Wednesday 8th April 2009

There was a rare and leisurely start to the day today. After a late arrival at Camp Walter Johnson on Tuesday evening, the songsters woke up at a reasonable hour and had a quiet morning taking in the beautiful surroundings of this Salvation Army facility. The camp is owned by the Salvation Army and is used as a Conference Centre and as a Summer Camp for children during the summer months. After breakfast many of the songsters took a short tour of the facilities. Camp Walter Johnson is set in acres of beautiful woodland and has two lakes as well as a swimming pool, accommodation in 12 lodges and conference facilities for up to 250 people.
The songsters enjoyed the tour of camp, and much refreshed by the fresh air prepared for the rest of the day. En route to the Salvation Army building in Charlotte, we stopped at an Outlet Shopping Mall. It seems that the American economy is now in recovery thanks to the dollars spent by the Derby Central Songsters at the Mall. There were bargains to be had by all!
Following the stopover at the Mall, it was on to our concert venue for the day - the Salvation Army at Charlotte. After a quick rehearsal our audience began to arrive for our afternoon concert. This afternoon our audience consisted of about 150 school children aged from 4 – 16. They were easily the most enthusiastic audience of the tour so far. Great kids who smiled, and clapped and generally had a great time with us and our music. It was evident from the faces of the kids (and the smiles from the songsters!) that a good time was had by all! The children of the Salvation Army boys and girls club in Charlotte will remain in our thoughts and prayers for weeks to come.
Dinner in the hall followed; a change from pasta today. It was a ‘good ole Southern USA BBQ’. We enjoyed chicken and pork and barbecued beans, followed by bananas and custard. All washed down with the all American Iced Tea.
The concert was due to start at 7pm. We eagerly awaited the arrival of our audience. At 6.55pm we were still eagerly awaiting the arrival of the audience as we only had 4 people waiting to hear us. By this time, rumours were starting to circulate that the start of the concert had been advertised for 7.30pm. With this in mind it was decided to delay the start to see if any more people turned up. By 7.15pm there was a decent number, and the concert began.
The songsters rose to the occasion as usual, despite the low numbers in the audience. The singing sounded just as enthusiastic and at the end of ‘Veni Emmanuel’ there was a gasp of “Wow!” from one of the audience members!
After yet another standing ovation, the tired and weary songsters boarded the coach back to Camp Walter Johnson ready to make an early start tomorrow on the next leg of the tour.

Report by Ceri Hammond