First of all, to those of you whom I may have missed - Happy New Year!

I have a few problems - some of which are nice ones to have, others a little
less so. Rudgate have at the moment several invitations to sing in different
parts of the country. After Pickering in March, we have in no particular
order, Barnard Castle, Gateshead, Allerton Bywater [twice], Ilkley, possibly
Edinburgh & Wigan, not forgetting a possible return to North Lincolnshire
and maybe even York!

I only have one date so far, that's a Solemn High Mass and Wedding in the
Traditional Rite at Barnard Castle on 26th June. Fr. Elkin the Parish Priest
at BC approached me about this before Christmas, so assuming the wedding is
still taking place there, [there is a bit of competition from Brompton
Oratory apparently!], then Rudgate have a definite invitation to sing. Other
dates are flexible, apart from a Solemn Requiem [again in the Traditional
Rite] in November as part of Allerton Bywater Parish's Golden Jubilee
events.

It is of course possible that our Schola Cantorum could also get involved in
other events!

Bearing in mind how busy everyone is, I would be extremely grateful for
dates of Choir's concerts, so we can avoid clashing too much - bearing in
mind the distances people travel. Off the top of my head I'd like details of
Rosa Alba, Cantores, Chapter House, Micklegate Singers, Aire Valley Singers,
Pocklington Singers, Ilkley Chamber Choir, Felling MVC & York Rose Singers -
all of which most of us are involved with. I'm sure there are others too [my
apologies for forgetting which!]. We'll then be in a better position to see
what major Feasts are available that most of us can do.

We are making progress on the Pickering Mass. Most of the polyphony is
sorted, apart from one piece, which is still a bit of a thorn in the side.
If we get the right balance of singers then it shouldn't be a problem.
Please don't be too disappointed if you're not asked to sing the polyphony -
it's nothing personal[!], but we can't upset the balance of the choir for
this occasion as it's based on Byrd 3. On the other hand, there is NO
restriction on volunteers to sing the Gregorian chant....... :-) I'm
meeting Fr. Bill, later this week, so will be able to let people know
exactly what's happening soon!

My other two problems are annoying ones and won't affect everybody here - so
to those of you not affected or who don't have what I'm looking for, please
bear with me! First, the Rudgate List on Yahoo groups is under constant
attack from spammers, sending unsolicited and unwelcome messages to it. The
only reason those of you on the list don't get these is because I've blocked
and deleted them. It concerns me an awful lot, because list membership so to
speak is restricted to only those people Julie/Mark or myself approve of -
yet still these messages get through. I've checked Yahoo!'s complaints
policy, but it appears to only deal with 'registered' members - not those
who can at will it seems, hack into groups and send Spam, which if it wasn't
blocked would end up in list member's inboxes. If the problem gets so great
I'll delete the group and possibly move it to another host if that's
possible - any advice gratefully received.

Finally, my PC's hard drive died between Christmas and New Year, resulting
in me having to buy a new [much improved] one. The downside is that I lost
quite a lot of information and software, most of which I've recovered and
re-installed, including NTL's very complex broadband internet connection,
which I managed to do all by myself this time without technical assistance.
:-). What I'm looking for though, is anyone with Nero CD writer Software,
InCD in particular. My CD, which came with my new Cd-writer which I bought
last year isn't working properly. It loaded the bulk of the software
perfectly, so I can copy and create music/data CD's to my heart's content.
What I can't do is load InCD, as that part appears to be corrupt, and I'd
like that back again so I can write to CD-RW's as if they were floppy disks.
Those of you who have InCD will know what I'm on about hopefully.....

If there is anyone who has InCD from whom I could beg or borrow [but not
steal!], I would be very happy!!

Mike