Decibellas Summer Concert Supports Soul Kitchen Chester

Women’s choir Decibellas once again struck the right note with their summer concert Let the River Run, held on Saturday 12th July 2025 at Decibellas Choir in Tarporley.

The 75-strong choir for upper voices performed a varied and uplifting programme to a warm and appreciative audience on a particularly hot summer’s evening. The concert not only celebrated music and community but also supported local charity Soul Kitchen Chester, who raised over £1,000 on the night towards their new premises in Boughton.

A spokesperson for Soul Kitchen Chester said:
“We’re so grateful to @decibellas for their amazing fundraising concert at St Boniface Church, Bunbury. Thanks to their beautiful music and everyone’s generous donations, we raised £1,010.07. This will go towards our new premises in Boughton. Thank you for supporting us and making a real impact on our work.”

The evening was made possible with the support of sponsors Clear Cut Financial Planning, Forest Hill Practice, Corkscrew Hire, Dettagli, Storeys of Cheshire, and Jacqueline Wilson Funeral Services.

Looking ahead, Decibellas will return with their much-anticipated Christmas Concert on Saturday 13th December 2025 at St Boniface Church, Bunbury. Ticket details will be announced later in the year.

Decibellas Christmas Concert Brings Festive Cheer After Storm Delays

Women’s choir Decibellas brought the festive spirit to Bunbury with their Christmas concert, Wonderful Time of the Year, held at St Boniface Church - despite having to overcome some very wintry obstacles along the way.

Originally scheduled earlier in December, the concert had to be postponed twice due to severe storms, including a fallen tree at the church and power outages in the area. Undeterred, the 75-strong choir for upper voices came together once conditions improved to deliver a joyful and heartwarming evening of Christmas music to a packed audience.

The concert also provided a platform for Snow Angels (Chester), who raised over £900 on the night. All funds will go directly towards supporting services for people living with dementia and their carers.

WOMEN’S CHOIR HITS FUNDRAISING HIGH NOTE

Women’s choir Decibellas has hit a high note with its fundraising over the past 12 months and has also awarded grants to several local mental health charities to support their work with children.

A 75-strong choir for upper voices based in Tarporley, Cheshire, Decibellas raised £3150 over two concerts in 2023, the most recent being their annual Christmas concert at St Boniface Church in Bunbury.  The choir, a charity in its own right, also awarded grants of £4,500 to children’s mental health charities over the past 12 months. These charities include Platform for Life, a Chester-based charity offering free local counselling and play therapy for families, Visyon, supporting the mental health of children, young people and their families, Motherwell, a dedicated women’s health and wellbeing charity, Chapter Mental Health from Ellesmere Port, and Chester International School’s mental health provision.

At each concert, there is also a cash bucket collection, and at the latest Christmas concert local charity Visyon collected £1200.  Said Linda de Sá, Visyon's Fundraising and Marketing Manager: “COVID has had a huge impact on the mental health of local young people and their families which has seen demand for our service increase. Our early intervention approach gives young people the tools to lead happy and fulfilling independent futures as young adults. We want to thank Decibellas and all their supporters for helping us to continue being here for young people and their families when they need us the most.”

Commenting on the choir’s fundraising achievements, Decibellas’ Chair Jo Mason said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have held two such successful events during 2023, particularly selling out our Christmas concert. It is a privilege to be able to support the work of small, local charities which are doing such important work with children’s mental welfare whilst having such a wonderful time, bringing the joy of singing to so many and being part of such a great group of singers.”

ENDS

Further information from:

Helen Arnold

Marketing for Decibellas

Notes:

Platform for Life: www.platformforlife.org.uk

Visyon: www.visyon.org.uk

Motherwell: www.motherwellcheshirecio.com

Chapter Mental Health: www.chaptermentalhealth.org

Decibellas raises Over £2000 for Pete McCleave’s #10000 Donors and DKMS

December 7th 2019 saw Decibellas Women’s Choir of Tarporley host their annual Christmas concert at St Boniface church in Bunbury, Cheshire. The event was in aid of local father of two, Pete McCleave (42), who has been given seven years to live having been diagnosed with an incurable blood cancer, Myeloma. The evening raised in excess of £2000 for the stem cell donor register, DKMS, as well as helping to encourage more people to become donors.

Myeloma leaves sufferers with a compromised immune system and stem cells can be used to fix this. Pete’s aim in 2018 was to find 10,000 new donors, a target he smashed in a matter of months. Now approaching 40,000 registered donors, he has increased the target to 100,000 and so far, there have been 12 confirmed matches, raising the hopes of life-saving treatment. Pete and local musician Lee Gordon have released a single, “The Tide for 10000 DONORS” to raise awareness of the campaign.

Useful links:

https://www.10000donors.com/

https://www.dkms.org.uk/en

Thank you to Discount Displays!

We’d like to say a huge thank you to Discount Displays for producing our reusable charity cheque.

The cheque will be used in photographs to promote the funds we raise for local charity.

Budapest Concert Tour - Friday 13th April 2018

Travelling home! We were all very subdued this morning, definitely to do with the early start, nothing to do with the booze!

We battled the slow queues at duty free and found our seats on the plane. We all made the flight, but once we got back to Manchester discovered we had lost one of our suitcases! It's currently winging it's way back from Budapest!

It was a fantastic break, very well organised, with wonderful audiences at amazing venues. We would like to send a huge thank you to Rayburn Tours who made it such a pleasure! 

So roll on 2020! Where will we go next?!

Budapest Concert Tour - Thursday 12th April 2018

Our last full day and last concert. It was another beautiful morning with over 25 degrees forecast. Most of the party headed off for a tour of the Parliament building, and what a magnificent building! The ornate mouldings and gold leaf were spectacular as was the history! One particularly interesting story was that of the smoking corridor, which was used so often that visibility was very poor. It was therefore where politicians had secret rendez-vous. but what they forgot about was that everyone could tell where they had been because they smelt of cigarette smoke!

After the tour, it was back to the hotel for a quick change and off to Buda Castle for our final concert. At 28 degrees, it was quite warm in our concert dresses, so most of the choir resorted to flip flops!  The venue was wonderful, like one section of an amphitheatre and the acoustics were fabulous. We had another great audience that included some young Russian ladies who were huge fans of Marcus! It wasn't surprising , really, as he gave everyone a masterclass in how to truly perform, reducing everyone to tears during Bring Him Home! 

After another encore, we then headed back to the hotel to get ready for our dinner cruise down the Danube. Wow! The food was delicious, the food was stunning, but the company was the best! The husbands and partners, were itching to perform, having watched the choir all week and gave us a rendition of Santa Lucia! Much fun was had with the selfie stick, once everyone had received proper training! It was a wonderful way to spend the last night!

Sadly we all needed to pack before bed as it was an early start the next day for home!