Welcome to The Singfulness Project
Find your happy and do what makes your heart sing! Join us for another season of Singfulness to energise your body, stimulate your mind and soothe your soul in this project packed full of creativity.
At The Singing Elf we love to help people experience the joy of singing their hearts out with others. Right now, we aren’t able to sing together in person, so instead we’re bringing a project to help raise a smile and offer a moment of calm direct to your home.
On this page you will find information about online sessions, video tutorials and home activity packs will help you ‘find your happy’. We know that everyone is different and what might work for you, might not work for someone else. So you can choose from a wide range of activities from singing to crafts, cooking to puzzles, photography to knitting and gardening to yoga – there’s something for everyone!
Whats On
There are loads of ways to take part in The Singfulness Project, and our programme is now available for you to see on our What's On page. Have a look and find details of our online singing, create & chat sessions, podcasts and other downloads. As The Singfulness Project grows, more and more activities and sessions will be get added, so make sure you come back and check out what's new.
Donations
The Singfulness Project is funded and FREE for all to take part however we are grateful for donations which will help us continue our work after the funding for the project ends. Following the COVID-19 lockdown in Spring 2020 we moved our singing programme online. We do not currently receive any core funding or government grants. At present we are unable to deliver events in person and therefore rely entirely on project funding and ‘Pay as you feel’ donations. We are extremely grateful to everyone who has made a contribution to help us continue our work during these difficult times.
If you would like to make a financial contribution to the project you can do so when booking an online session or ordering a pack or by clicking here
What is Singfulness?
Singfulness is a feeling – it’s how you feel when you’re doing something for the pure joy of it and the sense of calm you get from being in the moment. Singfulness encapsulates all the good stuff you get from singing your heart out but from doing whatever makes you happy. It’s that uplifting sensation of belting out a song when no one else can hear, the satisfaction of nailing it for the very first time, the friendships made from sharing your experiences and the brief escapism from the world around us.
Spread the joy, send an activity pack
There’s also the chance to spread the joy by sending a home activity pack to someone you know who is in need of a Singfulness boost. Thanks to funding from Durham AAP we have hundreds of home activity packs to deliver in and around villages near The Singing Elf’s base in Pittington near Durham City.
You can nominate someone for a free pack if they live in the funded areas. Or you can gift a pack to be sent anywhere in the UK for £12 for 1 pack, £22 for 2, or £10 per pack if you order 3 or more at the same time. You can nominate anyone who you think is going through a particularly tough time and feeling more isolated right now. For example, this could be an elderly person, a single parent, a carer, someone living on their own, a keyworker, someone experiencing health problems, those fighting or recovering from Covid 19 or those recently bereaved.
We expect there to be high demand so please visit our packs page for more information and to express your interest. This will help us know how many to prepare to be gifted and organise our volunteers for delivery of the funded packs.
The reasons behind the project
We know that right now, lots of people in our community are going through difficult times for all sorts of reasons due to Coronavirus. This strange new reality brings unique challenges for us all and we are all affected in different ways. For some of us, our world may be lonely, for others it might be difficult to get a moments peace. But most of us aren’t able to do many of the things we would usually do to lift our spirits, connect with others and help us feel good. This project aims to offer much of what you might find at your local community centre and bring it straight to your home. You’ll get to choose the activities which make your heart sing, connect with others, share your achievements and be part of a community.
Why is The Singing Elf offering non-singing activities?
Before lockdown, The Singing Elf offered a range of in person singing events, specialising in helping adult beginners find their voice and organising large celebration events such as Durham Big Sing. As a not-for-profit Social Enterprise our community is at the heart of everything we do. The week before lockdown we launched our online singing programme to make sure that we could continue to support our singers through these unprecedented times. Once it became clear that singing together in person was going to be delayed for quite a while, we started to think about other ways we could help our community.
We thought about what our singers say they value most from our sessions - feeling uplifted and relaxed, sharing experiences and connecting with others, escaping from reality for a short while and above all, leaving our sessions with a smile. We revisited our core values below and soon realised that five out of six of our values can be achieved without singing! Although The Singing Elf Team specialise in singing, we all have creative backgrounds so we started to explore how we could use other activities in a new project that could help to combat social isolation and support mental wellbeing.
Our Core Values:
Celebrate community singing
in a non-competitive environment, welcoming all singers regardless of their level of ability, confidence or experience. Offer singing experiences within a wide range of settings, exploring different musical genres.
Strive to include everyone
by placing accessibility at the heart of all our work. Our ethos of meaningful inclusion aims to address the many barriers of taking part such as physical, mental & emotional health, social isolation and finance.
Create outstanding experiences
by delivering high quality, impactful events and projects. Working collaboratively with our venues and partners to achieve excellent standards across all our work.
Connect with our community
to build supportive relationship with our singers, the wider regional singing community and our local geographical community in and around our base near Durham.
Dare to be different
take risks and explore different opportunities in an ambitious way. Challenge perceptions, disrupt traditional attitudes and kick-start new ideas.
Energise & Inspire
through a collective love of singing and its power to unite communities. Focusing on enjoyment by creating fun, exhilarating experiences that invigorate and uplift singers.
The Singing Elf Ltd, Trading as The Singing Elf Social Enterprise, Company No. 12246373.
Registered Office: The Old Rectory, The Broadway, Houghton-le-Spring, DH4 4BB, United Kingdom