Joanne Woodhouse-Roberts: An update on my “Give Us The Sign” Choir for the #Whereistheinterpreter campaign

Hello all! I wanted to give you an update on the sign choir I created to support Lynn Stewart-Taylor’s Where Is The Interpreter campaign.

Well, where do I begin? I have had a very busy few months. Back in October I announced that I had written the song ‘Give Us The Sign’ and went on to set up a choir in November to support the campaign Where is the Interpreter and raise some awareness and funds for it.

I am pleased to say it’s been a successful few months. I have met some wonderful people along the way and I hope we will remain in contact. Liv Austen did a magnificent job composing the music, singing, recording the song and she also joined the choir and learned the song in BSL – she’s an excellent signer, a wonderful person and just so supportive, without Liv I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this.

Our choir leader Fletch@ did a fabulous job leading the choir over 3 Zoom sessions in November; she also helped me get my head around Zoom!

I was overwhelmed with the support I received from family, friends and participants who joined the choir. At the time of setting up I thought that if 20-25 people joined then that would be a fabulous outcome – never did I think we would have 90 participants in the choir!

The choir really went above and beyond; working hard to learn the lyrics and signs and it was an absolute pleasure seeing everyone on Zoom each Monday evening. I could finally put a face to the names from the emails I was receiving!

The whole process was a real learning curve for me as I had never done anything like it before. I was liaising with 94 people in total on a weekly basis. Whilst it was enjoyable, it was a mammoth task at times and I had to dig deep to learn how to deliver the information to 90 people on Zoom!

I also had to deal with technical issues, send videos, keep track of who paid for their donations, keep note of who was joining, and then keep track of email addresses, copyright rules, send videos via ‘WeTransfer.’ So much of this was new to me.

As well as working weekly with the choir participants I also invited some children to join us from Heathlands School in St Albans. They were unable to participate on Monday evenings with the rest of the choir so I delivered their very own session on Wednesdays via Zoom whilst at school during their lunch hour.

I also had some Zoom meetings for those who joined the choir late or wanted some help with a certain sign and so forth, needing advice or updating on what they’d missed. Not surprisingly, I soon got the hang of Zoom! It really was about being as organised as I could! I made several mistakes along the way but having never done it before, those mistakes made the next part of the journey easier, it was a real positive experience.

During the 3 Choir sessions, Fletch@ taught the lyrics and the rhythm, and a video was provided after the sessions to enable everyone to recap and practice at home. Fletch@ did a fabulous job with this.

Lynn Stewart-Taylor, founder of ‘Where is The Interpreter’, also joined us and learned the song for the choir. Lynn was incredibly supportive and we had a succession of emails and texts going back and forth.

Technical wise, I soon learnt that the importance of a co-host during Zoom meetings cannot be overstated! Ann from Kakou (a charity supporting our project) kindly allowed me to use the Kakou Zoom Account which meant I didn’t have any Zoom charges or time restrictions and she could keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes.

During the choir sessions my role involved presenting, keeping everyone updated, passing on any information, answering any questions and trying to keep things running as smoothly as possible within the hour from 7-8pm. In this instance being a BSL tutor for almost 15 years was extremely helpful as standing in front of 90 odd people can be intimidating for some but for me this was the easiest bit! I just put my tutors hat on and away I went!

It was sad to say goodbye to everyone in the last session as I enjoyed going ‘live’ and seeing the members sign along to the lyrics. I could see the progress everyone was making each week and could see everyone had practised and were improving at signing in sync. It was both amazing and rewarding to watch.

In the last session I asked everyone to be brave and send me their own videos signing to the song. They had a couple of weeks to practice and then film at home using their mobile phone. Whilst I wrote the song, I also joined the choir as a member and learnt how to sign the song following Fletch@ signs along with everyone else. So I know only too well how long it takes to practice and how many attempts it can take to feel comfortable signing confidently. I also know how many retakes are needed in front of a mobile phone!

The choir gave it their all and I know many of them practised for weeks and weeks before finally recording their video. Some had no previous sign language experience, some had BSL level one and others were fully qualified BSL interpreters. It was a wonderful mix!

One of our choir members, Sue, has an online company called ‘The Little Green Pigeon.’ She kindly offered to design some T- shirts and bags with the ‘Give Us The Sign’ logo on the shirts. This was for the choir to purchase, something for us to keep and remember our time in the choir. Some participants are proudly displaying the design in their videos!

The money raised from the items also went directly to the #Where is The Interpreter campaign and I am very grateful to Sue for all her hard work and support.

I have been involved in sign language choirs in the past and from experience it seemed that people who join enjoy the experience of being part of a choir, learning the lyrics and the signs, but often shy away from being in front of a camera. Therefore I wasn’t expecting 90 people to send in their videos, I was hopeful of receiving in the region of 20!

I was delighted to receive 67 videos. Again it was another learning curve as the majority of the videos were sent mainly using ‘We Transfer’ and ‘WhatsApp’ and this didn’t always go as smoothly as we would have liked!

The final step was to forward the videos onto Ann at Kakou. I watched every single video to be sure they were complete before passing to Ann and I found this process to be a very moving experience.

Ann from ‘Kakou’ who co-hosted the ‘Zoom’ sessions was also the one who edited the final piece, producing this amazing video of the choir, and putting us all together in sync! She was tasked with the mighty role of including everyone to demonstrate their achievements on video. I regret we cannot show more little clips beyond a few seconds, there was so much talent and hard work from everyone.

Thank you to everyone for your support and involvement, you have made this an amazing journey, together we have come so far! Please feel free to share the video as much as you can. The more we share, the more money we raise and the more likely we are to succeed and spread awareness of what is needed.

You can see more information about the Where Is the Interpreter campaign and view the video to ‘Give us the Sign’ at:
www.whereistheinterpreter.com

You can also view the video direct on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/501875170