We are delighted to have received funding from The Community Champions Fund to continue with our Sing and Sign Sessions.

We had our first session yesterday and are calling ourselves ‘The Bootle Sing and Sign Choir.’ Helen Andrews is once again leading the sessions and teaching us how to sign our favourite songs.

The sessions are so important to us because we aren’t just learning how to sign using British Sign Language (BSL). We are also learning about Deaf culture, musical history, and improving our local knowledge.

The repetition in the sessions and focusing on the BSL topics helps us to keep using the skills we gained on our AIM project. We are learning about BSL sign structure and how the signs are formed.

Being part of the choir creates a feeling of community and also gives us a great workout.

This how we felt after our first session with Helen:

“To be back doing this feels electric, my stomach is going round and round. It’s lovely doing Sing and Sign with Helen again.”

“It’s so good to see Helen Andrews in real life rather than on Zoom this time.”

“I enjoyed it, we are learning new songs and new signs.”

“I had a bad night last night. Sing and Sign gave me something to look forward to and it made me smile seeing Helen again and having everyone together.”

“Being back together is better than on Zoom. It made me feel relaxed because I could see and hear properly.”

Our Sessions will be continuing until December. We hope to be able to do a performance for our family and friends (if Covid allows us to) later in the year.

We have a long list of songs we want to learn. We will post regular updates about our sessions. Here are a couple of videos and photographs to show you what we did.