The above choir was formed about 3 years ago. We currently have 14 Male members between us, so to speak. The original suggestion came about at one of the members bucks  party. You see, Gary had popped the question to his ever loving Andrea, she swooned and said yes, so quite natural his mates had to turn it on for him. At this "do" held at the disused Wairewa school, 20 or so blokes were standing around barbecuing meat and partaking of the amber fluid, many serious subjects were discussed, lofty comments could be heard drifting on the still night air such as "Do ya think it'll rain soon?", "Hows the new Ute goin?" and "Gawd that cow of yours has a lovely bag on er".

Some time during the evening someone made the comment that "this is alright, us blokes should get together more often". Yep we all said in unison but our wives won't let us out to stand around and drink beers. There was a long thoughtful silence then one bright spark (Bless him) said "They'd let us out for choir practice but". The germ of an idea was sown.

A few weeks later 4 of us met at the Nowa Nowa pub, tossed the idea around over a few glasses and the idea was born. We couldn't interest any of the other drinkers in the idea. Well, to tell the truth there was only Nobby and Ramrod in there at the time, seasoned drinkers both, and the only words of song heard to issue from their lips was a tipsy version of the Collingwood theme song when they last won the flag.

A short while after, the word went round for Choir practice, Friday night, Patrick's tractor shed, bring your stubbies. Six of us tubed up and one bloke actually had some song sheets! Well after much drinking, talk and laughter we thought we had better try and sing a song before going home, from that start the Nowa Nowa Mens Choir hasn't looked back, and we dare not, the path is littered with strangled notes, mangled cords and discordant harmonies and, oh yes dead marines.

The choir is open to new members, we only ask two questions. it Do you drink and do you want to sing? And we are pretty flexible on both of these. After a few months we were offered our first gig, to sing at a black tie, Australia Day eve dinner for a Hundred and Twenty people. Not being a the sort of blokes that sell themselves cheap or to let others take advantage of us we reckoned that two slabs would just about secure our services and you can see how much they really wanted us there because before we could put in our claim, the organizers came back with "all the beer you can drink on the night". I tell you it's nice to be appreciated.

Since then the choir has grown in confidence and after a hesitant start we now look forward to singing in public and do from time to time. We usually (Depending on circumstances) ask for payment we accept all currencies, that's beer and cash. The money we donate to charity and the beer, well you know where that goes. A final note. I think it important for hesitant self-conscious blokes to have a carrot dangled in front of them, that is a slab of beer, or to feel that they are doing it for the greater good like earning money to donate to a local cause, it justifies making fools of ourselves, at least in the initial stages.

We would be useless without our music director James Haig none of us could sing a note when we first started, our first director Glen ? took us as far as he could then Teetotaller (thank goodness one of us is) James with his wealth of experience and endless patience, understanding nature and ability to remain cool under pressure took over.  We have grown in confidence over the years and I think all of our members look forward to Thursday nights.