I have a problem in my choir: a woman who has a bunch of health problems recently rejoined the choir ()she was a member before I started conducting it). But it's clear she cannot keep up with the rest. Our choir consists mostly of elderly people but those can still 'function' well. I don't want to go into much detail about the health but it impacts her participation: her speech is still suboptimal (singing helps in the longterm, but most of the time she just doesn't sing), she needs assistance moving around (even with a walker, it is complicated), she has impaired eyesight (I made large prints of the lyrics so she can follow), and half of the time, it looks like she's dozing off.
I know she doesn't do that on purpose but it's holding back the rest and putting a strain on the others: we always have to drive her to/from the rehearsal, create alternate versions of the sheet music (and then she doesn't even sing), and during the break and after the rehearsal, she doesn't really socialize. If somebody talk to her, it's as if we are waking her up.
This situation cannot go on and I think it's best to remove her but how do I do that in a good way that doesn't burn bridges?
Some more context:
- We are an amateur choir. It used to be both for church and non-liturgical music but the last 10 years it has been not attached to the church.
- I already provide accommodations:
- we do warm-up exercises: articulation, singing exercises, rhythm, ...
- we make custom scores for her. Large font, text onbly because the notes are confusing
- we transport her from/to home
- I made recordings of all songs and made them available via SoundCloud and for her I gave a USB stick