Music club hopes for return to ‘home turf’
Maidenhead: Teddies left previous venue after 30 years
A music club for children formerly based in Maidenhead says that it ‘would love’ to find another home in the town to host its singing sessions following the repurposing of its previous venue after 30 years.
Teddies Music Club offers singing and dance opportunities for young children and previously hosted sing-a-longs at the Pinkneys Green Community Centre.
However, this was repurposed under council changes, and the club had to find a new way of offering its services to members.
Teddies also had a pandemic to cope with – but turned to online lessons to ensure it could provide sessions to families digitally.
The group managed to keep
going physically in between lockdowns as it hosted a small number of classes with restricted numbers when Government rules allowed.
Despite the closure of its Pinkneys Green sessions, Teddies now has a weekly schedule of in-person singing sessions again – and co-founders Zita Newcome and Claire Ross-Masson say they want to spread the word about where they are located.
On Mondays, Teddies is at the Holy Trinity Parish Centre in Cookham, while on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, it is in Marlow at the Christ Church Hall and Methodist Church Hall respectively.
The group then hosts sessions at Loddon Hall, Twyford, on Thursdays, and at The Gardener’s Hall in Windsor on Fridays, before returning to Marlow on Saturdays.
Claire and Zita hope that they will soon be able to return ‘home’ to Maidenhead – with plans in motion to set up Monday sessions at Norden Farm in the new year.
The pair have also appealed for a further suitable venue in the town that they could use.
“We have an incredibly loyal following and were there [at Pinkneys Green] for a very long time,” Zita said.
“It was tragic to hear that the centre was being repurposed and we had to have a
very rapid search around to look at halls.
“Maidenhead is our home turf and during lockdown we lost three of our halls [there].
“We would love a venue in Maidenhead again – a big place where we could sing, but also one that has reasonable acoustics.”
Claire added that one of the group’s other aims now is to push its online offering despite the return of physical sessions across the area.
“Our really big push has been to put more of our musical
resources online,” she said.
“If people cannot get to us, we have got loads of singing videos on our website. We have had some amazing feedback on them, with some people saying it kept them sane during lockdown.
“Although the pandemic was terrible, what came of that was our online membership and we have now got a bigger and wider spread community.”
Visit www.teddiesmusicclub.uscreen.io to access Teddies’ musical services.