Choir Enrolment, summer 2024 (ENG/GBP)

In 2023, we held enrolment and ticket prices at 2018 levels to ensure that we could attract everyone back after the pandemic years. Though this worked and we attracted a full balanced choir and full houses for concerts, this probably proved foolhardy! We found that that these charges could not cover our costs, raised by inflation over the intervening 5 years. We do try hard to contain costs incurred by our participants. But we do have to bear in mind that we have VERY LIMITED funds with which to launch and manage the festival or support young students in our Academy, compounding our loss-making experiences in 2020. Far from keeping pace with inflation, grants from other charities and subventions from French public bodies have also shrunk during this difficult time for all culture - and, crucially, arrives late: despite perpetual entreaties, we rarely receive ANY public funding before mid-summer even though we apply the previous autumn whereas many of our biggest costs arise in the early Spring when we book accommodation, order music and pay for flights for musicians. We will also stage musical fund-raising events before the festival this year and we are grateful to some individual donors who helped to sustain the festival and its quality performances in 2023 (and also to related Gift Aid support reinforcing gifts and Friend subscriptions from UK tax-payers. So please, if you can spare any EXTRA funds to help us run a great Festival & Academy, please be EXTRA GENEROUS (and early) when you commit to pay! THANK YOU!

COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS & COMMON SENSE PRECAUTIONS Rules have relaxed, most of you are well-vaccinated and hope is in the air. However, even this summer.... please note that we will be adhering to some COVID-19 rules, restrictions and advice applicable to choirs, events, meals & accommodation. Even in July/August 2024, this could possibly still include SOCIAL DISTANCING at times, mask-wearing or other precautions, limits on times and durations of events and on numbers participating and on accommodation sharing. Many rehearsals, performances and meals will be planned to take place out of doors (with some bad-weather alternatives, possibly with different rules). Caution and masks may be required or advised in toilets etc. Please ensure that the week goes off safely and uneventfully. DO NOT COME IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE INFECTIOUS - and share any information you have immediately. Depending on the latest information and rules, there may still (or again) be restrictions on communal eating, incl. breakfast. Communal rooms may not be available. These are the only terms on which we can manage this carefully-monitored event. Audiences may be able only to walk around and enjoy the performance at a distance. We hope they will be free to sit and listen in a normal way but this cannot be assured. Chairs for the choir will be available for the singers during rehearsals but (mostly) not during the concert when chairs may be required by any audience members who choose to sit down to listen.

WE HOPE to be able to run this series of events with minimal restrictions this summer as we did in 2023. If government rules force us to limit events or aspects of the planned week, we will notify you and consult you ASAP. If we obtain repayments of your costs from accommodation providers in the event of cancellation or changes required by government or heath situation, we will endeavour to repay you ASAP after we receive any repayment from providers or the government. (Insurance is currently not available to us against pandemic-related rules or precautions and, to date, the government has not agreed to indemnify festival organisers for this risk. Because of the planned out-of-doors and cautious nature of some that we are planning, we currently hope that need not affect us unduly but we must all remain on-guard. We CANNOT GUARANTEE that rules and restrictions may not change, that full performances may be permitted without further restrictions nor that any audience is assured). While we will use our best endeavours to repay deposits and prepaid sums in a timely and responsible manner, factors outside our control (including some uninsurable risks) mean that we cannot guarantee immediate repayment in the event of cancellation, illness, changed infection rates or other items affected by developments with Covid-19, some of which remain unpredictable. We WILL have insurance against normal risks to the public, musicians and choir from other non-Covid events. However, in as much as it is available, we do require that participants insure themselves risks of cancellation or illness.