Creative programs that transform lives
Altona Meadows is BACK!
We’re delighted to announce that the Altona Meadows choir is BACK! Starting this Thursday (2:00 – 3:30) at the Altona Meadows Community Centre in Trafalgar Ave.
We’re also delighted to announce the incredibly talented and experienced Steph Payne has joined the With One Voice family, and will lead the newly re-formed Altona Meadows choir. Here’s what she had to say this week:
“I’m Steph Payne, the new director of the choir and we invite you to a part of the new chapter in the choir’s history.
I’ve been directing a cappella community choirs for 25 years. I remember watching a choir sing live for the first time and thinking the best place to hear that must be where the director stands and deciding that was the job for me. Once I’d experienced the beautiful feeling of singing harmonies and being part of a singing community, I wanted everyone to feel that joy too. I went off to study music and the rest is history! I am also the director of Willin Wimmin, women’s choir in Williamstown, which I’ve done for the last 8 years.
You’ll notice all directors have their own style. I teach a lot of folk, world and popular songs. There is soul, positivity and heart in the music and I can’t wait to share it with you.
We hopefully have a performance coming up! We’ve applied to sing in the Newport Fiddle & Folk Club’s upcoming Theme Night. It’s just one song but it’s so great to be a part of this fun event and to have something to work towards.
Come along on the 28th of April and see if you enjoy yourself and we’ll sort out joining properly, if you want to, once you’re there.
Term 2 begins 28 April, 2022.
Thursdays 2:00pm-3:30pm
Altona Meadows Community Centre – 28 Trafalgar Avenue, Altona Meadows.
Who is the choir for?
As always with WOV choirs, adults of all abilities, cultures, backgrounds, vocal ranges and genders are welcome. Even if you’ve never sung a note, you are welcome here.
Can you help?
We will need a couple of volunteers to help with the admin of the choir. Please let me know if you’re willing.
Spread the word!
Do you know anyone who’d like to sing? Tell them about us. Bring a friend! Attached is a jpg that can be shared on your social media feeds. We’d like to build up the choir numbers to ensure it’s longevity so we need help to find people.
Covid Safety
It is the nature of groups like ours to have some vulnerable community members who need to be protected from Covid-19, myself included. I take this quite seriously.
Please be careful to never attend when unwell, if you are a close contact or if you have any suspicion that you’ve been exposed to the virus.
Please be sure to be vaccinated and if you are more comfortable wearing a mask, that is great.
While at choir, the chairs will be spread out and I encourage everyone to avoid touching or getting close to each other.
Despite whatever rules governments may or may not have in place, looking after each other’s health and safety will remain important.
Thanks Kym Dillon!
Thank you to Kym Dillon for all of the work and music lovingly put into starting and building this community and for the support and wishing us well now. Kym remains well loved by all (she’s a tough act to follow!) and I look forward to the times the broader WOV community gathers and we get to sing all together.
I am excited to meet you all, get to know this community and help it to grow into this next phase.
Regards,
Steph Payne”
We’re so delighted to have Altona Meadows singing together once more after such a long hiatus. We hope you can make it down for a sing. Tell your friends!
Round SIX of the With One Voice Start-up grant applications is now open
With One Voice Start-up Grants on offer – up to $10K available!
Current Round Applications close 1st June, 2018
The With One Voice choirs are about strengthening communities and inspiring individuals to find their voice. We believe empowered individuals and supportive communities are better placed to solve society’s big challenges including cross-cultural integration, unemployment, mental illness, productivity, skills shortages, loneliness and isolation, family fragmentation, homelessness and more. Creativity Australia is offering a limited number of seed funding grants to make it easier for communities to start their own choir.
“It’s not hard to be part of the solution to the loneliness epidemic,” says Creativity Australia Founder, Tania de Jong AM, “it’s just about finding ways to bring the community together to support one another.”
It is an opportunity to create connections and friendships between diverse people in our community. It is about reaching out to those who are experiencing disadvantage and encouraging the socially advantaged in our community to engage with, learn from and help these people. Learn more about the members we have helped here – member stories.
Round four of the With One Voice Start Up fund is now open to local community groups, not-for-profits and businesses to tackle loneliness, isolation and disadvantage in their community. Successful applicants join a 12-month intensive mentoring program to guide them through the process of building their own With One Voice choir and a $10k Start-up Grant.
Founder & CEO of Centre for Hope, Geraldine Moran, the first successful applicant from Round One, says “With One Voice perfectly encapsulates the unity we want to create for our community. Mentoring is such a powerful tool, and through the With One Voice mentoring program we are learning quickly, safely and in a supported manner.”
For more information and to apply for a place in the With One Voice Start-up project, visit www.creativityaustralia.org.au/start.
Sing in the shower: Tania de Jong’s tips to be more creative in business
Tania de Jong’s goal is to get the nation singing.
A leading soprano herself, de Jong says singing changes the brain and encourages creativity. She has even given a TED talk on that topic. (See video below.)
De Jong is also a social entrepreneur and her latest project, Sing for Good, is seeking to raise much-needed funds to support disadvantaged Australians.
“We want to be the next Movember, but instead of moustaches, it’s about singing together,” she says.
“The goal is to get everyone singing … we also want to remove the stigma of singing.”
Sing for Good is part of Creativity Australia, one of de Jong’s two charities, alongside The Song Room, an education program for Australian children that won her the Ernst & Young award for Australian Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006.
De Jong is also the founder of leadership and innovation organisation Creative Universe, Creative Innovation Global conferences, opera group Pot-Pourri and MTA Entertainment & Events.
Speaking to SmartCompany ahead of a keynote address last week at Creative Fuel, part of the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising’s Global Forum, de Jong says her passion is fostering creativity and innovation.
To continue reading click here
Marg and daughter unite With One Voice
For resident Marg Walker, the With One Voice Altona Meadows community choir at Benetas St George’s is more than just an opportunity to sing along to her favourite tunes.
Read more in this great article from DPS News.
It’s never too late: raise your voice, lift your heart
Adrift after the loss of her great love, Angela Quigley re-discovered joy and a new community at With One Voice Brisbane.
Read more in this lovely Reader’s Digest article by Hazel Flynn.
Nerves On A Choir: My First Rehearsal
My first choir experience
I had no idea what to expect heading into the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins for my first With One Voice choir. I had just landed a gig as an intern for Creativity Australia and assumed I’d be there in an ‘observational’ capacity. That assumption proved to be incorrect. I’d never sung in a choir before, let alone publicly, and was nervous about to be doing so.
As I stood awkwardly wondering what I had got myself into it was suggested I go and join the “boys”. The boys, or the bass section, consisted of six men all much older than me, yet some were years apart from one and other. Summing up the situation I attempted to sneak into the back row unnoticed, but this close knit gang of basses weren’t about to just let anyone in. A tall older man turned and looked at me. He offered me his hand and joyfully asked “do you sing often?” “No, not really,” I said. He smiled before saying, “You have a voice. That’s a start”. (more…)
Top 10 Songs To Sing In The Shower
A Music Buff’s Guide to Singing In the Buff
Not only does everybody sing in the shower, everybody also thinks they sound better in the shower. The reason why we sound better is fairly simple, it’s due to your voice bouncing off the smooth hard tiles and glass surfaces, giving it more power. This makes a regular Joe or Joanne sound as powerful as the late Roy Orbison or as soulful as Adele.
Research into shower singing has provided even more reasons to belt it out first thing in the morning. A Swiss study found singing to have a huge effect on your heart rate, so much so that it can even reduce the risk of heart disease. Swedish neurologist Bjorn Vickhoff said that singing “gives you pretty much the same effect as yoga breathing”.
So what other reasons do you need to realize the beauty of shower singing first thing in the morning? Maybe you’re just stuck for ideas on what to sing next? If that’s so, enjoy 10 songs selected to belt out in a hot shower on a cold morning.
Give Happy, Live Happy: Volunteer Week
Volunteer Week 2015
It’s National Volunteer Week and Creativity Australia’s With One Voice family wants to say a big thank you to our 100 volunteers who support and contribute to the community every week.
Without their ongoing support, the With One Voice choirs wouldn’t be able to operate as successfully as it does and for that, we are truly grateful.
Together, our volunteers and other wonderful team members are helping change the world… one voice at a time. Creativity Australia’s aim is to bridge the gap between people experiencing disadvantage and those more fortunate through the neuro-scientific benefits of community singing, choirs and singing projects. We build supportive networks that help people connect to brighter futures.
Coinciding with Volunteering Australia’s motto this year, our team members share the same value: Give Happy, Live Happy.
Community Choirs Vs. Fight Club
A film blogger’s left-of-field comparison between Fight Club and community singing…
Everybody knows the first rule about Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. Less are familiar with the second rule of Fight Club: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. What people do not know is how Fight Club creator Tyler Durden’s rules echo Creativity Australia’s With One Voice choirs. The first rule of the choir is: you do talk about the choir. The second rule of course is: you DEFINITELY DO talk about the choir.
The parallels go further than simply changing an environment from one of exclusivity to one that is wholly inclusive. However, that being said, it must be made very clear that the With One Voice choirs are peaceful gatherings where anyone is welcome!
Food for the soul: supermarket flash mob
Some familiar faces appear in this wonderful flash mob at Ritchie’s Mt Eliza!
Thank you, Shaun: celebrating our conductors
After seven years as Principal Conductor of the With One Voice program, we are bidding a fond (yet not final) farewell to the wonderful Shaun Islip.
Shaun said his life has been transformed and enriched immeasurably through his association with Creativity Australia.
“It has been an immense privilege and joy to help shape the community, culture, creativity, music and ethos of this remarkable organisation,” Shaun said.
“It has been a hugely difficult decision to move on after seven fruitful and life-giving years, and I say my farewells with a heavy heart,” he said.
“It is wonderful to welcome, recognise and affirm the new blood, life, energy and skills embodied in my very worthy successor Kym Dillon. His passion, energy and enthusiasm will undoubtedly prove a great catalyst for the forward momentum and future success of Creativity Australia.
“Dearest friends, choir members, staff of Creativity Australia, Tania… you will always hold a huge place in my heart, I will miss you more than I can say. This however is not a final farewell, and I am confident that it will not be too long before our paths cross again.
“Until then dear ones, may you all find new strength in the journey, fresh wind in your sails as you continue to extend hope and encouragement through the joy of song. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for everything.
“Until next time… Siyahamba!
On behalf of the whole With One Voice family, we extend our warmest wishes to Shaun and look forward to seeing him as a guest conductor in the near future.
Kym Dillon, who has been a With One Voice conductor for five years, said he is excited to take all the skills he has gained so far to the next level.
“Working with the wonderful, dedicated choirs of Geelong, Ashburton and Altona Meadows over the years has given me an invaluable insight into the nature of these singing communities, and I have them to thank for the readiness I feel to take on this challenge,” Kym said.
“I’m sincerely looking forward to working with a very talented team of conductors to achieve the best possible outcome we can for the people who sing with us,” he said.
“I look forward to us as a team heightening the sense of community, not just in the the individual choirs but in the program as a whole, and celebrating each individual choir for their particular character.
“Finally, I honestly look forward to doing my utmost to listen to the needs of the choirs, and do my best to serve them as a fellow musician.
“Shaun has been an invaluable leader for the past few years, and I wish him all the best with his future endeavours!”
You can enjoy Kym’s energetic stylings at our Melbourne, Ashburton, Geelong and Altona Meadows choirs.
Just start singing! Karaoke jam open now.
You’re invited to join an online karaoke jam! Have a listen to the simple tune below and add your voice to the track.
Your smartphone*, the Smule app and some headphones are all you need!
- Click on the song title ‘We Sing‘
- Click ‘Join Now’
- Follow the prompts
*Your tablet or computer would work too!
Everyone’s welcome, so join us in song!
