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The Choir has recently purchased and installed a professional cinema screen and projector at the Choir Hall and on Friday March 13th it opened its doors for its first showing of the film The Hobbit’s latest release ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’. The attendance was a little disappointing but this was put down to a late programme change and bad weather on the night. To quote Heidi Ingle-Gillis community coordinator for Caldicot, ‘This is an incredible set up at the Choir Hall and will be a fabulous facility to benefit the whole of Caldicot. Although the attendance was low, this is to be expected for a first night, but once the word gets around it will be major success’.
The evening was organised by Fred Weston of the charity ‘Building Bridges’ which provides additional needs for local youngsters to maximise their potential in their social lives and provide work related opportunities. Their activities are based on their interests and aspirations and one of these was to have a cinema evening. This was coincidental with the choir installing the new equipment so that this could be achieved and the Choir was happy to help Fred in setting this up.
It is early days yet but the initial plans are to open a cinema club at the choir hall with monthly showings at a low cost and to provide where appropriate a cinematic facility for local organisations and schools where needed, subject to the availability of the hall and volunteers.
I cannot close this post without mentioning the tremendous work and long hours put in by chorister Leon Jones. Not only has he identified and arranged trials and purchase of the equipment, he is largely responsible for the difficult installation of the screen into the roof space. He has spent many, many hours at the choir hall ensuring that the equipment was safely in place and working in time for Friday’s showing and we all owe him and his helpers with the scaffolding a huge debt of gratitude for doing this. I spoke to a professional in installing this type of work and his suggestion was that the cost would have been in excess of £1000. Thank you Leon, I know you don’t like praise, but well done.