Millom National Children's Choir of Great Britain Group has been created to help 7 local families raise funds so their talented children can attend the prestigious Chior of Great Britain events.

Here is their story told by Head Teacher of Millom St James RC School Nerissa Nicholas.

This group of seven children are all pupils, or former pupils, at my school and have sung with me in my school choir since they were 5 years old. They are really exceptionally talented children and an absolute pleasure to work with. They have performed with me in the South Cumbria Music Festival every year and won numerous trophies, both as individuals and as a choir. They also perform throughout the year at numerous concerts and fundraising events for charities and groups in the town. They bring a huge amount of pleasure to many people.

In November last year, they attended auditions in Manchester to join the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain. They were all successful in being offered places in this prestigious choir and this now gives them the opportunity to work with the very best choral teachers and conductors in the country as well as singing with other talented children from all over the country. This is a huge achievement for them and such a wonderful opportunity. I was personally contacted by the organiser of the committee to tell me how impressed the audition panel had been with the group and how unusual it was to have seven children accepted all from one school!

However, the expectation is that they will now attend two residential weeks in Shrewsbury at a cost of £635 per child per week, a total of £1270 per child and an overall cost of £8890 for the full group without the additional cost of travel to and from Shrewsbury and Birmingham, which from our isolated area will be quite a cost on its own!

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that all of them will be able to take part unless we are able to secure some help with the financial aspect and this would be such a shame!

We are therefore in the process of working with the parents of these children to see if we can access any funding sources to help raise money to ensure all the children can take part.

Enabling these children to take part in this National choir would help to show them and other children in the local area that they can achieve their goals and hopefully help to raise aspirations for the future.

We plan to do several fundraising events ourselves such as a concert, raffle, non uniform day etc but the total amount required is huge! We are therefore contacting local companies and charities to ask for support in the hopes that they may be willing to contribute towards the total. Is this something you would be able to help us with?

We would be grateful, of course, for any support you could give us.