Kim said, ‘Let’s face it, Hest. The only person in the choir who can afford that sort of money is the one person who doesn’t even sing.’
Hester smiled. ‘Well. That puts us all in the same boat then, doesn’t it? We’d better head back to shore, write it off as an impossible dream.’ She let out a long sigh. ‘It was a lovely idea, but of course it couldn’t ever really happen. After all, we aren’t even a proper choir. Might as well give up now.’
‘All right! We get the point,’ Kim huffed. ‘What are we going to do then? Pray about it? Hope we find a box of buried treasure in the chapel vestry? Buy a lottery ticket?’
‘That’s your suggestion, Kim? After all this time in Grace Choir? Sit about, hoping the answer to our problem will just come and poke us in the eye?’
Hester looked at us, probably unaware how intimidating the steam whistling out of each ear was. Nobody moved a muscle as we all waited for someone else to speak.
‘We could sell stuff,’ Rowan suggested. ‘Like cakes.’
‘You need to sell a lot of cakes to raise five grand.’ Mags shook her head. ‘And by the time we’ve paid for the ingredients, we’d need to sell twice as many.’
‘We could do a sponsored something,’ Uzma said. ‘Like, a sponsored sing. Or a cycle.’
‘We could do a full monty,’ Janice said. ‘I saw a film about it once. These blokes needed to raise money, so they did a dance and took off all their clothes. They weren’t professionals or anything. Men pay a lot of money to see women take all their clothes off. If they’re anything like my fella, they won’t mind a few wobbly bits.’
‘My fella used to like the wobbly bits best,’ Millie sighed. ‘Before that young floozy came along all perked up and toned triceps.’
‘Stop!’ Hester barked. ‘Nobody is taking their clothes off for men. Have I taught you nothing?’
‘You taught us we’re beautiful!’ Millie replied. ‘I’m not ashamed to get my kit off for the sake of the Community Choir Sing-Off national finals.’ She stood up and began to sway suggestively, playing with the top button of her frilly blouse.
‘Well, you should be!’ It looked as though a volcano was about to go off underneath Hester’s helmet hairdo.
‘What about a proper concert?’ I said.
‘Ooh.’ The choir looked at each other, impressed. Hester smacked herself on the forehead, as if she couldn’t believe it had taken that long for someone to suggest it.
‘But how many tickets would we need to sell? Even if we charged twenty pounds each, we would need to sell two hundred and fifty tickets. And that means we’d need to hire a venue. When the Guides wanted to hire the Coddington Theatre, it cost hundreds.’ Melody frowned. ‘And I’m not sure we are a twenty-pound concert yet.’
‘So we make it more than a concert,’ I said. ‘A proper fundraising event. With dinner and a raffle.’
‘A raffle?’ Leona grimaced. ‘What, a few bottles of unwanted smellies, an ugly teddy bear and a jigsaw with three pieces missing? No one makes decent money from a raffle.’
‘Okay. So how about a raffle selling stuff people actually might want?’
‘That costs money.’
‘Not if we provide the stuff.’
‘What have we got that people want to buy?’ Rowan asked, causing Hester to screech.
‘We could sell half of this junk and make a couple of hundred quid,’ Ebony said.
‘No. No junk.’ I stood up now, my brain whirring into gear. I could see it – a beautiful hall, round banqueting tables withtasteful centrepieces, full of men and women with more money than sense, bursting to spend it on some local good cause. ‘We can do better than that. How about a hair and beauty makeover? A privately catered dinner party? A singing lesson from a pro. A bespoke designer outfit from the woman who created the Bulgarian Prime Minister’s daughter’s wedding dress?’
‘You can’t sell one of Rosa’s dresses for the price of a raffle ticket.’
‘An auction.’ I felt a bubble of excitement begin to grow. This could actually work. ‘I went to one with Perry once to raise money for a children’s hospice. This isn’t quite the same, but once the guests got into the party spirit, they didn’t care. Some of them got into this competitive “who’s prepared to spend the most money because they’re the richest?” type of spirit. If we got the right auctioneer, we could make five thousand without breaking a sweat.’
‘Just one problem.’ Kim pointed at me. ‘Where are we going to find a load of rich people willing to come along to our dinner/concert/auction thing, where are we going to have it and, no offence to anyone here, but who is going to organise it all?’
I grinned. ‘Have you met my fiancé, Perry Upperton, long-time member of the Houghton Country Club? I met him when I was the events manager there. I’ll make a few calls, pull in a couple of favours, and get back to you with a date.’
‘Show-off,’ Kim muttered.
‘And so she should be!’ Hester said. ‘About time the rest of you starting showing off your God-given talents. And the Grand Grace Gala sounds like just the place to do it. Now, will you lot finally get back to work?’
