Ukelele
Group Leader:- Don Harcombe
Our group started in January 2014 . We had 16 members to start with, only a few of us could play the ukulele. Now we have 40 members all at different levels of skill. At the present time we don’t have a waiting list.
We meet at Winstanley Tennis Club lounge, its on Hall Lane. The meetings are on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, starting at 2.00pm and we finish at 4.00pm. Our song/music repertoire consists of 9 books, each containing 60 songs. They cover a whole range of music from early 20th century to modern day.
Our meeting days have a leader who has volunteered from our previous meetings . This member will have picked the program for the session , and it will be sent to all the members of the group about a week before the meeting day. There will usually be about 20 songs which can be practised at home.
We have a break around ½ way through the program, for tea ,coffee, biscuits etc.
At the start of the 2nd half some of us will have volunteered to perform a solo of their choice. Sometimes there may be duets, or trios. We then continue with our selected program.
We have great fun , and plenty of mistakes which we can all laugh at. The ‘uke’ is an easy instrument to play having only four strings. 15 mins. a day practise over a couple of weeks could get you started. We don’t actually teach how to play the ‘uke’, but we can recommend some books on the subject.
Another part of our activity is to visit senior citizens clubs and various nursing homes to play and sing for them. Any donations that we receive from them go to Wigan and Leigh Hospice.
Don Harcombe ( Group Leader)