We are a fellowship of men based in the Hampshire/Surrey area who love to sing. We aim principally to entertain our audiences, to raise money for charity and to have fun doing it!
In our concerts, we try to cater for all tastes with a repertoire ranging from classical to modern, from anthems and spirituals to show tunes and popular songs. We provide our services to charities and, prior to Covid, we helped to raise around £10,000 every year for local good causes. We are now building back up to that level again.
Our main activity is the twenty or so concerts we do each year which simply provide entertainment, often for the elderly or handicapped, in churches, village halls and residential homes mainly in Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire. The choir helps to raise around £10,000 every year for local good causes. If you are considering organising such an event for your local charity please contact our Concert Secretary.
We promote two major charity concerts ourselves annually — one in the summer and one prior to Christmas at Farnham Maltings — for the benefit of local charities that we select. Our loyal band of appreciative supporters — and we would like you to be amongst them — help us to make these events into great occasions — in which we and our invited artists use our talents to provide exciting music and fun, and at the same time support some very worthy causes.
Officials
Vice-President: Sir Gerald Howarth
Musical Director: Sarit Aloni
Chairman: Peter Viveash
Our beginning
The Rushmoor MVC was founded in 1960 by Geoffrey Waller specifically to sing in the Aldershot Music Festival. Approaches to local church choirs brought volunteers from many backgrounds and walks of life. Since there was an odd one from here and an odd one from there, the name “Odd Fellows” seemed very appropriate.Sadly Geoff died on 3 September 1998 at the age of 86; we miss his attendances at our concerts from time to time to check up on us – and ensure we were maintaining the very high standards he had sought for the Rushmoor MVC.
We were fortunate that Geoff was succeeded as Musical Director by Colin Wilson who maintained the standards and developed our style over twenty years. Colin was born in Merthyr Tydfil, educated in science at Oxford and has had a career in teaching. He brought a thoroughly professional level of expertise to the art of conducting and under his leadership the choir explored many new avenues of performance and achieved new heights. Colin hung up his baton at the end of 2000 but continued occasionally joining the ranks of our Second Basses and the London Welsh MVC until his death.
Colin was succeeded as Musical Director by Stephen Petch. The term “man and boy” is often used rather loosely, but in the case of Stephen it very accurately describes his relationship with, and massive contribution to, the choir. Stephen joined the choir as a 16 year-old and 24 years later took over as Musical Director, a post he held for 21 years. During that time he greatly developed our repertoire and skills and led us in many, many concerts and festivals including three times to participate in the London Welsh Festival of Male Voices at the Royal Albert Hall, and twice to Rushmoor’s twin town in Germany, Oberursel. We have recorded two CDs; taken part in an audio-visual exhibition at Farnborough Airport; and even provided singing on the soundtrack for a feature-length documentary, “Lancaster”.
At the end of 2022, Stephen retired from male voice choir conducting and in January 2023 was succeeded by Sarit Aloni.
Choir group photos over the years
