Working with our Worcester Venues
by Nicki Little
We are very lucky to have found three splendid venues to meet our particular needs in Worcester and we put a lot of effort into ensuring that everyone knows exactly what is required each year. The Cathedral, College Hall (via the King’s School) and St Andrew’s Church are all booked at least three years in advance and in the lead-up to each October’s event we have regular communications with all three to ensure that they know exactly what we need and can provide it.
The people at St Andrew’s Church are simply delightful to work with. Bookings are done through a church stalwart, Joan Wheat; catering arrangements are finalised with Christina Burch, who heads up the team who prepare our coffees and teas and the splendid buffet lunch, not to mention all those home-made cakes. We send her a schedule for Rehearsal Saturday so that she knows in advance when to expect us for our breaks and lunch and about a week before the event we let her have final numbers for drinks, vegetarian and non-vegetarian buffet lunches. After the day we have a chat to discuss any feedback and to see if there are any improvements that can be made for the following year.
We are similarly well blessed at the Cathedral, where we also liaise with a variety of people to ensure that all the arrangements, including the catering, run smoothly. We have a meeting with them all, usually in July or August, to discuss the fine details of the coming October’s Concert Saturday schedule. Rooms, staging, seating, music stands, tables, lighting, bells, refreshments, piano tuning, orchestra parking, post-concert bar, concert stewards, changing facilities for our soloists and conductor... all need to be discussed and agreed. After our meeting we revise the schedule and carry on tweaking it until we are all happy and in agreement. The Cathedral staff are always very complimentary about MFC and apparently use us as a benchmark for all the other organisations they work with!
For the past three years we have let the orchestra use College Hall, which actually belongs to the King’s School, as their base. Fortunately all our orchestras have, thus far, been pretty accommodating, realising that the separate rooms for males and females, washbasins, plentiful toilets and full length mirrors stipulated in some of their contracts are just not going to be feasible in cathedral precincts. However we do try to keep them as sweet as possible by arranging for them to have plenty of hanging space, a partition across the middle of the room and some nice refreshments mid-afternoon and in the concert interval. It’s amazing how appreciative they are of a Danish pastry with their (free to them!) afternoon cuppa.