We hope to link up with them more in the future, but in the meantime, I’m sending a big cheery wave and many thanks on behalf of everyone at Meet Me in Winter. We may not share the same winter, but it seems we have lots of other things in common!

Never mind – we’ll ask them very nicely to play it for us another day soon! To listen, click here and scroll through to 2:08:30.

It was a real privilege to have the opportunity to write a guest blog for the Mind website this week. I was asked to talk a little about my personal experience and explain how the support and encouragement of those around me helped me to get through my most difficult times. It was a pleasure to do and a great opportunity to spread the word about Meet Me in Winter. Since it went live today, we’ve already had lots of new followers on Twitter and interest in the project from all over the world. Big thanks to all at Mind for their backing, and especially to this community, who inspired the story in the first place.

Lots of Bluecoat pupils, families and staff got involved with the recording and the film shoot. They also raised a fantastic £146 for Shelter and Wotton Youth at their Harvest Festival celebrations.

We hope to go back in once Christmas has passed and their hectic schedule of music and events has quietened down a bit and get the whole school singing too!

And yes, we know it’s entirely possible to download software which means you can take the video from our site completely free, but we don’t reckon anyone out there would seriously consider pirating a charity video. So we won’t insult you by asking you not to!

Thanks so much for your support. Please do keep spreading the word. We now have new friends all over the world sharing and enjoying the song and the video. How cool is that?!

If you’d like to have a listen, here’s the link. You can hear the song first, followed by an interview to discuss happiness, flashmobbing and chart success at around 3:13:10. Enjoy!

Singingworks sets up and runs choirs in the workplace and one off singing team builds. Lots of people want to join a choir and don’t have time- so we go to them.

A “de-stressing sing” at lunchtime oxygenates the blood and leaves people feeling alert but relaxed. Singing is aerobic: it triggers all those “happy chemicals” endorphins/ dopamine: it’s a natural high. Without
realising it, people are improving their communication skills as they learn to listen to each other and engage an audience. Nothing teaches you more about good “team skills” than learning to sing with other people.
Miraculously it gets you out of your comfort zone whilst building your confidence.

And we keep the HR Directors happy, because we build internal, non- hierarchical communities, that unite an organisation from the top floor to the shop floor. As if that isn’t enough, we also enable organisations to reach out into the wider community and sing with, and for, other people.

Thanks to everyone who participated and to all those who gave us such positive feedback. It was a really joyful occasion.

Lots of people know the song now – not just the soloists and choir but hundreds of school children and supporters too. So we’ll be listening out for everyone’s voices as we sing our way down the town with lots of kids and (rumour has it)…. Father Christmas.

Please join us at 4pm when the celebrations begin! You’ll be supporting our town, our Chamber of Trade and, if you bring a little change and throw it in one of our buckets, raising money to reopen our youth centre too. Will you help us to give Wotton’s young people a really cool present this year. Please?

Hope to see you there!