FIRSTLY, please can we apologise for getting the surname of the winner of the Bishop Furry Prize incorrect.

We are delighted that Effiah Carr was the winner and we look forward to meeting all the winners at next year’s Flower Festival for presentation of prizes. 

Following on from the last Festival update, we would like to say a massive thank you to the "Courier" and also all of the festival supporters.

We are delighted to announce that we have raised nearly £1,000 towards the maintenance of the Crediton Parish Church.

We normally raise £8,000 at the festival but hope that the Christmas Tree Festival will help towards bridging the gap in finances. It is challenging times for us all. 

As a celebration for Music Sunday and also to celebrate the Virtual Flower Festival the flower festival team have put together a Songs of Praise.

This includes entries from the competition, along with pictures from previous Flower Festivals and the Holy Cross Choir, who are getting together on zoom and recording something each week.

It took a bit of co-ordinating with choir recordings and winner recordings, and choices, along with compiling it together.

The Songs of Praise went "live" on June 14.

The link, if you haven’t already seen it – I might be biased but it is well worth sitting and watching for the 15 minutes on: https://youtu.be/iIl6mt0rusg .

The feedback we have received so far is "lovely", "a triumph", "very professional", "much appreciated".

We were delighted that Dr Barry Rose kindly gave his permission for the choir to sing his arrangement of "Morning Glory, Starlit Sky”.

Dr Barry Rose asked Richard Stephens if the Holy Cross Virtual Choir would like to record his arrangement of "All Things Bright and Beautiful”.

We were extremely pleased to be asked, as this, it turned out to be, was its UK premier, sung by Izzy Tuffin Donnevert and Catherine Stoyle, both choristers with Crediton Parish Church choir.

Izzy wrote: "As choristers and keen singers in general, one of the main things that has been missing from our lives has been singing.

"It is hard to accurately re-create the feeling of community through a virtual meeting. Although recording and rehearsing virtually due to social distancing measures has its challenges, I really enjoyed recording this piece and having the opportunity to work with Dr Rose.

"To talk you through the process of it, we started out with a couple of group calls between Catherine, myself and Dr Rose.

"We soon realised that even with the best Wi-Fi signal in the world there would be too much of a lag for any of us to rehearse together.

"So, rehearsals went as follows: I would play the accompaniment at my end and sing along, then Catherine would do the same and then Dr Rose would comment and repeat. As for the actual recording, this was quite simple as I don’t have to deal with the technology side (thanks Mike Brett!).

"We just had to both ensure we clapped for the beginning of the piece for synchronisation purposes and then sing along to the accompaniment playing through headphones. We upload the files to Mike, where he does all the magic of sticking it together.”

Music at this time is quite a challenge. If you get chance to hear the Songs of Praise the bird song is real as when recording individual choristers in the garden, socially distanced, there was a nest of house sparrows just above them. We are hoping that future recordings for the church’s online services will be quieter as the young have now flown the nest!

Thank you again to all our supporters. We would be delighted if you wished to donate to our crowdfunding at: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/creditonflowerfestival so that we can achieve closer to our target of £8,000. We also understand that these are difficult times.

We look forward to seeing you all at the Christmas Tree Festival.

Stella Stephens