PURE JOY!!

JOY

 Meaning – ‘A Source or Cause of Delight’

This week, like most weeks, has been a bundle of mixed emotions. Over the weekend, due to a series of unexpected circumstances, I found myself in charge of the grandchildren. 

Although outnumbered I survived.  It cost me a fortune in ice cream but overall, except for a few tricky moments, I think we all got away with it.  One of the highlights was when attempting to leave my grandson after all of the rituals of bath time, teeth time, story time and the singing of ‘Gentle Jesus’ he said quietly, ‘will you snuggle with me Baba?’.

Of course in the background for the past month or so there has been all of the vitriol of The US Presidential Election. This week also saw the announcement of the new Shadow Cabinet and then there’s the usual worry about interest rates and its getting colder…and so on.

On Tuesday evening I found myself at the Swansea.com stadium watching Swansea versus Watford. 

Ask any sporting fan and they will tell you its not always a wonderful experience. In every competition there can only be one winner and so you start a season with high hopes only to see most of them dashed on the rocks of reality.  Yes, they have tried to widen the measures of success by giving promotion to 3 teams from the Championship to the Premier League and then there’s the play offs to keep more clubs interested for longer each year but the odds are that most supporters will be disappointed.

The trouble is the occasional highs always outweigh those lows. On Tuesday there was unbounded relief and excitement when we scored in the 35^th minute and then relief and smiles when the final whistle went in the 95^th minute.  It’s all about the drama and the anticipation and the hope that it will all go well that keeps us coming back.

Mal & Carolyn Harris at the FOYD Centre.

With all of that happening in my life on Thursday evening I found myself heading to the FOYD (Friends Of the Young Disabled) Centre in Cwmbwrla.  I was there to make a video with the Rising Stars Theatre Company who meet there every Thursday. I’ve worked with the ‘Rising Stars’ on lots of occasions, so I sort of know what to expect and they never let me down. The only way I can describe the evening was as I chatted and danced and sang with the company I experienced pure JOY.

In case you hadn’t noticed we’ve had Halloween and Bonfire Night and now everyone’s attention will inevitably turn to Christmas. I know I shouldn’t be surprised at Mince Pies in May or Sleighs in September but I was flabbergasted by the quick turnaround in some shops.  Fair play to those shop window dressers who almost overnight cleared out the Witches Hats and Skeletons to replace them with Santas and Reindeer.

The ‘Everyone Deserves’ campaign started off a number of years ago on the kitchen table of Neath and Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris.  A year or so later I came onboard as a volunteer helping to pack hampers but after a few years I found that I had been conscripted by Carolyn into the team with an annual responsibility to produce a song and video to help promote the cause.

There were days in the long distant past where a charity record could make money, just look at the Band Aid record. Whether musicians like it or not the model has changed.  This is a world of streaming and downloads and although we still make a small number of physical CD’s I always say that we make the record to raise money and awareness.  The awareness helps bring the Hamper Charity to people’s attention and that hopefully raises money when they visit the JustGiving page.

The song and recording is the starting point but as time has passed I’ve realised that the video is possibly more important as people can share the images on social media.  As the years have passed the videos have become more and more important.  So not only is the challenge to come up with something new musically that sums up the charity I now have to think about the video we will need to produce to go with it.

In the past we have taken over Murton Farm Shop and brought in the Salvation Army Brass Band, a snow machine, a celebrity choir and lots of kids. One year we brought in over 200 ladies in red dresses to the Liberty Church in Landore.  Last year, Parc Le Breos very kindly decorated their hotel a few weeks early especially for our video shoot.  They even closed for the night for us to film with the entire staff, who came in on their day off, as we were joined by Father and Mrs Christmas and the local vicar the Rev Peter Lewis. As you can see the bar seems to get higher every year. 

I must admit that I thought we had reached the end of the line last year, but it wasn’t that far into the New Year when I got the call from Carolyn asking what we were planning to do this year.  It took me a few days of thinking and as Baldrick would say in Blackadder I think I came up with what can only be described as a cunning plan.

Now I can’t tell you exactly all of the elements of the plan as it does involve quite a surprising reveal but what I did know was that I wanted to involve the Rising Stars Theatre Company. The company has been running for many years and it has a dedicated team of professionals and volunteers who work with kids and young adults with Additional Learning Needs.

Some years ago I sent Michelle McTernan, one of the Rising Star’s senior team, the Everyone Deserves version of ‘Away In A Manger’.  A few days later they sent me a magical ‘signed’ version of the song which moved me to tears.  I had always wanted to involve them in one of our official videos and this year I saw the perfect opportunity.

The group have become experts at sign language and the new Christmas Charity Record has a fairly simple chorus that I wanted to really underline musically and visually. I gave Michelle a call and sent her the song and just over a week later I was in Cwmbwrla ready to film their performance to add to the video.

When Carolyn and I arrived we were greeted with hugs and smiles and lots of stories.  Everyone was dressed in their best Christmas jumpers and party hats.  Being the new guys Carolyn and I had to be taught the right sign language for the song, but company member Steph walked confidently to the front to share the actions and within a few minutes Carolyn and I were ready to join the company for a ‘take’.

As the music played and the cameras rolled there was such a feeling of Christmas spirit in the room.  I suggested that maybe at the end we could do some free form dance moves and a bit of cheering…it was as if I’d opened a wildly shaken bottle of pop.

As Carolyn and I left the building we turned to each other and smiled.  It had been the best night full of love and full of what I can only describe as PURE JOY. 

It will be a week or so until we release the video, but I’ll be sure to share it as soon as I can.  As I watch their performance I can feel all of those emotions jump out of my screen and I’m sure you will too.