Chorus Team
Chorus Manager/Bass Section Leader/Marketing & PR – Lyn Baines
As Spangles Chorus Manager, Lyn takes an active role in the strategic and musical planning of the chorus. She is also responsible for Public Relations, Costume and Makeup. Since 2008, she has been singing with her quartet, Viva.
Lyn joined Wessex Harmony in 1994 as a complete novice, but was soon hooked by Barbershop. She became actively involved in the club as Secretary and Fundraiser. Anthea joined a few years later and she and Lyn have been friends ever since.
Lyn’s working life has been within the IT industry since 1978, culminating in her role as Sales and Marketing Director for six years, before running her own marketing company between 1994 and 2002, where Anthea joined her as Telemarketing Manager; together they caused chaos with staff and clients alike, working hard but having lots of fun along the way.
When Lyn and her husband retired to Spain, Anthea and her husband swiftly followed the same dream and all landed in the Murcia region. One sunny afternoon, at a barbecue with friends, one of whom was a barbershopper, they all sang in four part harmony and both Anthea and Lyn realised just how much they missed singing. That’s when the spangle of an idea began……
Musical Director/Tenor Section Leader – Barbara Burks
Barbara has always loved singing and being on stage. She attended a High School in Leeds that was well known for producing stage and TV stars, Angela Griffith and Melanie Brown to name but a couple. Barbara was always involved in school plays, concerts and musicals and represented the school 3 years running in the Leeds Schools Competitions for poetry reading, picking up a couple of awards along the way. The school musicals were written by her English teacher, Jake Thackray, who, some of you may remember, wrote and sang humorous songs on TV shows like Braden’s Beat and the Esther Rantzen Show in the 1960/70s.
Her Claim to Fame is that, when she was 12 years old, Barbara went to Granada Television Studios in Manchester to audition for Coronation Street; the character being Elsie Tanner’s niece. Unfortunately, Barbara didn’t get the part, but she met most of the 1967 cast and had a great day.
Barbara joined Spangles in February 2008, first singing Lead and now Tenor. She quickly became an asset, first taking on the role of Treasurer and then Tenor Section Leader. Barbara is also a member of a quartet (Viva). She stepped into the Musical Director shoes in 2023 and is doing a great job.
She says “I love the camaraderie and friendship that Spangles offers and hope to be involved for many years to come.” We’ll drink to that!’
Management Team/Lead Section Leader – Linda Coats
In the UK, Linda ran her own soft furnishing business for a number of years before having a change of direction by working for Boots’ head office in their customer service department for 4 years, as a Senior Advisor and Trainer. In August 2004, Linda and husband Neil decided just to up sticks and move to Spain for a simpler, less stressful lifestyle and, of course, some sunshine.
After just one week, they met their first neighbours, Anthea & Mike, who were a great help to them in their early days in Spain. They became good friends from the start and still are. Linda knew that Anthea and Lyn had been involved in Barbershop in the UK and that they had decided to start a chorus here in Spain. Not something that interested Linda at all, just the word “Barbershop” put her off. “Not my thing at all” said she, “and of course the fact that I did not ‘do’ singing and had no experience at all, was a big reason why I did not want to join them either. Boy, was I in for a surprise, and oh, how wrong can you be???”
Linda and Neil went to Spangles’ first open day, just to put bums on seats and give them some support; there were just 5 Spangles at that time. They were both impressed and had to admit that it was not the type of Barbershop they had expected. On that day, Linda was persuaded to go along to the next rehearsal, together with another lady, Vicky. Very reluctant and very scared, she turned up and joined in, with Lyn helping her in Lead, never imagining that she would be doing what she does now, and really enjoying herself.
“Join a Barbershop Chorus and you will always have a friend” was the first thing a friend in the UK told Linda when she announced that she had joined Spangles, and Linda now knows what she meant.
Today, Linda plays a vital role on the chorus management team, encouraging and supporting others who have taken that ‘step through the door’. She has also sung with four quartets, Chardonnay, Short Note-is, ConFusion and now with a mixed quartet called CHIL. Who would have thought?
Treasurer – Pat Lightfoot
Pat is a born and bred Staffordian after finishing college in 1972 she started her career with Staffordshire County Council as a secretary, then in 1989 she moved from that secretarial role to that of being responsible for a team of about 20-25 traffic enumerators organising manual traffic surveys around the county of Staffordshire
After 40 years it was time for her to retire.
Her husband Andy was still working full time, until he got poorly so in December 2014 he was forced to retire too.
It was in September 2018 that they made a very difficult decision to move to Spain after trying it for 6 months previously. They brought their home in Torre de La Horadada and moved in on Christmas Eve of that same year.
Sadly in 2022 Andy passed away, but they had 4 lovely years together in Spain visiting lots of different places, making lots of new friends and just generally have a wonderful time.
Pat decided that she was going to remain in Spain and carry on living their dream, but her life was so different now, after being with Andy for 48 years, she needed something to fill that void in her life.
It was after seeing Spangles FB page keep popping up that she decided to make contact, making it very clear that she couldn’t sing, but liked to sing, and she couldn’t read music. So she came along to a Spangles Open Day in January 2023.
She has really enjoyed being part of Spangles and looks forward to rehearsals, and has been part of something very unique. Something far bigger than she originally thought.
Her first biggest challenge was organising a Spangles afternoon tea fundraiser which was a great success.
In December 2024 two things happened for her:
Firstly, she was asked to take on the role of Treasurer which she accepted without question.
Secondly, she was asked to form Bijou quartet which was such a big moment for her, giving that she said she couldn’t sing.
