As Caron has explained, Autumn Conference will take place online from 25th to 28th September. I have been watching the developments with a lot of interest, because I was a member of the Federal Conference Committee for five years until I stood down at the end of last year.

I loved being on the committee, but it completely took over my time at Conference. Committee members were on a rota to chair and aide motion debates in the hall, to chair speeches and Q&As from the main stage and spokespersons’ sessions elsewhere, and to attend various events for first time attendees and others. For each debate we would usually need the same amount of time in advance to read through the speakers’ cards and construct a balanced discussion. On top of that there was training to remind us of the niceties of the standing orders, and how to deal with requests for counted votes, referrals back etc, plus a daily briefing meeting. It made life busy, and I found I missed some of the other delights of conference, such as sitting around and chatting with old friends, but I did enjoy doing it.

I was really looking forward to York in March and the opportunity to just wander around Conference with no commitments for the first time in six years. When that was cancelled, Brighton was on my radar for the Autumn. That will now be a rather different experience from what I was expecting.

On the committee we were often asked if members could have remote access to Conference and in particular to remote voting on motions. That would make the conference more accessible to people who couldn’t attend in person for employment or financial reasons.

Slightly fuzzy photo – we were right at the back

Today is the longest day – it’s downhill all the way from now on…

I’ve often wondered why we don’t have a major festival to celebrate summer. The ancient pagan rituals around the longest day are only practised by a tiny minority, and for most of us it passes as just another day.

In contrast, we all celebrate mid-Winter at Christmas with gifts, rich food and cosy family gatherings, possibly around a fire,  whether or not we observe it as a Christian festival.  Similarly we mark Spring at Easter with symbols of new life – eggs, flowers and bunnies.  These events both have an interesting history, with pagan origins, overlaid with Christian symbolism, and now adopted as secular festivals for all to enjoy, institutionalised through Bank Holidays. The Winter Festival, around the winter solstice, extends into Hogmanay, and the Spring Festival, around the spring equinox, is preceded by Carnival in many parts of the world.

The Autumn celebrations are more complex but we can see the echoes of ancient fire festivals to ward off evil at Hallowe’en and on Nov 5^th. I’m always struck by the way Hallowe’en in the US is more of a harvest celebration than the creepier intimations of death associated with All Saint’s Eve, which we honour in the UK.

These days we don’t have a single focal point for the middle of summer, although many other European countries do. In the past we did, and indeed 24th June is still, somewhat puzzlingly, referred to as Midsummer Day. There are references to it in the title of Shakespeare’s play, even though that was, apparently, first performed on New Year’s Day.

Covid-19 has silenced choirs – we must find a way to restart singing together – that was the headline for a letter in the Guardian this week. It was signed by some very well known names in choral music, people I have admired for a long time. They included Bob Chilcott (composer of some stunningly beautiful songs), John Rutter (another well-known composer, and revered for the Carols for Choirs series which is used by almost every choir in the country), Simon Halsey (Director of the London Symphony Chorus), Harry Christophers (director of The Sixteen – my favourite choir of all time), plus many conductors of choral societies around the UK.

They write:

Up until now we have had one of the most vibrant choral landscapes in the world. Our professional choral life, consisting of world-renowned chamber choirs, vocal ensembles, opera choruses, cathedral choirs and theatre ensembles, faces an uncertain future. The financial picture for such groups has always been challenging, even in the best of times, but the outlook now for such ensembles, mostly made up of freelance musicians, is not an optimistic one.

We have a world-leading cathedral and church choir tradition, largely made up of young boys and girls and paid adult singers who face financial hardship and also serious challenges of continuity. The amateur choir life of this country is huge, from the world-class symphony choruses and university choirs to community and school choirs, and all these groups face a time of great uncertainty.

We need church leaders to have the courage to speak out so that we can make singing together in churches work within certain guidelines. We need the government to show how we can restart singing together on an equal footing with opening theme parks, shopping and kicking a football around. It is imperative that we find a way for choirs in this country to resume as soon and as safely as we can.

Singing in a choir is not only about communality, social cohesion and harmony; for many it is an essential source of emotional wellbeing and positive mental health. Moreover it is a powerful expression of our culture and humanity, and it cannot be allowed to fade away.

On 1st June people in England who were shielding, like us, were told they could go out for a walk once a day for exercise, but not to the shops. If they lived alone then they could meet one other person outside, but still socially distancing.

Were we excited about our new little bit of freedom? At the time I debated whether I should go out, and did go for a short walk. But I haven’t been out since, apart from going to the dentist and taking my husband for a medical appointment.

I have to explain that I am not shielding because I am vulnerable myself, but to protect my husband who is. We have two options. On the one hand I could behave like the rest of the population – going out, shopping, meeting others safely – but I would then have to socially distance myself from him at home by sleeping in a different room, using a different bathroom (if possible) and being ultra careful about things that we handled such as crockery, cutlery and towels. The other option is to shield myself, which means that within the house we can live normally. Not surprisingly I chose the second option.

My husband hasn’t been out for a walk at all, and has said he won’t do so until the alert level is at 3. He is not alone in feeling cautious about the relaxation of the rules. The good news today is that the alert level has indeed been reduced to 3, so we finally went out together for a short walk this afternoon. It proved to us just how much we needed to do it, as muscles had been seriously underused in the last three months.