Christmas Concert Thursday 5th Dec 24. 7pm.
St. Christopher’s Church in Haslemere was at capacity on Thursday 5th December for The Hunter Centre’s annual Christmas Celebration held in aid of their work supporting those living with dementia.
The congregation was treated to a magnificent programme of sacred and secular music as well as some seasonal poetry.
To start the proceedings, Joanna Chapman sang the opening verse of Once in Royal David’s City beautifully and later joined the rest of the Junior Choir from St. Bartholomew’s Church in spirited singing of songs from ‘Home Alone’. The Hindhead Music Centre Children’s String Orchestra impressed us all with arrangements of Vivaldi and Mozart including wonderful solos on cello and violin from Eliska Hartmann and Alec Lindsay respectively and the orchestra rounded off their performance on a Christmassy note with Jingle Bells. The Winterbourne Singers, regular supporters of The Hunter Centre’s Christmas Concert, once again pulled out all the stops with a marvellous and varied selection from Justitiae Domini to Rockin’ Robin. The congregation was in particularly fine and strong voice too for the carols accompanied by organist and choirmaster Clive Osgood, allowing us all to enjoy the amazing acoustics of St Christopher’s church. We heard joyful Christmas readings from one of the charity’s Ambassadors Margaret Barlow and Amanda Townsend read us the poignant poem about dementia ‘Two Mothers remembered’ reminding us why we were all there..
Rev. Chris Bessant closed out the service with a blessing and thanks and appreciation were then delivered by The Hunter Centre’s recently appointed Patron Greg Stafford MP. Rounding off the evening Mayor Oliver Leach delivered a personal and moving story about his Nan, again reminding us all about those who live with dementia.
Before heading off into the somewhat stormy evening, everyone enjoyed catching up over mulled wine and mince pies.
The Hunter Centre would like to thank each and every person who supported the evening which raised just over than £1000.00
