Wigan Ukulele Club

Formed in 2009 Wigan Ukulele Club play a wide variety of music from 50’s, 60’s and 70’s pop and rock and roll to 1920’s and 30’s standards. We even do a few songs from the current century!

We meet each Wednesday evening at the Pavilion Suite at Wigan Sports Club and currently have a membership of around 90 people.

It has always been our aim to be an exciting and entertaining performance venue for all forms of ukulele playing and to be a showcase for local and regional ukulele talent. We are always looking for ways to share and develop our ukulele skills and musicianship.

Club Nights:

The club ‘family’ has continued to grow and our Wednesday evening club nights are fun social gatherings where members strum, sing and generally enjoy themselves playing the ukulele. Our club night songs are all displayed on a large screen so no need to bring songbooks or music stands.

Club Membership:

The annual subscription, renewable in April, is £45 adults / £5 for accompanied under 18’s, and £5.00 for non playing associate membership. In addition to the annual subscription there is a one pound door charge payable each week that members attend.

On payment of your first full years subscription members will receive a club performance songbook.

A reduced membership is available from November each year (valid until the following April). This costs £22 for adults but does not qualify for the songbook.

Our club song library (over 1000 songs) is however available for all members to download and our songs on club night are all displayed on a large screen.

Performance Group:

Our members also make up a performance group who play at over fifty dates each year (public and private functions) including weddings, birthdays, church and charity functions, festivals, shows and rallys. Monies raised from our performance group including cd sales is donated to our charity fund, club members take nothing themselves.

Charity Fund Raising:

Wigan & Leigh Hospice is the principle charity we support but we also make donations to other local, national and international charities. We have a charity committee who decide on distribution. We are very proud of our charitable work and regularly raise over £10,000.00 each year.

Visitors:

We welcome prospective new members and visitors from other clubs, although you must check with our club secretary before attending. We do occasionally hold some special function evenings where attendance is limited to members only.

Ukes In Schools:

Within the club we also have a ‘Ukes in Schools’ group who have been performing at Primary, Special and Secondary schools in the North West since 2014. The aim of this group is to encourage children who are learning to play the ukulele.

We bring a variety of ukuleles and give the children a brief introduction to the instrument. We encourage children and staff to sing along with us and, if they have ukuleles in school, we encourage the children to come and play at least one simple song with us.

Beginners Classes:

We run a series of six week beginner’s classes each year. These are free but attendance is limited. The classes last an hour each week, after the class, attendees are welcome to join in with the rest of that evening’s club night.

Summer Events:

In 2012 the club were invited to perform at a festival at Wigan’s twin town Angers in France. A trip to Ireland followed in 2013 to play at the Ukulele Hooley at Dun Laoghaire near Dublin and a second visit to Angers was made in early 2014.

In 2015 we held a three day ukulele festival at Crooke Village, which, at the time was the location of our weekly meetings.

In 2016, 17, 19 and 23 we enjoyed a club summer weekend in Llandudno. Around one hundred people attended each year, this included club members, partners and friends from other local ukulele clubs. We fully occupied a hotel, held a club night in their ball room, and had a charity collection busk on the Orme and the promenade, monies raised from these was donated to Llandudno RNLI.

Paul Swift Club Chairman