East Sussex Charity Aiming For Christmas Number One

Wednesday, 2 December 2020 06:00

By Jade McLean

Dementia East Sussex has recorded a song to raise funds for the charity.

The song was written by Graham Slack, the son of the charity's founder the late Cliff Slack, of Icklesham.

It's titled Sweet Singing in the Choir and has been recorded by Dementia East Sussex to raise "much needed" funds.

Local people are being asked to buy a copy, to help the charity continue its crucial work in the community.

Dementia Support East Sussex is run by Principal, Suzanne Procter from Hove and Vice Principal Helen Snow from Rottingdean.

The charity offers free interactive singing, movement and craft sessions to those living with dementia and their carers, across East Sussex (Ditchling, Lewes, Peacehaven, Newhaven, Eastbourne, Horam, Heathfield, Uckfield, Hadlow Down, Hailsham and Bexhill).

Suzanne says:

“2020 has been a tremendously difficult year for everyone but particularly for our service users, many of whom have been isolated from friends and family.

"We’ve had to move our sessions online to help them continue to benefit from the amazing power of music and song.

"We also managed to deliver many garden singing sessions during the summer which went down a storm.

"Graham had the idea of creating this upbeat song to help remind people of the power of music and singing to help us all through tough times, and raise money for our charity – which brings the power of music to those living with dementia – in the process.”

Helen – who also has the claim to fame being the soprano on the version of Silent Night featured in blockbuster movie Love Actually – adds:

“We would usually put on a huge Christmas concert for our service users but that won’t be possible this year.

"Instead, we decided to record and release this single, with all the proceeds going towards the work we do.

"We thought it would be a wonderful idea to include as many of the people connected to our organisation in the video as possible, we even persuaded a couple of our trustees to join in.

"We would be so grateful if people could buy the single to help raise funds. It will mean we can offer even more free sessions for venues across East Sussex."

You can support them on their GoFundMe page: https://uk.gofundme.com/f/help-make-us-christmas-number-one

Here is the link to the music video: https://youtu.be/XPV_6HPZG1o

And a link to a more traditional and popular Christmas Carol that they recorded as a bonus track: https://youtu.be/VJ-vwr4QSSI

www.dementiasupport.me.uk