OFFICERS OF THE ILKLEY CHORAL SOCIETY

Charles Bainbridge (CWB) felt it was very important to have a committee that took decisions and in a choral society drawn from Ilkley, with its largely middle class population, there seem always to have been committee members willing to take them. The minutes of the Society's committee over the years show that, nevertheless, there have been recurrent problems, concerning which effective decisions have not been easy to take.  A shortage of male voices, particularly tenor, the recruitment of new younger singers, the late payment of annual subscriptions by members, disappointing attendances at concerts, and the late return of music copies after concerts, seem to have been the most frequently mentioned.  It took seven years (from 1974 to 1981) to reach a final decision on changing the form of dress to be worn by women members of the choir at concerts, from long white dresses to white blouses and black skirts.However, a testimony to the efficiency of committee members is that, despite the problems, the Society is still in a healthy middle-aged state.

Among the officers, some have served for long periods. The first president, County Alderman Mrs. Ryder-Runton, remained in the office for almost fifteen years and gave great support in the early years. Mr. Sidney Clarke was a founder member, attending the first meeting of the choir. He acted not only as committee chairman for over fifteen years. but also was president for ten years until his death in 1985. His son, Howard Clarke, was also committee chairman for eleven years. The post of secretary, perhaps the most crucial of all, has been taken by a number of people mainly for short periods but in the early days Moira Porritt, later to become Mrs. Kaberry, retained the office for seven years and Marion Palmer held the office through most of the 1980s. Keeping the choir financially afloat has been undertaken chiefly by two long serving treasurers, Eric Learoyd for the first twenty-one years and Graham Sunderland for fifteen years from 1971. Librarians have also tended to be long-serving, especially Mr. L. Humphries and Mary Watson. Others have served for long periods on the committee, or for the committee, undertaking invaluable work such as publicity, like Tina Warnes, and general and social committee duties such as Lydia Pettit and Stuart Woodhouse. The house manager for concerts for fifteen years from 1968 was David Pyett who was never a member of the choir, but who has made a big contribution to Ilkley music, through the Concert Club and the Record Circle. There have also been many who have simply helped when needed in making and serving refreshments at concerts and rehearsals.

The membership of the choir has varied in numbers from the fifty who rehearsed for the first 'Messiah’ to over eighty in the first decade, and thereafter it has been between sixty and ninety, with, in the 1987/88 season for instance, thirty-two sopranos, twenty-seven altos, ten tenors and twenty basses. We have some long-serving members and others, who, like many of the people of Ilkley and district, tend to be mobile.