ORIGINALLY I SAID: Thanks for taking the time to visit my Team Member page of our Men United in Song JustGiving pages. Our overall aim is to raise £10k. I'm aiming to contribute £1k of that through my page.

HERE'S AN UPDATE. Thanks to so many lovely people I've now reached my target of £1k. Whoopee! And we've exceeded our Team Target. Yay!!!!! But we know there are still some generous folk out there who will be willing to contribute to this great cause so we've doubled our Team Target to £20,000. And despite having reached my target I'm hoping to get more support in order to help the team reach its new target

I've been proud to be part of the organising team that managed the Men United in Song project. We worked our whatnots off to promote the initiative and select members of a scratch choir. There was an amazing response and, despite us aiming for forty, SIXTY men were able to be chosen to be in the Men United Choir. Rehearsals started, time has flown by before we knew it ten rehearsals had taken place. Then it was the climax of the project. What we'd been working towards. The Fundraising Concert in aid of Prostate Cancer UK on Saturday 4th July at The Plaza Centre in Southend. We really smashed it! A hugely successful concert in front of a capacity audience of family, friends and supporters. Generous applause. Standing ovations. A tremendous success.

Thanks to everyone who came along and to everyone, MUiS choir members and friends, who have supported this project in aid of such a good cause.

One of the Men United in Song choir has written this piece, perfectly capturing the experience of being in this new choir:

Sixty strangers walked into a room.

We didn’t know each other’s names. We didn’t know each other’s stories. Some of us hadn’t sung in years. Some of us weren’t even sure we could sing.

All we knew was the challenge from our wonderful musical director Jan — become a male voice choir, and learn 8 songs entirely from memory in just 10 weeks.

It sounded ambitious. Maybe even impossible.

But something happened along the way.

Week by week, the nerves turned into laughter. The hesitation turned into encouragement. And slowly, without anyone really noticing the moment it changed… strangers stopped being strangers.

We became something else.

A team. A brotherhood. A group of men who showed up for each other when it mattered. Men who supported each other when words weren’t needed. Men who, in a short space of time, built something far deeper than music.

And now, somehow, we’ve helped raise over £15,000 for prostate cancer charity — something we never set out for applause or recognition, but something we are incredibly proud of nonetheless.

But now we are at the end of this journey… and we’re asking for one last kindness.

If you’ve supported us already, please know it has meant more than we can say. If you haven’t, and you are able to give even a small amount, it will go directly towards causes that truly need it.

Prostate Cancer...just given.

Because behind every note we sing… is someone’s father, partner, brother, or friend.

And none of us want to lose another one too soon.

Thank you for being part of something we will never forget.