and disadvantage
Alistair: Correct. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: a quartet who actually has a chance of achieving the qualifying score, right?
Alistair: Yeah, if you are genuinely serious about achieving about attending an international in twenty twenty eight and you have shown the requisite prowess in the past t that you are capable of achieving near that level, then we would like you to come to this fair. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yep. Yeah, you get a shot. Excellent. Okay. I think it's time to wrap things up for the podcast. I knew this would be a meaty one. We've talked about a lot of stuff, but your time
Alistair: Yes Yes Very good then.
Peter Bryant: is very much appreciated, Alistair. Thank you. I want to kind of wrap up with some like a just a handful of like calls to action for people listening.
Alistair: Show.
Peter Bryant: so stuff stuff off the top of my head. Number one, if you are in a chorus, in a Babs chorus and you haven't entered convention yet if you haven't entered scene 2027 yet get on with doing that there are still some places available it's not filled up yet so do crack on with that get the dates inodari one of the things we haven't covered is quartet prelims which is coming up soon and remind me of the date for that Alistair I'll see if I can grab it here.
Alistair: That is the the first weekend in November. And by the first weekend I mean the second one. Saturday the 7th.
Peter Bryant: Great stuff. Yeah. No.
Alistair: And you can come and see. Well, not every quartet is competing, because obviously we have video submissions now, but you can come and see some of up to our 37 Quartet competitors in Quartet Prelims,
Peter Bryant: Excellent.
Alistair: which I had completely forgotten that you'd ask me about until right now.
Peter Bryant: Same.
Alistair: So yeah, that is the the the call to action there. So yes, that is seventh in a place which I will not say 'cause I have got it wrong on at least two occasions, but all of the details are on the Babs website, so please do Then that's where it is. It's in Tamworth. Yep, go there.
Peter Bryant: The the website says it's in Tamworth, same location as last year. Yeah. very good. So get that in your diaries and if there there will be a live stream, but we the quartets as always appreciate an in person audience to encourage them and share
Alistair: They love a hoot and a holler.
Peter Bryant: them on. So come along and and holla for your favourites. well holla holler for everyone actually.
Alistair: Yep. If you're not competing if you're not competing in a chorus at Sing twenty twenty seven and you would like to still sing on stage, then details for the Spotlight chorus will be going out at some point of this week. So keep your eyes peeled for that. More information will be on the website and where to sign up, etcetera.
Peter Bryant: Excellent. I have a couple of personal calls to action. number one, in case you hadn't noticed, Harmony Express has been relaunched, revamped and relaunched. so
Alistair: Mm-hmm.
Peter Bryant: you can go and subscribe to get Harmony Express editions in your inbox. you can go to hex.singbarbershop.com and you just put your email address in there and then you'll get Harmony Express. What we are trying to do with this new this new iteration of Harmony Express is basically rather than doing like a quarterly massive magazine with like twenty pages of different stories in, we're just doing like every every couple of weeks we want to focus on one story. so that it's like a nice quick read for folks and it's it's something relevant and interesting that's going on in the barbershop world. but in order to do that, we need to know what's going on. So if something's going on in your chorus or with your quartet, something cool is happening if you do if you've done a show or if you're if you've done a recruitment event that's been successful, or anything, anything that's going on with your chorus, we would love to hear about it. You can email stuff to harmony express at singbarbshop dot com. You don't have to r
Alistair: Because that's the thing is, I know cool stuff is happening. I
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: know cool stuff is happening because I'm going to the cool stuff. So on Wednesday I am going to an event with Sussex Harmonizers where Spellbound, Mark Grindel's chorus from Cyprus, is coming over to do a joint concert
Peter Bryant: Whoa.
Alistair: with them. Very, very cool. I am going to an event yeah. I'm
Peter Bryant: Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing that we want to be writing in Harmony Express about. Yeah.
Alistair: going to an event down in Devon in three. Brrr four weeks time, three weeks time, where three choruses who are quite far away from a lot of everything else in Bab, so the Rivertones in Taunton, the the Kingsmen, who are sat down again somewhere in Deep Devon, and then Ocean Harmony down in Plymouth are all coming together to do a joint event with the three of them. with Craig Kehoe, he's gonna be there, they're gonna sing a song together, and then they're gonna put a little concert. That's really cool.
Peter Bryant: Amazing.
Alistair: I like that a lot. I've also got to try and learn that song because I'm going down there to sing it with them because I think that'd be really fun.
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: but yeah, people are doing cool stuff all the time. I and this is what I've learned when I'm doing my chats with people. I love hearing about your cool stuff. I want more people to learn about your cool stuff, because then more people might try and do that cool stuff themselves. And that's what's good about this. No one here No one in the Babs community is in competition with anyone else, except when we actually go to convention and we're actually in competition. But outside of that one day a year, no one is in competition with each other. We are all trying to spread the good gospel of barbershop harmony singing to all and sundry. And we do that by making every aspect of what we do better and every element of our organization better and we can only do that by sharing good practice with everyone. So if you're doing a cool
Peter Bryant: Great.
Alistair: thing, tell us about the cool thing, tell Peter about the cool thing, tell me about the cool thing, and we'll try and tell everyone about that. And it will make everything better.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And and we're trying to we're trying to make this as easy as possible for you. In old versions of Harmony Express, you had to send in like a fully written article and all the rest of it. I will write it for you. Or I just need some bullet points of what's of what is happening and and a photo. and I will I will write it up for you. I'll share a draft so that I'm to make sure I'm not making any mistakes or or saying something that's not happened. but I will I will do the writing. It's I Just literally send me some bullet points and and and and we'll get it done. And we wanna as Alistair says, we really, really want to share what's going on. 'cause the barbershop world is alive and kicking. and we we wanna we wanna shout
Alistair: It's great. There's a lot going on.
Peter Bryant: about it more. Yeah. so that's what Harmony Express is for. and the final call to action is if you are not already subscribed to this podcast, you can do that by going to Singbarbershop.com/slash podcast and following the links there. You can also subscribe to the Babs YouTube channel to get new episodes on there. and a new a new to do item for our listeners is share the link to this podcast with a barbershop friend who might not. Have heard it before. if you
Alistair: Mm, yes.
Peter Bryant: have like a chorus group chat or something and you're listening to the show, just g paste paste the link and say, Hey, you should listen to the Babs Podcast 'cause you should listen to the Babs Podcast. 'cause 'cause we have a lot of fun.
Alistair: Do I need to do like a Rory Stewart moment so we go viral or something? Do I need to do like one of the Something like that? That would be Hmm Cool. I'll try my best.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, if you could look at somebody in a really strange way, then that would that would certainly help our reach. but yes, thank you ever so much for listening. If you've made it all the way through this one hour long discussion of what's going on in Babs. It's a very exciting time to be to be in Babs, I have to say.
Alistair: Agreed.
Peter Bryant: there's loads going on, there's loads of new stuff going on. We've got a new convention venue next year, we got a new event next year, Harmony College is back. things are looking up.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: And in a new venue. Harne College is a new venue. Things are looking up.
Alistair: it's all kicking off. This whole album.
Peter Bryant: It's great to be a barbershopper. thank you for listening to tune in, and we will speak to you next time. Thank you, Alistair.
Alistair: Bye team. See later.
Alistair: Peter. I've just I've just noticed when I waved then that my hands are still dirty from the day job. Terrible situation there. I've
Peter Bryant: You you've just you've literally just arrived home from your rounds.
Alistair: just arrived, yes, and this is because this I forget sometimes that this is also video content. 'Cause I don't listen to it on
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: video, I listen to it audio only. so I need to make more efforts to to to to remember that that's the case. but yeah, sorry. I missed the first part of the question. W was there a question?
Peter Bryant: Alistair, you look excellent, don't you worry? No, there wasn't a question. Is everything alright? Th that's a good question. Good. Are you doing well?
Alistair: Yes yes, no everything is fine. Everything is grand. I'm doing well. Yeah, everything is good.
Peter Bryant: That's good to hear. yeah, you're here because I mean we we spoke to you for the last episode, the most recent episode. but several things have happened since then. In particular, several things have happened to you in in Babsland, 'cause you've become the chair of Babs.
Alistair: I have ascended, yes, to the
Peter Bryant: Y yes.
Alistair: the the lofty heights of the the chairship of BEABs. Yes, I have.
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: yeah, it's very exciting time actually. the the chair is sort of always something that I wanted to do at some point. I I said to the people in my the rest of the board when I was interviewed by them That I originally put my name down to be vice chair back in 2019. when
Peter Bryant: Wow.
Alistair: I'd been doing barbershop for I want to say about 18 months and thought that would be a great idea and I'd be absolutely fine. needless to say, I did not get the vice chair role at that time. I think Alan Hughes became the vice chair of Babs at that point, which obviously was quite fitting. They then said, Well, why don't you interview to be the director of membership of Babs? I thought, that sounds like a good idea. I could do that as well. And then I was unfortunately the the the the worse of two final candidates in that role. no I can't remember what happened to the guy who became director membership.
Peter Bryant: Th the the the other guy went on to become a criminal or something for what I heard.
Alistair: Yeah, something like that. It was of course one Mr. Peter Bryant, ladies and gentlemen, for the for the record. For
Peter Bryant: It was I, yes.
Alistair: the record. But no, I eventually got there.
Peter Bryant: You did manage to wiggle your way onto the board eventually, didn't you? Via a circuitous route.
Alistair: Yeah, eventually got there. And then no, we interviewed a couple of candidates for the role when the role was advertised, but as a collective board we couldn't agree on on either candidate who put their name forward and therefore off the back of that I was I'm going to say gently persuaded by Calvin, who did who was our previous vice chair and then was interim in the role of chair to put my name forward for the role and here I am. So
Peter Bryant: Very good.
Alistair: yes
Peter Bryant: Why why do you why would
Alistair: Very exciting.
Peter Bryant: you want to be chair of Babs? It seems it seems like a thing that's like we we sort of joke about yeah. Anyone want to join the board? Lol. anyone want to be chair? Lol. what's what what's in it for Alistair? What what are you hoping to achieve?
Alistair: Well what's in it for me is I get the bling, so the bling's good. the the
Peter Bryant: You do get to wear the bling. It's pretty blingy.
Alistair: the yeah, so that's that's up there. but no, what's I guess what's in it for me, in of its own reward, for want of a better phrase, because so so far since I became chair in July, so I introduced a little thing called chatting with the chair, where I Wanted to make sure all Babs members and both mainly predominantly chairs of clubs had an opportunity to talk to me and I could see where they were, see what was going on with them, and see what was happening. I've had twenty two conversations so far,
Peter Bryant: Wow.
Alistair: and not a single one has been the same, but everyone has had different themes running through of areas where we maybe need to focus and we maybe need to tackle. Why do I want to do this role? i it's I I've tried in the last three minutes, because I anticipated you asking me this question, to find the Jim Hacker quote from Yes Prime Minister, but it's something along the lines of, well I will just simply go where my country needs me to be, or some pithy quote to to that to that end. And I want to continue to be on the board for as long as I possibly can do. Because I love this organization and I want to continue to serve this organization and I want to continue to drive this organization forward. And you can do that by balancing both having a really good team around you, but also seeing what everyone is saying. And that's kind of been what my job has been for the last ten years not my job currently, I put letters in people's doors. but all of my previous roles have been about talking to people, seeing what they need, helping them out, sculpting their ideas, putting them in the right direction, and then building something greater than some of its parts by putting all of that together. And I believe that's something that I can do in the chair role with Babs.
Peter Bryant: Outstanding. Very good. yeah, and I have to say you've you kind of got off to a a pretty pretty exciting start, 'cause last month, I I guess this it's about three weeks ago now,
Alistair: Mm. Yes.
Peter Bryant: you chaired your first members meeting. It was the the autumn members meeting.
Alistair: Mm.
Peter Bryant: and I'm I'm just reading down the the summary document, which is available, I believe, to to any member to go and read through as well as the sort of formal minutes, but you've put together this very, very helpful three or four page four page summary document, just outlining everything that was sort of agreed and discussed.
Alistair: Cause if people do want to read the minutes, they can. The minutes are thirty pages. They they are incredibly thorough, but yes.
Peter Bryant: I wouldn't recommend it, no. so Yeah. yes, so there's there's this very, very helpful summary document that's available through the Babs website. but it's it it was a pretty meaty set of announcements and updates
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: for your first kind of f first event out the gate as chair.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: and so I thought it would be helpful for our listeners who maybe haven't had a chance to catch up on what was talked about and what was announced and was discussed. let's go through it in on the podcast.
Alistair: Mm-hmm.
Peter Bryant: talk about all the tr try and s sort of pull out some important highlights, and just get a sense of where the board and where the organization is heading over the next couple of years. 'Cause it's
Alistair: Nice.
Peter Bryant: As I say, it's pretty wide ranging. We're covering events and we're covering education and subs and all sorts of other things. lo
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: lots of sort of convention centric updates, which I think is is gonna be important to to cover. So I I I I think let's just let's just get into it. So
Alistair: Sure.
Peter Bryant: one of the big purposes of these members' meetings is is obviously to talk about the financial governance and the the budgets and all that sort of thing. and the way that the timing works is that the board has a meeting in like July where they agree the budget and then they present
Alistair: Correct?
Peter Bryant: it to the council at the autumn members meeting and then the budget is is set in place for the next financial year which starts in October. So
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: the budget for twenty twenty six-27
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: you have budgeted for a deficit of thirty eight thousand pounds, which basically means, if if if any listeners are not accustomed to financial speak, that basically means you are gonna end the year with thirty eight thousand pounds less in the bank than you started with. Is that fair to say?
Alistair: Yes, we are going to have spent we are going to have spent thirty eight thousand pounds more than we anticipate earning. Yes.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, so let's un unpack that number for me. What's what's going on there?
Alistair: So there's a key driver behind that, and that key driver is convention. Now,
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: I believe that the majority, if not nearly all, of that £38,000 figure is a deficit on convention itself. and so I did go into quite a lot of detail of this at the AMM, but I'll try and crib note it now. conventions are expensive and they are really really expensive compared to where they have been in the past. So I found a really interesting document from Harrogate Convention Center from 2022, in which they had given us projected costs for the next five conventions at Harrogut. And they predicted that the 2028 convention happening in Harrogat would cost 46,000 pounds. We recently received a quote back from Harrogate Convention Center saying that they The convention in twenty twenty eight will be eighty seven thousand pounds.
Peter Bryant: So that's up pretty much double what they quoted for the same event four years ago. Yeah, yeah. Christ. Okay.
Alistair: Pretty much double what they originally anticipated four years ago. Yeah. So that's kind of where we are in that in that that's the ballpark where we're operating.
Peter Bryant: So the so the costs of just putting on an event have have bubbled and skyrocketed far beyond even the venue's predictions from a
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: f from n like three or four years ago. Yeah.
Alistair: From yeah, the three or four years ago. Yeah. And bearing in mind, I so I did a quick look through old Harmony Expresses and such. In twenty sixteen, the cost of a ticket to come to convention was eighty-five pounds.
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: So ten years ago that was. When my first convention in 2018, it was pushing a hundred. It was I think it might have been a hundred pounds. So Whilst convention venue costs have nearly doubled, we have not doubled the cost of a convention ticket. Because for those who go who maybe don't necessarily follow everything ins and outs Bab's finances, we do try and run our events as a break even cost. So we try and match the ticket price directly with where we are as far as our venue costs are concerned. We did a few calculations for this year for the convention in Brighton. And for it to be a break even event, tickets would have needed to have been a hundred and forty seven pound a person.
Peter Bryant: Which is forty seven
Alistair: And
Peter Bryant: pounds more than last year's event, right? 'Cause I think I well am I r is that is that roughly right? No? of course, 'cause it was a shorter event. Of course.
Alistair: No. Last year's event tickets were seventy-five pounds. Because it was a shorter event. So it would have been three pounds shy of doubling the costs of convention from last year. And we decided that we couldn't w w the from a from every sort of perspective you look at that, from a 'cause there becomes a point with convention as well. There is a sweet spot almost on overarching cost of If you make it £150, £175 a person, so few people will then attend that you actually make less money than if it had been £135 a person. And it's trying to find out roughly where that is. Brighton, of course, is a slightly more expensive venue. it costs more for us to run. We were anticipating as well doing another two-day event. And when we received all of the feedback from SYNC 2026, which was quite substantially in favor of going back to three days, we had to contact Brighton, having already signed the contract with them for two days, to add an additional day. So we're anticipating figures in our head of venue cost plus hotel costs plus etc., which then suddenly inflates again in order to respond to. member desire and member requirements. And then in doing that, because we knew that the reason why we'd done that was ultimately because there had been a lot of change on the board and there hadn't been that that that necessary elements of forward planning, etc., that we couldn't put all of that burden directly on the members. So we set a a price that we felt was reasonable, which is a hundred and fifteen pounds, raising to a hundred and twenty-five pounds in January, if you don't book before January. which is in line with what the labs convention is this year as well, which we thought was reasonable. And that also ties in with the fact that the past two years we've had pretty sizable surpluses. We've done quite well. we had a forty thousand pound surplus. Two years ago and a sixty thousand pound surplus last year. So we can take a forty thousand pound loss, yes, yeah.
Peter Bryant: Okay. So that that was gonna be my next question, like th yeah, that was gonna be my next question. The organization is gonna be okay because there'll be people looking at if they go in and look at this and and they see we're projecting a thirty eight thousand pound
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: effectively not overspend, that's the wrong word, but deficit
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: but budget deficit, people are gonna look at that and go, my god, is Babs gonna be okay? That's
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: that sounds like an awful lot of money.
Alistair: Yes, ultimately Babs is gonna be okay. Yeah. Back in twenty twenty
Peter Bryant: Okay, good.
Alistair: four, we made a long term plan for our reserves to try and get our reserves up to two hundred thousand pounds by twenty twenty nine. And
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: at the end of last year, we had a hundred and seventy five thousand pounds in reserves. So we were already
Peter Bryant: Okay. And and reserves is the money
Alistair: that's the money in the bank, basically.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, the money that's sort of set aside, we're not planning to spend it, that's there as our as our sort of our our our buffer almost.
Alistair: It covers the cost of a convention if something goes absolutely AOL, is basically the situation. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So so effectively yeah, we've got a we've got a hundred and seventy five thousand pound disaster slash emergency relief buffer.
Alistair: Babs is doing f financially I d in a weird in a weird sense, the the the accounting term for it is we are a going concern. Which just means everything is well despite using the phrase concern in that title. But yes. The auditors
Peter Bryant: Okay, very good.
Alistair: will look at our books and say, good, you're a going concern. So
Peter Bryant: Great stuff. That's good news.
Alistair: Yes, very.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, we like it. Okay, so convention's happening in Brighton. We're back in Brighton for the first time in I wanna say twenty five, twenty six years. Twenty one years, okay, so that that would make it two thousand and five, the last time we're in Brighton.
Alistair: Twenty-one years. The yes. Two thousand and five. I have documents somewhere down the side of me from which Derek Parmenter gave me from all of his physical planning documents when we were back in Brighton in two thousand and five. And the cost of the hire and the entire convention back then was thirty thousand pounds. So yes. Agreed.
Peter Bryant: great. What wow. What a time to be alive. have have you or anyone else been to see the venue this year?
Alistair: I have not been to see the venue yet, but Steve Morris, who came onto the board last year as part of a well, he was a director without portfolio at the time, which effectively meant we we to put him to do tasks that we needed doing. And one of them was searching for a venue. so Steve sourced out Brighton. And then since then our convention manager Danny Sawyer and our events director Sam Wallace have both been to the convention centre since and they say it's fantastic because I I believe we get the we're getting the entire convention centre. Now normally because Harrogate is massive, there are parts of the Harrogate Convention Center that despite the fact I mean you and I have probably been to Harrogate Convention Centre thirty five times between us. and there are parts of that convention centre that we have never seen.
Peter Bryant: Yes. Yeah, 'cause I mean i if if people remember the twenty fourteen convention, which you you wouldn't have been at, Alistair. But the twenty the twenty fourteen convention, that was the
Alistair: No, I was not. That was the was that the Flood one or the power cut one or
Peter Bryant: that was the power cut one, yeah, and we had to move the entire convention to a different part of the Harrogat Convention Center. And I was like, my goodness, there's like an entire other convention centre inside Harrogate Convention Centre.
Alistair: It's like when you unlock like a map in a video game almost and you think, New area unlocked.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And you suddenly realize this the scope is much larger than you ever realized. okay, so we have the entire building in
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: in Brighton to to do our thing. That's cool.
Alistair: Yeah. So that will be cool.
Peter Bryant: yeah, it'd be nice to be at a new venue, for for convention. and as we're talking on Monday the fifth,
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: chorus registrations opened yesterday.
Alistair: They did, yes.
Peter Bryant: That's that's exciting. And I'm sure there will be many ls many listeners curious about how it's going. I don't know if you are able to share any numbers because of as we know, as as listeners might know, we are having to we're we're in sort of the slightly the the the nice but also not super nice position of having to limit the number of chorus entries this year. just
Alistair: Hmm.
Peter Bryant: because j we we we can't go crazy with the the timings. And we're doing
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: mixed and mail courses all on the same day these days. so how how are we doing?
Alistair: Correct, yes. It's a combination fine, we're doing fine, as I anticipated, as there is with anything where you create a sort of an anticipation of scarcity or something of that nature. The chorus registrations opened at five PM. By five past five we'd had four registrations. And by quarter past five, we'd
Peter Bryant: Very good.
Alistair: had eleven. it was a big flurry in that first people were like, my god! and they did it, and that's and I applaud that.
Peter Bryant: Ha ha ha.
Alistair: That's great. by 7 pm yesterday, we had 21 registrations so far. so for those maths nerds amongst us, that still means there are nine spaces left. That's not how you do maths. Wow, that's really embarrassing. I was doing basic subtraction and I
Peter Bryant: Yeah, try again.
Alistair: forgot how to subtract twenty-one from thirty-two. So that still means there are eleven spaces left. and no one has filled in the form today at all. So people filled it in
Peter Bryant: Interesting.
Alistair: yesterday and they got it out of the way and they twenty of these were in the first hour. One was the hour afterwards, and then we've had nothing for twenty four hours. So if you haven't registered your chorus yet, you still have plenty of time to do so. There's still
Peter Bryant: Yeah, when when does it when does it close?
Alistair: it closes so again, time of it's the what the fifth today. So we said it would be open for three weeks. So it will be
Peter Bryant: Cool.
Alistair: closing before the end of October, but obviously of course everyone will get reminders about it before before then as well. So yeah.
Peter Bryant: So there is there is still time if you've not decided yet or you were waiting to see what registrations were were looking like, there are still spots available for mi for male and mixed courses both? Great.
Alistair: Yeah. And we for male and mixed courses both. Yes, correct. Yeah. And we know as well, there are a number of 'cause when we were discussing the the limit, w there are known quantities to the board of courses that are not competing. It was always in their plan to either not I case in point, I'm sure they won't mind me saying but Granite City chorus who are up in Aberdeen don't come to our South Coast conventions for very obvious reasons. Because I think it would I think it would
Peter Bryant: It's a long, slung way away.
Alistair: be quicker for them to go to a convention in Norway than it would be
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: for them to go to a convention in on the South Coast. So
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: fair enough to them. so we there are known quantities of when we were thinking about what this limit would look like of what of how we knew who wasn't going to attend anyway. So yeah,
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Alistair: but there's still time. So get yourself in.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, definitely. We wanna we wanna fill this contest up. That's the
Alistair: Agreed.
Peter Bryant: that's the point. Speaking of speaking of the the chorus contest though, there's there's I know I noticed a new
Alistair: An excellent segue.
Peter Bryant: excellent segue. There's a new addition addition to the chorus contest, which
Alistair: Mm.
Peter Bryant: is kind of aimed at folks who might not be a member of a chorus but wanna participate in the chorus contest in in some way. It's called the Spotlight Chorus.
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: This sounds cool. Th this is this kind of borrowed a bit from the Dream Chorus idea that international do? Yeah.
Alistair: Yes, a little bit, yes. So if you are familiar with that, yes. but just to briefly explain the the concept of the of the spotlight chorus, w it is something I am very excited about. I think it's gonna be a really cool idea and it's I think it'll be a really cool experience. I I have said as well, I personally I am going to be in the spotlight chorus. 'Cause I'm currently not singing with anyone. Myself, so
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: I will be singing with the spotlight chorus. But the idea behind it is that if you could be anything, you could be any person who likes singing, who is in a barbershop chorus, isn't in a barbershop chorus, is interested in singing in general, the only thing that prohibits you from being in spotlight chorus is if you were in another chorus that is competing in the contest. Those are the only people who are prohibited from this. So, say for example, if your chorus has decided to not come to convention this year, but you really wanted to go to convention yourself, you now have an opportunity to also still sing in a chorus. If you are a Don Amos member and you've never sung in a chorus before, because you've always been a quartet singer, you can sing in this chorus. If you are a member of Labs and you've regularly come to Babs Convention just to support because you enjoy coming to Babs Conventions and enjoy going to conventions in general, you can be in spotlight chorus. If you are a if you're a music GCSE music student in a Brighton school, you can sing in this chorus. Anyone can sing in this chorus. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we have if this is the biggest chorus on stage.
Peter Bryant: That would be amazing. So so so outline the the whole experience. If you if you're a if you're a spot if
Alistair: Yeah. The concept, the whole experience.
Peter Bryant: you're a member of the Spotlight Chorus, you arrive in Brighton, what's gonna happen to you?
Alistair: So what's gonna happen is as follows. You will have arrived you will arrive having already had some learning music, some both teach tracks and some notes, and there is gonna be something going out in the next couple of days, but I feel like I I can probably tease it here, just in case it gets people going. The ballad is You Are So Beautiful is the ballad that they'll be singing. And the uptune song is Let's Go Fly a kite.
Peter Bryant: very good. Arranged by Doctor Nick. S someone, Doctor Nick.
Alistair: Yes. Someone who I don't yeah, s someone no, yeah, no. A very talented young arranger, my favourite Brian. no I'm joking.
Peter Bryant: Wow.
Alistair: no, I'm kidding. No, that is very true, I we're still plenty of time left and we're about to get into the awkward bits. So no, back
Peter Bryant: I don't have to be nice to you on this podcast, Alistair.
Alistair: to where we are. So you arrived in Brighton having had access to learning tracks and cheap music for those two songs. there may have even been a couple of Zoom rehearsals beforehand, so you if you are unfamiliar with Barbershop, you want to know a little bit more, those are optional. You will turn up on the Saturday morning and you will open the contest. So you may at this point, it will be highly unlikely that you will have even sang through the songs together. You maybe will have had one or two run throughs in the warm-up room before you go. You will be fresh out of the out of the out of the box, you'll be singing a song, singing two songs to warm up the contest. Following on from that, you will then spend the day going through a coaching process, not only with some of our own Babs judges and coaches, but also our international guest, the twenty twenty five International Quartet Champions Lemon Squeezy, have also agreed to help with the coaching aspect. So you will get some tips and tricks or and like whether or not we can elevate certain parts of the songs or improve certain parts of the songs over the course of the next six hours, like during the chorus contest. And then you will close the chorus contest. You'll go back on and everyone will get to see what the fruits of your labour have equated to throughout the course of that day. You will be scored in the morning and scored in the evening. And we can see what does six hours of intensive coaching with international level coaches do to a chorus of that's never sung together before. That is the experiment,
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Just
Alistair: effectively.
Peter Bryant: This is cool. This is really, really awesome. So
Alistair: Yeah, I'm so excited.
Peter Bryant: that yeah, so they won't be they won't be in the contest itself. They won't be like a a competitor, but they will get a score and so they'll know
Alistair: No, they will not be a competitor. Yes.
Peter Bryant: we'll we'll know what they score. That's really cool. And and it just requires you to be in Bournemouth for the Saturday, so there's no rehearsing on the Friday or anything like that. So if you
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: if you're a quartet singer, for example, you could do this. If you're competing in the quartet contest,
Alistair: Yeah, absolutely.
Peter Bryant: you could do it. This this is this is outstanding. This is I I would really, really encourage everyone to do this. I'm I'm thinking about doing this actually. I think this could be cool. Do we have do we have a director?
Alistair: Yeah. Cause I think I don't believe we do have a director right now. I
Peter Bryant: Okay. There's gonna be a big reveal at some point for who's gonna direct it.
Alistair: Well, potentially, but I wouldn't go out thing is, I given how much effort and time Simon Lakovsky has put into this already, I wouldn't be surprised if he want to be the person who directs this chorus. But I'm also know that he probably has a lot of other things to do that weekend. So I don't know if it
Peter Bryant: Doesn't he doesn't he direct a mixed chorus that might be competing in the contest? Which would preclude preclude him. they're not? Okay.
Alistair: They are not competing in this contest. No. No, not this year. So maybe. Maybe. I
Peter Bryant: Fun. Okay.
Alistair: don't know. I also don't think anyone in Lemon Squeezy is a director in the say in the way that like if you had Ringmasters or like so you know someone would be a director, but I'm pretty confident they have the capacity and the ability to do so. So
Peter Bryant: Sure they can all they can all direct, but then yes.
Alistair: so The more information will be coming out about that very soon. Simon's done a video about it where making the forms do things in I've discovered how AppScript works recently. So that's thank
Peter Bryant: Congratulations.
Alistair: you. so I'm playing around with that a lot. 'Cause obviously another thing that we want to ensure is part ballot. What we don't
Peter Bryant: Sure.
Alistair: want to happen is seventy-five high sopranos sign up to sing tenor. And then have three bases. So we're just designing the form so that it basically gives you an opportunity to put your first choice and your second choice. It will assign you based on where that where the spaces are to fill, and then it will continue to open up slots as they become available. and that will be happening. I want to say within the next week, we'll be putting something out on that. ticket, the price for that is it's basically it's just it's £10. on top of where you your registration would be. So if you are coming
Peter Bryant: Okay.
Alistair: just for the Saturday, it's you buy a £50 registration and then you pay £10 extra. And if you come for the full weekend, you buy a £115 registration and then it's £10 extra. So what we'll do is as well.
Peter Bryant: Okay. All right, so yeah.
Alistair: Yeah, we'll likely launch the £10 extra part of the ticket as well. So people can sign up and they can secure that and they can side so it becomes we can start distributing tracks and things like that. Because the actual box office doesn't open until the ninth of November. So when that opens, you'll be able to buy the rest of your ticket.
Peter Bryant: Very good. This sounds very exciting. I hope it's well supported and well received. 'cause I think this I think this is cool. Yeah. This this
Alistair: Yeah. I'm very confident it's gonna be a good event. it'll be a good time.
Peter Bryant: thing so that the BH for for for folks who don't know, the Barbershop Harmony Society International has d has done a similar thing. They call it the Dream Chorus. And it's actually been so popular that they've had to do two dream choruses for the last couple of years. 'cause
Alistair: Yes, they did.
Peter Bryant: so many people have and and each one has like filled the risers on the international stage. So it's a really, really popular thing. I'd encourage folks to get involved 'cause it's it'd it'd be a fun opportunity to sing in a what what I anticipate will be a very, very good chorus, actually. with
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: some great education and yeah. All you've all you've got to do is learn a couple of songs and and rock up. that sounds great. Okay. shall we zoom out a little bit from convention? Woof
Alistair: Let's
Peter Bryant: and and let's let's just sort of go over the music calendar for for the next sort of contest cycle year, Okay, so we've got convention is happening in May, but
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: also in the minutes or in the notes for the autumn members meeting, it talks about the return of Harmony College in 2027.
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: I'm hype for this. do we have d how how much detail do we have about this? Is this definitely happening? Is th are we hoping for this to happen? Like I I know there are will be lots of people who are dying to know everything about Harmony College 'cause 'cause
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: it's great.
Alistair: So this is one of those things where we are in the final throes of being about to sign the contract. But because we haven't signed the contract, it's one of those things where I if I say something right now, you can't hold me liable because we haven't signed
Peter Bryant: No.
Alistair: the contract. There that's that's how it's gonna be. So I am ninety-five percent confident. Harmony College is in person and will be going ahead in the same way as it has done in the past. Well I will also say this is gonna be my please. It's gonna
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: be in a new location.
Peter Bryant: Whoa
Alistair: Mm-hmm.
Peter Bryant: That is a tease, okay.
Alistair: Yeah. But again, because nothing is signed yet, I can't tell you that information.
Peter Bryant: Very good. And it and will it will it have roughly the shape that a sort of traditional Babs Harmony College would have? So you so you get to choose a stream, you could do like a chorus stream or a personal development stream or a quartet stream or directing or that sort of thing.
Alistair: So what we'll be so on the directing is that's a really good point. So again, what you may have noticed in the minutes, or as part and parcel, is we aren't doing the traditional two-day Directors Academy weekend in January this year. We are going to incorporate that directly into Harmony College.
Peter Bryant: Okay.
Alistair: So where there would normally be that same level of education for directors. that will take part within Harmony College and the the free element that you would have normally got for your director's academy situation will be the heavily discounted price that you then receive to go to Harmony College.
Peter Bryant: Okay. 'Cause 'cause Directors Academy was partially subsidised for directors, right. So okay.
Alistair: Yes, correct. So you will still receive that same level of subsidy, but it will just be on your Harmony College correct.
Peter Bryant: It will just apply to Harmony College instead, right, got it. Yeah.
Alistair: So you still get the same opportunity of doing the that event and the opportunity to mix with directors and to have that element of talking you know, amongst directors, but also having additional opportunities within the wider Harmony College space and bringing everything together under one roof.
Peter Bryant: Very good.
Alistair: But every other aspect of Harmony College, I again, I don't think we've discussed the complete finer details on that yet, but I can't imagine it will be much different for I imagine your old favourites of audition chorus, college chorus will likely remain. if you have quartets, there will likely be an opportunity to get additional coaching, as there has been at Harmony College, and there will likely be a series of additional streams, like that there was in 2023, of f learning from individual educators about specific parts of barbershop and the barbershop style, how we sing, why we sing, what makes us sing, et cetera, et
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: cetera.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And th and this will be like a a multi day event with the traditional sort of social time baked in and all all that good stuff. A lot of the reason why mo many of us love Harmony College.
Alistair: Correct. Yeah, one thing I can confer it will still it will still be here's here's an additional level of tease. It will
Peter Bryant: Okay.
Alistair: still be base at a university location. So
Peter Bryant: Okay, just not necessarily the Nottingham University location. Yeah, okay.
Alistair: the pr where the previous no. Correct. So imagine as you will, the same sort of style of everyone gets a dorm room, everyone has a fun time, everyone eats together, in the sort of canteen communal areas. There will be the equivalent of a quad where people can tag sing and get told off by people who are trying to sleep, etcetera. Like that the all of these things will continue. All the good stuff
Peter Bryant: All the good stuff. Yeah. Great.
Alistair: you expect from Harmony College, and that's likely And we're looking at again same weekend where it normally is, the late August bank holiday weekend.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, that sounds grand. We haven't had one of these. For for one reason or another or another, we haven't had one of these types of Harmony College events. Twenty twenty three was the last one. So I
Alistair: Since twenty twenty three. Yeah, correct.
Peter Bryant: know that people have been missing it. And I and there's lots of good reasons why we haven't had one. Like last year
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: there was just too much going on in the wider barbershop world and everyone was just like, I'm going to Europeans or I'm going to Ireland or Spain or s or like something else or there were loads of people going to international last year and there just wasn't space in people's barbershop either calendars or money pots or both f to for a Harmony
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: College to fit in. The year before there was a a different format. We did the sort of North and South Harmony College days, the the sort of chorus days, which were really cool actually. yeah.
Alistair: Yeah. Which I think which w which went down really well. Yeah. I went to both. which yeah. I was I was staying at my I was staying
Peter Bryant: Yeah, yeah, you did you ch yeah, you literally did both across on on two days of the same weekend. That was a lot.
Alistair: at my in laws in Manchester, so I got to go to one and then I got to go to and then I came back home and I went to the other one in the south. It was great. Great time had by all.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Outstanding. but yeah, I'm I I'm I'm sure many people will be excited for a sort of old style Harmony College to come back.
Alistair: Yeah. No, I'm I'm really excited. Correct.
Peter Bryant: so yes, I'll certainly be looking at at getting involved in that. and then I wanted to there's there's like just just
Alistair: The final big ticket item.
Peter Bryant: buried Alistair, if you don't mind me saying so in this document.
Alistair: is it? are we burying the lead?
Peter Bryant: If you don't mind me saying that this is this is a a a a boulded some bolded text under a subheading on page three out of four, is like a brand new event
Alistair: Mm.
Peter Bryant: in the British barbershop calendar.
Alistair: There's probably two whole pages of it if you read the thirty page document, Peter, so really that's on you.
Peter Bryant: Sh I'm but possibly. okay, that's on me. I didn't I d I'm only reading the summary. but the working title for this for this
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: brand new event in September, eighteenth and nineteenth of September is you're calling it the British Open. What's going on? What are you plotting?
Alistair: Mmm. What is going on? What are we plotting? So, how this all started was. So for those who aren't familiar with the International Barbshop calendar, the Barbshop Harmony Society in America announced their convention dates and locations years in advance. And the convention in 2028 has been planned for Chicago. Now The interesting thing about Chicago is for groups coming from Britain and Europe for that matter, Chicago is a very easy location to get to. Because Chicago is a direct flight from London, and I believe there might even be a direct flight from Manchester, going straight to Chicago.
Peter Bryant: I think there is, yeah.
Alistair: So you don't have to do anything else. It's one flight, it's relatively cheap as far as transatlantic travel is concerned. So we are an Anticipated that a large number of quartets, because we are now in an era where we have a lot of quartets who are around and above the qualifying score to go to international, would want to aim to go to international in 2028. Now, as we're already in a position that we've mentioned before where we're restricting chorus limitations on our convention weekend. And we already have a quartet prelims, which limits the number of quartets that we have at our convention weekend. If we found ourselves in a let's say a fortunate position where five, six, seven quartets wanted to go to international, to try and fit them in to sing four songs at that event would prove Logistically difficult. So we needed an alternative. And we built on this alternative from what we could have done is hire a school hall, say any international quartet who wants to come in front of a panel of six judges, come sing four songs, we'll give you a number, we'll record it, and you can and go home. And isn't that a guess? Or We can do what we actually have done with this event. So we contacted the Barbershop Harmony Society because again, this is another thing where for people who maybe don't know, what happens when a quartet scores something from either Babs or Labs? that score has to be re-scored by BHS's own judging panel to determine whether or not it meets what they deem is the standard for to a qu go to an international competition. Again, that doesn't necessarily translate sometimes over a video interface. And we have had a couple of quartets that I know have been burnt, shall we say, in the past, where they have maybe met the qualifying score given to them by our own judges and then they have Being subsequently let down when that has been re-scored via video interface by a BHS judge. The simple solution round this is to get BHS judges to come directly to this event. Because BHS introduced another rule in the last two years where if half of your panel is BHS judges, it still counts from a qualifying perspective. So we will have three BHS judges and three BABS judges judging the event, which means anyone in that competition who meets the qualifying score, which is now 81. That's a big w that's a big number. But anyone who meets an 81 will get an automatic invite to the BHS International Competition. No need for rescoring, no need for any additional toing and froing between me and the BHS CEO. It will for all intents and purposes count as one of the BHS district prelims. It will be another
Peter Bryant: Sure.
Alistair: prelims.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, because that that's kind of how a a a BHS district would do it. Like BHS districts
Alistair: Yes.
Peter Bryant: do actually separate their contests in this way. They have their own district championship, but they have a separate contest for their quartets to c which they call
Alistair: They have a pre limbs contest to go to international.
Peter Bryant: which they call prelims, which obviously we can't call 'cause we have our own prelims, but they
Alistair: Correct.
Peter Bryant: have a prelims, which is a prelims to go to international and that's separate to the district's contest, right?
Alistair: Correct. And then we got to thinking Well it might not just be Babs Quartets who want to compete in this event, who want to go and take ac advantage of a cora of a competition at BHS being in an accessible location. we've seen A number of labs quartets go to BHS in the last two or three years, putting out some absolutely stonking scores in that regard. we have seen and we've also had contact directly at Babs from both a Spanish quartet and a Snobs quartet who have emailed us Asking if they could come to Babs to obtain a qualifying score for themselves to go to international. And we've had to say no on ever on each occasion that they've done that because either we've not had space or because we don't have the mechanism to give them that qualifying score that they require, because it would still need to be re-scored anyway. So with all of those things combined, this event is a European level prelim preliminary event. Four quartets to go to international. So if you're a Swedish quartet as an example, you could come to this event, sing, and if you don't meet a score, you could sing again at your own convention in May. It becomes two bites of a cherry in that regard. If you're
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: a Babs quartet, you don't have to go through the pain, potentially, of having your score remarked and lowered, meaning you are no longer able to attend convention.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, you sort of know you literally know on the day are we going to Chicago or not? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Alistair: You know, on the day you are going. and when we went through the list of quartets who we think around because obviously Europe is a relatively small place in the grand scheme of things, compared to America, that we anticipate that this there could be anywhere up to twenty-five quartets who might want to take part in this event. It's limited at sixteen places,
Peter Bryant: Mm-hmm.
Alistair: and we are gonna obviously earmark a certain number for Babs Quartets, because it is a Babs event. But once we know that if those quartets aren't gonna want to compete, we can we'll we'll open it to to everyone.
Peter Bryant: This sounds cool. I th I think this is this is a neat solution to a number of issues. The the other issue that we haven't talked about is around the fact that Babs kind of only gets one automatic nomination per year, right? So so
Alistair: Yes, of course. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: we get we get to say to one quartet and we and we get to decide who that is, but we've d we've historically decided that it's the highest scoring quartet.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: that that they that that that one place is the guaranteed place, but then everybody else has to go through that kind of rescoring process, right? So
Alistair: Correct, yes.
Peter Bryant: so that's another problem that this solves is that we we no longer have to say to all of the non-qu qualified or all of the non-automatic places like just you'll have to wait for BHS to make their decision, which is cool.
Alistair: And that can take a number of weeks as well. And it becomes a case of you will know so when this event happens in September, you'll know then in September, yes, you are going to you are going to BHS. Or you you can, you have qualified. And that is yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Yeah. And that's really cool. Yeah, 'cause I c like just just to illustrate what this is like for 'cause obviously not a a lot of listeners will not have experienced this process firsthand. so my quartet
Alistair: Sure. Yes, of course.
Peter Bryant: actually went to IABS last year and sang last year? No, the year before. No, last year, twenty twenty five, and sang in the contest and got a score, and the score was not actually the qualifying score. so we were like, okay, fine, we're not, we're not, we didn't qualify for international, that's it. we we won't we won't plan a trip. so we didn't plan a trip because we didn't get the score. But but BHS have this sort of weird wildcard system where if they don't fill all the places with people who get the qualifying score, then they sort of go down the list and they start inviting. So we got an email in May, say like the end of May, saying, hey Limelight, Congratulations, you've qualified to compete at international in six weeks' time. See ya there. And we're like, No you won't. We can't do that. so that so that there's that whole situation as well. But that could that could equally happen the other way around.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: where you think you've qualified and then six weeks later you get the you know so so that the this this helps with the the timeline as well. I have a question about the British Open event in particular, which which does sound very exciting
Alistair: Different.
Peter Bryant: and very attractive. Where's the audience gonna come from?
Alistair: Where's the audience going to come from? The audience
Peter Bryant: Mm.
Alistair: will come from two potential locations. So, number one, do you like barbershop? because if you like Barbershop, if I had an option between well, it's not even an option between anything, it's it's an opportunity to see Imagine watching a Babs Final, but like a a good a really good quality Babs final and then watching it three times. Like that's the level of barbershop you're gonna be getting. realistically. These are quartets. So just to give you an idea, Brit there have been 17 quartets in his in British c barbershop history that have scored higher than an 80. And the highest and the score you now need to qualify for international is 81. So we're it's we're expecting 16 quartets to come to this event. So it would be the equivalent of if Ev the the greatest British quartets of all time were all on stage in one event at one
Peter Bryant: Yeah, all singing together on the same
Alistair: time.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Yeah.
Alistair: So amazing. there is also then gonna be there's coaching opportunities for those quartets the following day. So there therefore it does become the opportunity for it to be in a longer event. So there will be your more traditional afterglow, your etc. etc. side of things as well. There might be, there's talk, we haven't got there just yet. There's talk of also having a guest. because again, if we get the opportunity to utilize BHS judges, the number of BHS judges that are also within their own quartets, and if we're using one of the judges, then there's an opportunity to use that judge to then subsequently also be do a few songs. That's makes a lot of sense. And as I've previously mentioned, because there is coaching opportunities the following day, we also have use of the venue the following day and rooms adjacent to the venue. So what better opportunity than to have the Babs Autumn members meeting in person on that Sunday? So if you are a Babs Council person, Babs Council member, I don't believe we'll be doing the AM the AGM in person this year, in March, what we normally do. Because as we discovered at this year's AMN with its 30 pages of minutes, that's where you get the more meaty conversations happening. That's where the the the bigger issues are talked about. And I'd rather that have an opportunity. Yeah, it's like, do you want us
Peter Bryant: Yeah. A GM's like formal business elections, blah blah blah. Yeah.
Alistair: to still be here? Yes, cool. Good. Here's what we're doing so
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: far. Because we haven't had the planning meeting at that point. We have the planning meeting in July, then we have loads of cool ideas to tell everyone about, and then people pick us up and tell us why those cool ideas are ill thought through. And I am eternally
Peter Bryant: No.
Alistair: grateful. Genuinely, no, I said this at the meeting, I am genuinely grateful for the role that the council does. Because when we come up with because we are but nine people, and sometimes we can be quite guilty of Perhaps, you know, liking the smell of our own farts, for want of a better phrase. And then Yeah,
Peter Bryant: Hair brain schemes. Yeah.
Alistair: and then other people can say, actually that's wrong. And it works and it helps us to look at things a slightly different way and make things that are more agreeable for everyone. And I'd rather have the opportunity to do that in person. So what we are gonna do is say, if you are about to council person, you will get a discounted ticket to that event. 'Cause she'll be coming for two days anyway. So that gives you an opportunity to go.
Peter Bryant: That's cool. Okay. This this this is very exciting. we are running at close to an hour on our podcast episode. This is I I knew go go ahead. Sorry, come.
Alistair: Cool. one thing I will just stress, I just want to stress something really quickly on the British Open. So although it is open to other organizations to compete, so Labs Quartets, both female and mixed quartets from Labs, European Quartets from Snobbs, Bieber, Bing, Holland Harmony, IABS, etc., it is still fundamentally it is a BABS event and it was done by Babs. Like we it was our idea there that's where it it it came from. So there may be just as make that clear that it's not a joint event with any or any organization or anything, it is it's a it's a Babs event. But much like convention, every organization is welcome, but just in this instance all the quartets are welcome to come and see on stage. So yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. Very good. I yeah, I did actually have one quick question about the British Open. Is there I
Alistair: So
Peter Bryant: I imagine you're gonna put some kind of entry requirement on there. Like it you can't you can't just be anyone to get involved in this, right?
Alistair: Yes. Yes, correct. I can't remember we there's definitely a a score number that I think it we had in mind that I can't remember if it's either seventy-six or seventy-eight. But it's something like if you have scored above X score, s seventy-six or seventy-eight, within the last two slash three years, then you are you will be able to Yeah, 'cause what we'll obviously,
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And I
Alistair: of course if we're able to get to sixteen places and you I've only ever scored sixty five three years in a row. U unfortunately, this might not be the event for you.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, and we d we don't want to like give a place away to and and disadvantage
Alistair: Correct. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: a quartet who actually has a chance of achieving the qualifying score, right?
Alistair: Yeah, if you are genuinely serious about achieving about attending an international in twenty twenty eight and you have shown the requisite prowess in the past t that you are capable of achieving near that level, then we would like you to come to this fair. Yeah.
Peter Bryant: Yep. Yeah, you get a shot. Excellent. Okay. I think it's time to wrap things up for the podcast. I knew this would be a meaty one. We've talked about a lot of stuff, but your time
Alistair: Yes Yes Very good then.
Peter Bryant: is very much appreciated, Alistair. Thank you. I want to kind of wrap up with some like a just a handful of like calls to action for people listening.
Alistair: Show.
Peter Bryant: so stuff stuff off the top of my head. Number one, if you are in a chorus, in a Babs chorus and you haven't entered convention yet if you haven't entered scene 2027 yet get on with doing that there are still some places available it's not filled up yet so do crack on with that get the dates inodari one of the things we haven't covered is quartet prelims which is coming up soon and remind me of the date for that Alistair I'll see if I can grab it here.
Alistair: That is the the first weekend in November. And by the first weekend I mean the second one. Saturday the 7th.
Peter Bryant: Great stuff. Yeah. No.
Alistair: And you can come and see. Well, not every quartet is competing, because obviously we have video submissions now, but you can come and see some of up to our 37 Quartet competitors in Quartet Prelims,
Peter Bryant: Excellent.
Alistair: which I had completely forgotten that you'd ask me about until right now.
Peter Bryant: Same.
Alistair: So yeah, that is the the the call to action there. So yes, that is seventh in a place which I will not say 'cause I have got it wrong on at least two occasions, but all of the details are on the Babs website, so please do Then that's where it is. It's in Tamworth. Yep, go there.
Peter Bryant: The the website says it's in Tamworth, same location as last year. Yeah. very good. So get that in your diaries and if there there will be a live stream, but we the quartets as always appreciate an in person audience to encourage them and share
Alistair: They love a hoot and a holler.
Peter Bryant: them on. So come along and and holla for your favourites. well holla holler for everyone actually.
Alistair: Yep. If you're not competing if you're not competing in a chorus at Sing twenty twenty seven and you would like to still sing on stage, then details for the Spotlight chorus will be going out at some point of this week. So keep your eyes peeled for that. More information will be on the website and where to sign up, etcetera.
Peter Bryant: Excellent. I have a couple of personal calls to action. number one, in case you hadn't noticed, Harmony Express has been relaunched, revamped and relaunched. so
Alistair: Mm-hmm.
Peter Bryant: you can go and subscribe to get Harmony Express editions in your inbox. you can go to hex.singbarbershop.com and you just put your email address in there and then you'll get Harmony Express. What we are trying to do with this new this new iteration of Harmony Express is basically rather than doing like a quarterly massive magazine with like twenty pages of different stories in, we're just doing like every every couple of weeks we want to focus on one story. so that it's like a nice quick read for folks and it's it's something relevant and interesting that's going on in the barbershop world. but in order to do that, we need to know what's going on. So if something's going on in your chorus or with your quartet, something cool is happening if you do if you've done a show or if you're if you've done a recruitment event that's been successful, or anything, anything that's going on with your chorus, we would love to hear about it. You can email stuff to harmony express at singbarbshop dot com. You don't have to r
Alistair: Because that's the thing is, I know cool stuff is happening. I
Peter Bryant: Yeah.
Alistair: know cool stuff is happening because I'm going to the cool stuff. So on Wednesday I am going to an event with Sussex Harmonizers where Spellbound, Mark Grindel's chorus from Cyprus, is coming over to do a joint concert
Peter Bryant: Whoa.
Alistair: with them. Very, very cool. I am going to an event yeah. I'm
Peter Bryant: Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing that we want to be writing in Harmony Express about. Yeah.
Alistair: going to an event down in Devon in three. Brrr four weeks time, three weeks time, where three choruses who are quite far away from a lot of everything else in Bab, so the Rivertones in Taunton, the the Kingsmen, who are sat down again somewhere in Deep Devon, and then Ocean Harmony down in Plymouth are all coming together to do a joint event with the three of them. with Craig Kehoe, he's gonna be there, they're gonna sing a song together, and then they're gonna put a little concert. That's really cool.
Peter Bryant: Amazing.
Alistair: I like that a lot. I've also got to try and learn that song because I'm going down there to sing it with them because I think that'd be really fun.
Peter Bryant: Ha ha.
Alistair: but yeah, people are doing cool stuff all the time. I and this is what I've learned when I'm doing my chats with people. I love hearing about your cool stuff. I want more people to learn about your cool stuff, because then more people might try and do that cool stuff themselves. And that's what's good about this. No one here No one in the Babs community is in competition with anyone else, except when we actually go to convention and we're actually in competition. But outside of that one day a year, no one is in competition with each other. We are all trying to spread the good gospel of barbershop harmony singing to all and sundry. And we do that by making every aspect of what we do better and every element of our organization better and we can only do that by sharing good practice with everyone. So if you're doing a cool
Peter Bryant: Great.
Alistair: thing, tell us about the cool thing, tell Peter about the cool thing, tell me about the cool thing, and we'll try and tell everyone about that. And it will make everything better.
Peter Bryant: Yeah. And and we're trying to we're trying to make this as easy as possible for you. In old versions of Harmony Express, you had to send in like a fully written article and all the rest of it. I will write it for you. Or I just need some bullet points of what's of what is happening and and a photo. and I will I will write it up for you. I'll share a draft so that I'm to make sure I'm not making any mistakes or or saying something that's not happened. but I will I will do the writing. It's I Just literally send me some bullet points and and and and we'll get it done. And we wanna as Alistair says, we really, really want to share what's going on. 'cause the barbershop world is alive and kicking. and we we wanna we wanna shout
Alistair: It's great. There's a lot going on.
Peter Bryant: about it more. Yeah. so that's what Harmony Express is for. and the final call to action is if you are not already subscribed to this podcast, you can do that by going to Singbarbershop.com/slash podcast and following the links there. You can also subscribe to the Babs YouTube channel to get new episodes on there. and a new a new to do item for our listeners is share the link to this podcast with a barbershop friend who might not. Have heard it before. if you
Alistair: Mm, yes.
Peter Bryant: have like a chorus group chat or something and you're listening to the show, just g paste paste the link and say, Hey, you should listen to the Babs Podcast 'cause you should listen to the Babs Podcast. 'cause 'cause we have a lot of fun.
Alistair: Do I need to do like a Rory Stewart moment so we go viral or something? Do I need to do like one of the Something like that? That would be Hmm Cool. I'll try my best.
Peter Bryant: Yeah, if you could look at somebody in a really strange way, then that would that would certainly help our reach. but yes, thank you ever so much for listening. If you've made it all the way through this one hour long discussion of what's going on in Babs. It's a very exciting time to be to be in Babs, I have to say.
Alistair: Agreed.
Peter Bryant: there's loads going on, there's loads of new stuff going on. We've got a new convention venue next year, we got a new event next year, Harmony College is back. things are looking up.
Alistair: Yeah.
Peter Bryant: And in a new venue. Harne College is a new venue. Things are looking up.
Alistair: it's all kicking off. This whole album.
Peter Bryant: It's great to be a barbershopper. thank you for listening to tune in, and we will speak to you next time. Thank you, Alistair.
Alistair: Bye team. See later.
