About Us
A warm welcome to this support website which, since September 2019 has been an ongoing 'brainstorming platform', a place of communicating and co-ordination, where not just clubs/societies/venues etc. but also our professional players can express their concerns and/or contribute suggestions and possible solutions to the problems so many of us are facing to some degree or other. We are trying to unite our UK keyboard and organ enthusiasts to work together to to help raise public awareness of themselves and to sustain the future of our kind of music in the 21st century.
Whether your audience numbers are doing well or if you are experiencing a decline we would very much like to hear from you, even if only to reiterate what has already been said by others on here. If you would like your comments to be added to the website we will respect your privacy so they will remain anonymous unless you tell us otherwise.
Please email us, Pam and Stewart: clubsunited19@gmail.com
Update 23rd January 2020
Hi All,
We would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and we hope 2020 will be a successful one for your club/society/show/concert venue. It has been encouraging to read of the clubs who have recently emerged under a new ‘banner’ - a change of name, change of venue and a more relaxed atmosphere can be a breath of fresh air and attract a whole new audience. Good luck to those clubs and indeed all enthusiasts and our professional players who are working hard to keep our musical events running smoothly. Please let us have your stories and we can include them on the website to inspire others.
As you may have seen, this website has now very much taken shape and we owe a big thank you to the many clubs etc. and players for taking the time and effort to respond to our project with many emails and phone calls. You've given us your suggestions, ideas, general ramblings and words of encouragement and as a result the site has got off to a very good start and has grown immensely. There are now some great suggestions on here for keeping our clubs going (in whatever form they are now taking). We had to re-organise things somewhat because it became very rambling in itself but we now think it makes for better reading. Please do keep having a look because there may just be some little suggestions you may not have thought of which could make that bit of difference to your club.
We also received some quite hard hitting negative comments and felt that we needed to air the many different opinions about the changing situation of the club circuit today so in order to be realistic those comments have also been included on here. Please note we do not want to offend anybody, we are only trying to help by sharing many peoples' ideas.
We have started to include links to clubs' facebook pages on our useful links page. We can all be in touch with each other and 'like' and 'share' each others' posts, which will keep spreading the word of concerts and events happening up and down the country. If you have a facebook page or group for your club why not send us the link and we'll add it to the website. If you don't yet have a page, younger family members would usually be willing to help to set one up for your club and also show you how to join your local publicity groups on facebook and be able to publicise your event to a potentially whole new audience. Whether you love it or hate it, facebook is a powerful advertising platform, many of our professional players use it almost daily to promote themselves, there is no reason why clubs can't do the same.
We are also including clubs' website addresses on the links page, why not send us your link - plus any other links you feel would be helpful for publicity etc.
Finally we have another very big thank you for several people who have been instrumental in contributing to our 'self-help' idea:
Please keep your thoughts coming in, we can put them on the website and keep them anonymous if you wish - and keep in touch with us anyway with your success stories (or otherwise), we are all in this together.
Best wishes
Stewart Langton (New Forest Organ Society)
Pam Barnard (Norwich Electronic Organ and Keyboard Club)
Whether your audience numbers are doing well or if you are experiencing a decline we would very much like to hear from you, even if only to reiterate what has already been said by others on here. If you would like your comments to be added to the website we will respect your privacy so they will remain anonymous unless you tell us otherwise.
Please email us, Pam and Stewart: clubsunited19@gmail.com
Update 23rd January 2020
Hi All,
We would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and we hope 2020 will be a successful one for your club/society/show/concert venue. It has been encouraging to read of the clubs who have recently emerged under a new ‘banner’ - a change of name, change of venue and a more relaxed atmosphere can be a breath of fresh air and attract a whole new audience. Good luck to those clubs and indeed all enthusiasts and our professional players who are working hard to keep our musical events running smoothly. Please let us have your stories and we can include them on the website to inspire others.
As you may have seen, this website has now very much taken shape and we owe a big thank you to the many clubs etc. and players for taking the time and effort to respond to our project with many emails and phone calls. You've given us your suggestions, ideas, general ramblings and words of encouragement and as a result the site has got off to a very good start and has grown immensely. There are now some great suggestions on here for keeping our clubs going (in whatever form they are now taking). We had to re-organise things somewhat because it became very rambling in itself but we now think it makes for better reading. Please do keep having a look because there may just be some little suggestions you may not have thought of which could make that bit of difference to your club.
We also received some quite hard hitting negative comments and felt that we needed to air the many different opinions about the changing situation of the club circuit today so in order to be realistic those comments have also been included on here. Please note we do not want to offend anybody, we are only trying to help by sharing many peoples' ideas.
We have started to include links to clubs' facebook pages on our useful links page. We can all be in touch with each other and 'like' and 'share' each others' posts, which will keep spreading the word of concerts and events happening up and down the country. If you have a facebook page or group for your club why not send us the link and we'll add it to the website. If you don't yet have a page, younger family members would usually be willing to help to set one up for your club and also show you how to join your local publicity groups on facebook and be able to publicise your event to a potentially whole new audience. Whether you love it or hate it, facebook is a powerful advertising platform, many of our professional players use it almost daily to promote themselves, there is no reason why clubs can't do the same.
We are also including clubs' website addresses on the links page, why not send us your link - plus any other links you feel would be helpful for publicity etc.
Finally we have another very big thank you for several people who have been instrumental in contributing to our 'self-help' idea:
- Firstly Sandra Ebberts, chairman of The New Forest Organ Society, for calling a meeting to discuss the dwindling club circuit in the first place, at the Yamaha Club Weekend in November 2018 - without that Stewart and Pam wouldn't have got our heads together and Clubs United would not be in existence.
- Matthew Bason for his brilliant offer of hosting a website for us, which at the time was a nudge in the right direction that we both needed. Matthew applied for the domain name and presented us with a brand new site to design and develop as we want. This was our 'stepping off' point and Matthew is there to offer us help and advice if we ask for it.
- Marie Powell for giving us our own page on OrganFax to be able to highlight the fact that we exist and want to help to unite clubs in this way. OrganFax is still very much a hub for clubs and players alike so we will be using our page to help to keep you all up to date with what we are doing and trying to achieve.
- Glyn Madden (Yamaha Club Magazine) and Michael Wooldridge (Organ and Keyboard Cavalcade) for the support and publicity they have given us. Michael is running a series in OKC with the spotlight on various clubs around the country which again could help to pass on ideas which work for those clubs. Do subscribe to his new look magazine.
Please keep your thoughts coming in, we can put them on the website and keep them anonymous if you wish - and keep in touch with us anyway with your success stories (or otherwise), we are all in this together.
Best wishes
Stewart Langton (New Forest Organ Society)
Pam Barnard (Norwich Electronic Organ and Keyboard Club)
