OrganFax Directory

St Edmundsbury In Tune (Bury St Edmunds)

Telephone Number :  01359 250 704    or   07773 244 616

Email address :   mikedrob27@gmail.com

Contact name :  Mike Roberts

Venue address : Horringer Community Centre, The Street, Horringer, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, IP29 5RU

About St Edmundsbury In Tune (Bury St Edmunds)

The Present

Our concerts almost always take place on the 4th Friday (evening) of the month, except for December which is on the 2nd Friday.

Concerts commence at 7:30 PM and end at approx 10:00 PM with half an hour at 8:30 PM for refreshments and a raffle.

Doors open 7:00 PM and currently entrance on the door is £10  including refreshments (tea,coffee,cake or biscuits).

Our venue - Horringer Community Centre - The hall is spacious with adequate seating for people to spread out. It has a good sized

stage for the player and all their equipment. It also has good acoustics for our kind of music. We also have a projector, camera and

screen to display the artistes playing ( of particular interest to those who are players themselves ).

The hall has good parking fascilities for approx 50 cars, parking in front of the hall and through a gap to the right of the hall there is

extended parking by the adjoining social club.

Horringer is 2-3 miles out of Bury St Edmunds on the A143 and is easily reached from the A14. You can find out more about our venue

on their website, where if you scroll down the page you will also find a map :-  https://horringerblog.wordpress.com

The Past

In December 2016 the Bury St Edmunds Organ & Keyboard Club held their last concert after running for 37 years (I was only involved in the last  2 1/2 years). The club was disolved and any remaining funds, I think went to charities. Myself and the current booking secretary for the club thought it would be nice if people in the area still had a venue to visit, where they could still enjoy keyboard concerts.

In January 2017, with the help and support of Elizabeth Harrison (who also played for our first concert). We started the St Edmundsbury in Tune keyboard concerts. I put an article in our local paper appealing for any help with the running of the venture and heard back from one local couple, who are still supporting me now. In the beginning I was trying to emulate the success that Elizabeth Harrison had with "Leyland in Tune" up in Lancashire but never reached those heights either in numbers of patrons or donations to charity. However we did manage to generate and donate a total sum of £3197 between January 2017 and December 2019. This was divided between various charities including St Nicholas Hospice, Cancer Research UK, Bury Drop In, East Anglian Air Ambulance, Marie Curie, My Wish (West Suffolk Hospital), Miracles to Believe In, and Suffolk Accident Rescue Service (SARS).                                                                         Unfortunately when the Covid-19 pandemic started in 2020, like many others we had concerts in January and February after which the first lock down began. I put any profit from 2020 into our cushion fund. I suspected that when we restarted, it would be with less support.

After goverment restrictions eased in July 2021 we recommenced our concerts. Since then we have struggled with numbers of patrons, compared with before lock down. Between February 2017 and February 2020, we had 40 - 74 and between July 2021 and December 2022 we had 22 - 46. 

The Future ?

I have booked 12 months of top players for 2023, providing the usual excellent entertainment with music from varios genres and decades. We would like to continue this beyond 2023 but we can only do this if we manage to increase the numbers through the door. I have a good band of helpers, without whom these events would not happen. They do all the jobs that I can't or won't do. It would be a shame for these concerts to end. If you are in the area and love all kinds of music, come along and give us a try. all are welcome.

2024

Despite having failed to increase the numbers of patrons to our concerts during the last year. I have booked players for 2024. I have however had to increase the admission from £8 to £10 in an attempt to not lose too much money. We would still prefer to see more people but have run out of ideas on how to achieve that. This could be our last year .