Thank you so much to the Harmony Foundation for giving me a grant to attend Directors College VII. The education, training and nuggets of wisdom I received are going to benefit me tremendously in the future. Knowledge that I intend to pass on, through my future Barbershop activities, both as a director and a singer.

Here is a little bit about me and how I got to the point of wanting to attend DC VII

Singing in various Barbershop groups since 1995, I now sing baritone (because I have the shoulder for it!) with the current BABS silver medal quartet, QED, also with The Great Western Chorus down here in sunny 'Brissle' and an 11 man octet(?) from within the GWC.
I made a conscious decision 2 years ago to throw myself into this wonderful hobby of ours. I find that whatever efforts I put in, the rewards that come back are many fold.

Since making that decision I have also become an applicant to the Guild of Judges Chairman's Category. More significantly however, I was recently abducted by the fantastic ladies of the LABBS chorus 'Fascinating Rhythm', to become their new Music Director

Having never waved my hands in anger before, I knew that this was going to be a steep learning curve to prove that I am worthy of standing out in front of those 28 beautiful women! It's a hard job, but someone has to do it!

So as I am now a full time (fairly mature) student, I approached The Harmony Foundation and was thrilled to be awarded the grant to attend DC VII

As this was to be my first journey to Directors College, I ticked the 'novice' box on the application form. Obviously someone noticed that I had just taken Fascinating Rhythm from 14th place to 11th and an improvement of 5% in score at the recent LABBS convention, so I was contacted in December to be told that I was being put into the 'not novice' stream. 'Great' I thought, until I realised that I needed a video of me directing the chorus. Do you like seeing yourself on video? Well that's how I feel too J

With video in hand I set off to Coventry for what turned out to be a very rewarding weekend.

Upon arrival I was immediately greeted by Sue Loughran. What fantastic organisation by Sue and she deserves to be recognised for that - thanks Sue.
After settling into the hotel, I trotted the short 3 minute walk to Bablake School were all of the training activities took place - except one, see the note about the afterglow in the bar of the hotel!

After diner at the introductions it was great to hear that Andrew Padmore was now a member of the faculty. The Key Note presentation by Mike Brewer O.B.E. was brilliant. This soon turned into a practical session with warm up's and then into an African chant. I learned there and then that it's not necessary to explain why we do certain things in warm ups its better to just do them and simply 'feel' and hear the vocal warm up techniques working.

Another 3 minute walk back to the hotel to sing till the early hours of the morning and perhaps a small glass or two of beer!

Saturday morning brought the video review session with Barry Clinton. This was the moment when I was going to be on display in front of Barry and my fellow class mates. I was definitely out of my comfort zone, but you know what… I wasn't that bad!

Comments and pointers from my class mates and then advice from Mike were all given in a very positive way. The environment we were all in was very conducive to learning. This was great.
The pointers from Barry helped me decide on the taking the 'Less is More' and 'Left/Right hand Function' pick 'n mix streams.

The next session was the Leadership and Management presentations from Rhiannon Owens-Hall, Neil Watkins and Paula Williams. This was very informative and apart from the 3 different styles of leadership from Rhiannon, Neil and Paula, one thing was clear, all clubs need a mission that is embraced by all its members and they need to have a sense of ownership.

On with the two pick and mix classes. Less is more has really taught me a lot - to the extent that I was able to direct The Sounds of Three Spires in the Sunday session with my hands behind m back! Imagine that! The Left/Right Hand function class was very interactive and it was fun having both the inimitable Rod Butcher and Andrew Padmore giving us some pearl's of wisdom.

Neil Watkins page to stage class showed me just how important it is to understand why music is written the way it is. This will enable me to interpret music in a way that reflects this in the future.

Dinner at Bablake was then followed by the all important afterglow in the Bar back at the hotel.

On Sunday morning the college ranks were swelled with members from the guest choruses and quartets. Thank you to the LABBS chorus, The Belles of Three Spires, the BABS chorus The Sounds of Three Spires and the BABS quartets Retro and those sickeningly young and handsome men from Cadence - I only wish I'd started singing at the same age as those guys and what a fantastic sound they make! Andrew Padmore took us though a warm up session - giving me even more golden nuggets to take home.

Sunday's classes with Neil (Plagiarism and Creativity) and Rhiannon (The Chorus Director as Coach) were extremely informative.

Neil's wealth of knowledge and very direct language helped to get the message across… try to be original with the work that we do with our respective choruses. This is something I am going to work hard at achieving.

Rhiannon's class made me realise how important it is to understand the coaching process. This is an area that will not only benefit my chorus, but the skills can obviously be used when coaching quartets in the future.

Sunday afternoon's session gave me the chance to practice my new directing skills on the BABS chorus 'The Sounds of Three Spires' Thank you chaps for giving me and all of my fellow delegates the chance to work with you.
The experience of directing the chorus while being filmed on two cameras was great. The DVD that was produced with comments from Barry Clinton has been viewed many times at home and I will continue to refer to it in the future.

In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed the DC VII experience and feel that I now have a set of tools in my kit bag hat are going to be of great benefit to me and those that I will work with in the future. As well as the education experience I made some new friends at the College and intend to return to DC VIII and meet all of them next year.

Peter Nugent (Bristol)