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Posted

Thanks, sotto, I hadn't spotted that. The forum has been full of interest for me all these years and not many days have passed when I haven't been on to see "what's new". No other organ has been anything like as successful in my experience and I, along with all the others who have expressed this, am full of gratitude to JPM for its inception and continuance all this time. I have loved involvement in it and am grateful, too, to all my fellow correspondents (forumites) who have contributed to my enjoyment of the forum for so long, and, indeed, have put up with my dull reminiscences and other posts over the years. Thank you all so much.

Martin.

 

Posted

I have signed up on the replacement forum too. I will be very sorry to see this forum go: the knowledge and chit-chat on this forum has been great over the nearly 16 years (I joined 13th October 2004) that I have been a member. I hope that the replacement forum will be just as busy and knowledgeable.

I extend my thanks to our hosts and admin who have run this forum.

Dave

Posted
On 11/08/2020 at 12:44, Rowland Wateridge said:

Sorry to be so po-faced, but many of these posts seem rather ungracious and ungrateful to the existing hosts.  Would it be such a radical idea that the existing forum might continue, possibly under new management, and incorporate, in some way, the name of Mander as a lasting memorial to the firm?  There are other such bodies which do on subjects as disparate as defunct makes of cars and motor cycles to the somewhat esoteric extreme of the Burgon Society founded in 2000, but named after a former Dean of Chichester who died in 1888.

And who, interestingly, was succeeded by Francis Pigou (Dean, 1888-1891). Pigou didn't like Chichester - he is said to have found it "unbearably sleepy" and that there was "so little to do" - and he eventually became Dean of Bristol Cathedral in 1891 where he remained in office until he died in 1916. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Pigou)

Dave

Posted

I can smell the burning martyrs from here!

There exist on this forum,unfortunately it would seem, a significant number of individuals who think they are so important that ANY other forum would not be able to function without them.

Once again  " au revoir " to  JPM and all the excellent work you have done ; and hello to Steve  :)

Glad to see there is a steady exodus in progress.     It`s make your minds up folks time.

Posted
5 hours ago, Adnosad said:

I can smell the burning martyrs from here!

There exist on this forum,unfortunately it would seem, a significant number of individuals who think they are so important that ANY other forum would not be able to function without them.

Once again  " au revoir " to  JPM and all the excellent work you have done ; and hello to Steve  :)

Glad to see there is a steady exodus in progress.     It`s make your minds up folks time.

Adnos, have I read your post correctly? It does seem very ungracious. Some of those leaving have been valued friends and colleagues on here for a long time and I am sorry to see them go. One of the great things about this forum has been its broad church in terms of interest and knowledge, and we have all rubbed shoulders, for many years, in a good-natured way. I confess to being taken aback by the note your email appears to strike and only hope that I have misunderstood in some way.

Posted

I don't know whether Adnosad was motivated to make that comment as a result of mine, quoted by Dave Harries in an entirely different context, nor do I think he is in a position to assume who has or has not joined the new site.  I'm only aware of one existing member deciding that, after all, he is choosing to "call it a day".  That does not make him (or anyone else) "a martyr". I shall miss his knowledgable comments - sometimes acerbic, as he has freely admitted! - and I speak as one having been on the receiving end!

 

Posted
18 hours ago, DaveHarries said:

And who, interestingly, was succeeded by Francis Pigou (Dean, 1888-1891). Pigou didn't like Chichester - he is said to have found it "unbearably sleepy" and that there was "so little to do" - and he eventually became Dean of Bristol Cathedral in 1891

Dave,  A non-organ matter, possibly one of the last on the present forum.  I knew about Dean Pigou at Chichester, although unaware that he moved to Bristol.  His predecessor (as already mentioned) at Chichester, Dean Burgon, had a decidedly stormy passage there, always at odds with his Chapter, and the dislike seems to have been mutual.  The contrast with your description of Dean Pigou's experience is stark!  Interestingly, although not exact contemporaries - a few years between them - both Dean Pigou at Chichester and Dean Garnier at the next-door cathedral, Winchester, both had Huguenot ancestry.

Posted

Well I shall make my way over to the new forum.  I'm not "in the business" like many of you, but thanks Raymond Sunderland, an inspirational choirmaster to 7-yr old me back in 1972, I have a lifelong love of the organ (particularly its innards) and organ music.  We can't all be fine performers and I might not have ever played all that well, but it's something that's given me pleasure for nearly half a century. And I'm a good listener!

I shall add my voice to that of so many others and say a fond farewell to Manders - and thanks to them for setting up this forum, on which I've wasted many a happy hour reading everyone's opinions. I've learned a lot.

See you over the other side...

Posted
4 hours ago, Rowland Wateridge said:

Dave,  A non-organ matter, possibly one of the last on the present forum.  I knew about Dean Pigou at Chichester, although unaware that he moved to Bristol.  His predecessor (as already mentioned) at Chichester, Dean Burgon, had a decidedly stormy passage there, always at odds with his Chapter, and the dislike seems to have been mutual.  The contrast with your description of Dean Pigou's experience is stark!  Interestingly, although not exact contemporaries - a few years between them - both Dean Pigou at Chichester and Dean Garnier at the next-door cathedral, Winchester, both had Huguenot ancestry.

We in Bristol said farewell to our last Dean back in September 2019 (he was well liked and very good at his job but applied for the post of, was appointed, Dean of a large church in London: doesn't seem like 11 months already): his successor was announced a month or two back as the then Canon Chancellor of Southwark and she will become the first female Dean of Bristol when she is installed (for which there is, understandably, no date at present), thereby continuing a line of Deans, almost unbroken (bar the civil wars of the mid-1600s I think) which goes back to 1542.

Dave

Posted
11 hours ago, Paul_H said:

Well I shall make my way over to the new forum.  I'm not "in the business" like many of you, but thanks Raymond Sunderland, an inspirational choirmaster to 7-yr old me back in 1972, I have a lifelong love of the organ (particularly its innards) and organ music.  We can't all be fine performers and I might not have ever played all that well, but it's something that's given me pleasure for nearly half a century. And I'm a good listener!

I shall add my voice to that of so many others and say a fond farewell to Manders - and thanks to them for setting up this forum, on which I've wasted many a happy hour reading everyone's opinions. I've learned a lot.

See you over the other side...

 

Not often you see reference to Raymond Sunderland, but he and my late friend and former Hull City Organist, Peter Goodman, were great friends. I have a disc or two of Raymond Sunderland playing the organ at Bridlington Priory. A fine organist!

I sang there as a boy chorister with the choir of Holy Trinity (now Hull Minster) shortly after Compton’s had rebuilt it in 1949. It was then a three-manual. My then master of choristers, Norman Strafford, predecessor of Peter Goodman, was consultant for the Compton rebuild.

Some years ago, when Nicholson’s were finishing their organ at Southwell Minster, I met his son-in-law, Dennis Thurlow, who was supervising some final voicing. We chatted for some time about RS.

Posted
1 hour ago, Barry Oakley said:

 

Not often you see reference to Raymond Sunderland, but he and my late friend and former Hull City Organist, Peter Goodman, were great friends. I have a disc or two of Raymond Sunderland playing the organ at Bridlington Priory. A fine organist!

In 1972, I think it was, Raymond invited me to his house in Summerfield Road in Bridlington to listen to the recording he had made of Garth Edmundson's Apostolic Symphony. He hadn't played it to anyone else and said that he greatly valued my opinion of his playing. I thought it to be very fine and told him so, even if the critics were fairly scathing about it later. His death on Christmas morning 1977 was a sad loss to the music scene of the East Riding of Yorkshire. He was a lovely man, a fine organist and a real gentleman. 

Posted

Within a couple of days I suspect that this forum is going to disappear and I would like to post something before it finally goes.

It seems, and Rowland confirmed this in a private communication we had, that I am the one with the acerbic comments. However I'm also grateful to Rowland for his public comments concerning my knowledge. As I have said, on numerous occasions here, I am not what I would call an organist. I can play to ARCO standard. I am, however, a musician, slightly well-qualified, a 'cellist in another life who has been a member here now for ten years. In that ten years I have made 644 posts.

I won't apologise for disagreeing with anyone here but I do want to say that if at any time I have been less than gracious, less than polite, sarcastic or perhaps even petulant (The 'Buckfast' thread comes to mind!) in my disagreements with fellow 'forumites' then I apologise unreservedly. Put it down to being a blunt Yorkshireman who was always told to call a spade a shovel!! 

It's important to end on a positive note! I shall miss the forum but good things come to an end. Stay safe and I wish you all well.

Posted

I don't know if this would be of any interest.

But there is a website called the Wayback machine that's basically a archive for old websites.

The Mander Organ forum has been documented but only the main page.

I don't think it would be possible to document the whole forum but I was just thinking maybe it might be worth preserving any particular threads for the sake of memories. But that depends if it is possible or even worth doing.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20200819195355/https://mander-organs-forum.invisionzone.com/

Posted

I mentioned the Wayback Machine as a possibility on the new site. However, after experimenting a bit I concluded that it would not be a practical way of attempting to archive the Mander Forum. Basically, you can only archive individual pages, so, for the thing to work, you would need to archive every single page that ever existed and then remember the date on which it was archived in order to be able to find it again. However, if the webmaster knows a way of doing that easily...

Posted
7 hours ago, S_L said:

Within a couple of days I suspect that this forum is going to disappear and I would like to post something before it finally goes.

It seems, and Rowland confirmed this in a private communication we had, that I am the one with the acerbic comments. However I'm also grateful to Rowland for his public comments concerning my knowledge. As I have said, on numerous occasions here, I am not what I would call an organist. I can play to ARCO standard. I am, however, a musician, slightly well-qualified, a 'cellist in another life who has been a member here now for ten years. In that ten years I have made 644 posts.

I won't apologise for disagreeing with anyone here but I do want to say that if at any time I have been less than gracious, less than polite, sarcastic or perhaps even petulant (The 'Buckfast' thread comes to mind!) in my disagreements with fellow 'forumites' then I apologise unreservedly. Put it down to being a blunt Yorkshireman who was always told to call a spade a shovel!! 

It's important to end on a positive note! I shall miss the forum but good things come to an end. Stay safe and I wish you all well.

I feel moved to say something in response to this.  Although there are indeed acerbic members on this forum, I had not got you down as one of them, SL.  Having said that, it's no particular sin and it doesn't matter to me as it's a trait which adds colour to the discourse in my view.  And with Ph.D., M.A., B.Mus., F.R.S.A., A.R.C.M., yes, you are indeed 'slightly well qualified', which is one of the reasons I've enjoyed reading your posts, often learning something from them as well.

I'm sorry we won't be 'seeing' you again.  That's yet another of the losses of this sad situation.  All good wishes to you for the future.

 

Posted
2 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:

I feel moved to say something in response to this.  Although there are indeed acerbic members on this forum, I had not got you down as one of them, SL.  Having said that, it's no particular sin and it doesn't matter to me as it's a trait which adds colour to the discourse in my view.  And with Ph.D., M.A., B.Mus., F.R.S.A., A.R.C.M., yes, you are indeed 'slightly well qualified', which is one of the reasons I've enjoyed reading your posts, often learning something from them as well.

I'm sorry we won't be 'seeing' you again.  That's yet another of the losses of this sad situation.  All good wishes to you for the future.

 

Well said, Colin!

All the best, SL;

 

Martin.

 

Posted

I feel rather named and shamed here.  ‘Acerbic’ was not meant in an unkind way, and I have thanked S_L in a private email, acknowledging the breadth of expertise that he has brought to the forum in more than just organ matters, and I’m happy to repeat that publicly here.

Posted

On the subject of alternative Fora, and at the risk of blowing my own Closed Horn 8 (tc), I would like to invite anyone who is not aware of it to my Facebook group, British Pipe Organs. It is essentially photography based, but encourages (and contains) lively debate on all sorts of organ matters. It's been going for 14 months, and now has about 2000 members and 1500 organs pictured. It's fully searchable and has an index, in the interests of having some sort of semi-permanent usefulness. 

Posted
1 hour ago, ptindall said:

On the subject of alternative Fora, and at the risk of blowing my own Closed Horn 8 (tc), I would like to invite anyone who is not aware of it to my Facebook group, British Pipe Organs. It is essentially photography based, but encourages (and contains) lively debate on all sorts of organ matters. It's been going for 14 months, and now has about 2000 members and 1500 organs pictured. It's fully searchable and has an index, in the interests of having some sort of semi-permanent usefulness. 

It looks most interesting. Many thanks for sharing. I am sure it will be much more fun than watching the news in a moment!

Posted
On 11/08/2020 at 09:06, Steve Goodwin said:

I suspect many of us (like me) get the forum notifications by email and that means you get to see the text of the posting without actually logging in to the forum. 

As I admitted above, I do this a lot, but the downside is that, if I only read the emails and not the post on the forum, I miss any edits that are subsequently made.  I say this one who is almost incapable of saying what I want to say first go - though maybe people aren't missing anything important.

Posted

I really hope that this forum or at least its content will survive in one way or another as it is a repository of really important information.

Many people have gone to FB which is a move that I deprecate as wisdom there is lost in the instant.

As Tony said above, www.organmatters.com exists and of which he, pcnd5584, Barrie Davies and Pierre Lauwers are admins. If anyone else would like to join the team please give us a shout. The forum is categorised trying to identify areas of interest and to encourage enthusiasm.

In this country the buildings in which most instruments are housed are rather in crisis, as are the instruments themselves and so I have a passionate belief that all of us need to continue making enthusiasms infectious.

If hosting this forum is a problem, my server is considerably under-used and I've only kept it going for the hosting of Organ Matters and a few low importance legacy websites. It would be great for it to find more usefulness.

Best wishes

David P

Posted

I certainly agree about Facebook and the like.  Fine for short-term discussions, but far from friendly if you want to find something from even the recent past.  I do hope "organ matters" will grow & thrive.  Sadly, I've little to post at present as I've been shielding because of the virus.

Every Blessing

Tony

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