From Jean - More detail on the origins of the Argus Singers

Good morning Helen,
Interested and pleased you found Argus first minutes.
To fill in gaps before further search I can tell you:-
J.Bell was a member of Durham County Youth Choir.  As one of the older members had had to leave eventually but missed the singing.  J.Bell bumped into Norman Barker subsequently and expressed the wish to have continued choral singing. Norman had been and I think still was the Bass Tutor of the Durham County Youth Choir. J. Bell asked him if he would be willing to start a new choir if enough people were interested and he said he would - he had conducted other choirs in past years.  He was able to gather contact information for past youth choir members and they both set about seeking interest.

Norman was a member of the Chester-le-Street Methodist Church and was able to secure use of rooms upstairs in the building, now replaced by the new annex.  Saturday was agreed by J and N because that had been the rehearsal day for DCYC and would therefore probably best suit those who had been members as they may be in university, hopefully locally,  or work and would therefore be otherwise committed and also Saturday was available for the church.  As it would then be an adult choir some parents/ friends of youth choir members were able to join, including:-

• Mary Cudworth, Janet Lucas’s mum who joined the altos.
  
• Norman’s wife Kath joined the altos. 
• Don, Judith Patrickson’s dad joined the Bass
  
• Lorna Walker, mother of two former DCYC members joined the soprano line.

A further trawl of the minutes will show that J Bell suggested the new choir ought to have a constitution and drew up that constitution.  It has been tinkered with, and rightly so, on I think two occasions, the last about two years ago but it remains substantially the same as first drafted.

The Committee was then tasked with finding a name for the new choir as “old members of the DCYC and friends” was not very flattering, even then. The Committee wished to have a name to identify locally with the area but all Dunelm and Cestria etc names had long since been adopted by other organisations. J Bell suggested the name “Argus“ it not only means ‘a fabulous being with a hundred eyes’, which was aspirational in both respects but also because of that drab brown Butterfly with orange spots which is very rare but is found in County Durham and I believe still in the Ferry Hill  area. No more better suited name came forth hence "Argus Singers" was adopted.

Final revelation J. Bell married in 1989 and became J. Graham.
Just don’t ask how old I am!
Happy reading of minutes
Jean