Susan Boyle joins star studded line-up for Diamond Jubilee pageant

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Susan Boyle joins star studded line-up for Diamond Jubilee pageant

The Scots singer will join Il Divo, Dame Helen Mirren and Martin Clunes, amongst others, at the glittering Windsor Castle event.

05 April 2012 10:41 GMT

Susan Boyle joins star studded line-up for Diamond Jubilee pageant

Susan Boyle will join the Royals Pic: © Startraks Photo/Rex Features

Susan Boyle is set to join Dame Helen Mirren, comedian Omid Djalili, Rolf Harris, Martin Clunes and operatic group Il Divo at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee pageant next month.

The extra special event will celebrate the Queen’s love of horses and will take place in the private grounds of Windsor Castle from Thursday, May 10 to Sunday, May 13.

Simon Brooks Ward, the director of the pageant, said: “The Diamond Jubilee Pageant will reflect the truly global impact The Queen has had during her 60-year reign by bringing horses, people, music and their culture from around the world to join the party.

"When you think of all the State occasions The Queen has been involved with, horses have always been there. The Queen's passion for horses is one that the public recognise as her most treasured."

It’s fantastic news for Susan, who is currently wowing the crowds with her guest appearances in I Dreamed a Dream – the musical based on her life.

Showing for the first time north of the border on Tuesday night, both Susan and Elaine C. Smith, who plays the Britain’s Got Talent star in the show, received standing ovations at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen.

Performing for the Queen will be another incredible moment for Susan, whose life changed overnight when she auditioned for BGT back in 2009.

Since then, she has gone on to enjoy global success, breaking musical records previously held by the Beatles, singing for the Pope and now she can add the Queen to her long list of celebrity fans. Not bad for a church volunteer from Blackburn who came second onBritain’s Got Talent.

BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT

http://entertainment.stv.tv/music/302734-susan-boyle-joins-star-studded-line-up-for-diamond-jubilee-pageant/

graysea

Interlude: Our Thoughts on the Show

Check out SB Real Fans Page.

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Susan Boyle makes cameo appearance at musical premiere

The rags-to-riches musical of the life of Susan Boyle brought the audience to their feet as the Scottish singer herself made a special appearance and performed her signature "Les Miserables" song "I Dreamed A Dream".

Click on link to see very good video.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/susan-boyle/9170724/Susan-Boyle-makes-cameo-appearance-at-musical-premiere.html

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Susan Boyle would never let down her Aberdeen fans, say show bosses

Singing star SuBo missed HMT appearance due to illness

By Karen Roberts and David Ewen

Published: 07/04/2012

SUPERSTAR: Susan Boyle.

SINGING superstar Susan Boyle would never let down her Aberdeen fans, bosses of her stage show pledged today.

The people behind I Dreamed a Dream spoke out after the Evening Express revealed SuBo had missed an appearance at His Majesty’s Theatre because of illness – despite being spotted at an Aberdeen restaurant hours earlier.

A spokeswoman for the show said: “Susan usually goes on about 10pm. She was in the theatre when she got ill and she couldn’t manage to get on and perform. The last thing Susan would want to do is disappoint her fans in Aberdeen.”

For the full story, pick up a copy of today’s Evening Express or read our digital edition now

http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx/2717415#.T4A4HHGW5_U.twitter

I made a comment on Elaine C. Smith's page and my Facebook. I will post it here in hopes that someone who can do something regarding the times Susan can not appear, it would be a thoughtful thing to do for the fans. Here it is:

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I posted this on Elaine's Facebook and I thought I would post it here: This message is meant to be a constructive thought and not meant to offend anyone.

Elaine, congratulations on a wonderful show! I heard IDAD is an amazing, successful show. I also heard Susan was sick and I felt so bad for her, as I know she is so caring and would never miss a show if she could help it. I also feel bad for the fans that went that night. According to The Scottish Sun, people waited up to 20 minutes for her to show, which is so sad to read. Why didn’t someone step out on stage for Susan to explain what happened to her to the audience. It would have saved a lot of hard feelings.

Elaine and Team, please consider this for Susan:

When Susan cannot appear, why don't you have a large screen come down with a message from Susan saying she is sorry she couldn't make it and appreciated everyone for coming to the show? Susan could also state that she recorded this message especial for you out in the audience. We know that Susan cannot make all the shows because she will be recording her new CD, and engagements already planned, like singing for the Queen and also travel plans already in place. So, wouldn't a nice message like that with a song or two recorded be a nice thing to do for her fans and the people who paid hoping to see her. Give it a try.

graysea

I heard earlier that Susan sang today and was OK.

It’s SpewBo as Susan Boyle falls ill

Sickness ... Susan Boyle

By STUART PATTERSON

Published: 48 minutes ago

SINGING sensation Susan Boyle pulled out of a stage show at the last minute after being violently sick in her dressing room.

It happened so suddenly organisers didn’t have time to announce what happened and fans were left furious when she didn’t appear.

Last night a pal told how SuBo had been in the make-up chair and ready to go on when she was “extremely” sick without warning.

They added: “We’re talking projectile vomiting. It was dreadful.

“She had no choice but to head back to her hotel. She couldn’t have gone on stage.”

SuBo, 51, fell ill moments before the second half of the show, called I Dreamed a Dream, started at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen on Thursday.

She is supposed to appear at the end of the musical as a “special guest star” and sing two tunes, including the title song that shot her to fame around the world.

Confusion ... His Majesty's Theatre

Fans paying almost £40 a ticket are told she’s expected to appear every night with many travelling hundreds of miles to see her.

And they were left furious when she failed to come on stage.

Some people sat in their seats for as long as 20 minutes after the lights came on in the hope she might appear. And there was confusion because the curtain didn’t come down, and there was no word of what had happened to the star.

Leigh-Anne Nicholson, 32, who went with her mum, said: “Everyone just sat there waiting. People were extremely disappointed.”

Karen Orchard, 27, who’d bought tickets to the show as a Christmas present for her mother, said: “After paying so much it would have been nice if we’d got some kind of apology or explanation.

“It was very poor. There were a lot of angry people in the theatre.”

Another audience member, who asked not to be named, said: “I asked for my money back

“We were told that Susan Boyle would be there. What’s the point of a SuBo musical without SuBo.”

About two hours before she was due to appear SuBo had been spotted enjoying a meal at nearby Italian restaurant La Lombarda, in the centre of Aberdeen. She arrived wearing a glam fur coat and had a risotto and a jug of water.

Meal ... SuBo ate at La Lombarda and posed with boss Michael before going to theatre

Manager Michael Wyatt, 27, said: “There was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

“She was in good spirits and she posed for a photo with me and gave me a £10 tip. She was very nice.”

Susan left the popular eaterie about an hour before she was due on stage for the musical, which stars Rab C Nesbitt star Elaine C Smith as the singer.

Michael said: “She told me she was about to go and sing. She was excited about it.

“I was genuinely surprised when I heard she’d not gone on.”

Yesterday Susan, from Blackburn, West Lothian, was staying at the plush Marcliffe Hotel on the outskirts of Aberdeen and was seen going for a stroll in the grounds.

The star, who was wearing a bright pink jogging top, appeared to have made a full recovery.

When asked how she was feeling she said: “Fine.”

She later felt well enough to visit Drum Castle near Banchory.

She chatted with staff including receptionist Sheila Stuart and posed for pictures before heading home with an Easter egg as a gift. Manager Alison Burke said: “Drum worked its charm on Susan, and she left having thoroughly enjoyed her visit.”

Susan’s spokeswoman last night confirmed that the singer was hit by a “health issue” on Thursday.

She said: “It happened just before the second half. There was no time to make an announcement.She’s feeling much better now.”

A spokeswoman for His Majesty’s Theatre confirmed that SuBo was not available for the show. She said: “Susan did perform at the matinee, but not the evening one.”

SuBo was expected to be back on stage in Aberdeen last night.

The city is just the second stop on the musical’s tour of the UK after it premiered in Newcastle.

It is expected to travel to Bradford next week. SuBo is also set to join Dame Helen Mirren, comedian Omid Djalili, Rolf Harris, Martin Clunes and operatic group Il Divo at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee pageant next month.

scottish-sun@the-sun.co.uk

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/4243543/Its-SpewBo-as-Susan-Boyle-falls-ill.html

Read more: http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/4243543/Its-SpewBo-as-Susan-Boyle-falls-ill.html#ixzz1rJW8JjYW

graysea

Susan Boyle drops into Drum

06/04/2012

Staff at Drum Castle were delighted to welcome the Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle to Drum Castle near Banchory today.

Miss Boyle dropped in to Drum Castle and chatted with the guides she toured around the conservation charity's oldest property.

Property Manager Alison Burke said:

"Drum worked its charm on Susan Boyle, as it does all its visitors, and she left having thoroughly enyoyed her visit. We presented a gift of one a Drum Castle and Estate guidebook and a Cadbury Easter Egg."

Drum Castle is hosting a Cadbury Easter Egg Trail from Saturday 7 to Monday 9 April. Find out more at www.nts.org.uk/Events/Drum-Castle-Garden-Estate/1012/

http://www.nts.org.uk/NewsStory/1746/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

graysea

Elaine C Smith talks about playing SuBo on stage and why she didn’t want I Dreamed a Dream to be just a ‘sing-a-long-a-Susan’

by Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo
Apr 6 2012

Elaine C Smith with Susan Boyle

IT WAS 2009 and in between performances of Calendar Girls the female cast were glued to their TV screens watching the progress of an unlikely future superstar.

“Lynda Bellingham and Patricia Hodge came running out of the dressing rooms at the interval,” recalls Elaine C Smith. “And they said ‘oh Elaine there’s this wee woman from Glasgow and she came out and looked terrible and then she sang and we were crying’.

“The gorgeous Sian Phillips was standing next to me, and she said are you going into watch it? And I said no, I’ll end up playing her in a story of her life! Just as a joke.”

Joke or not, Elaine’s words turned out to be prophetic, and three years on she’s not only playing Susan Boyle – the ‘wee woman’ of course – but appearing alongside her in newly minted musical hit I Dreamed a Dream, which tells the Britain’s Got Talent singer’s life story.

It’s not, though, the first time Elaine has given a voice to SuBo’s story. She reveals she also did the audio book of the 51-year-old’s autobiography.

In fact Elaine, who was the singer’s own first choice to play her, has also co-written the stage show which opened in Newcastle last week.

“Susan invited me to her 50th birthday,” explains the Rab C Nesbitt actress, “and I was watching her at the party.

“I went home and woke up at 4.30 the next morning and came downstairs and I wrote the entire opening – the opening speech, what songs should be there, her mum and dad – and I sent it to Michael (Harrison, the producer) and said whoever we get to write this, I think we’ve got to make it magical.

“This is a fairy story and it is magical, it’s like the beginning of Carousel with Billy Bigalow looking over his life.”

Harrison suggested Elaine should write the show herself and she’s done just that, alongside co-writer Alan McHugh and director Ed Curtis.

I Dreamed a Dream tells the Susan Boyle story from being an unassuming woman from West Lothian in Scotland to global superstar. The aim, the actress says, is to give an insight into who SuBo really is.

“Initially,” she says. “What really fascinated me was what was this woman before we saw her on Britain’s Got Talent? What made her turn up looking like that? Wear that dress?

“And of course you see that from her book that she’d lost her father, her sister and her mother in very quick succession.

“I’ve just lost my own father and I know the devastating place you go to, and how do you cope with that when you’re not married with children to help you through it?

“So I think there’s a greater understanding of who she is and that then gets transferred into nerves about performing as well, so for me there was a brilliant story in there.”

Susan Boyle was born in Blackburn, Scotland, on April 1 1961, the youngest child of a large Catholic family originally from Ireland.

Starved of oxygen at birth, she was bullied at school but early on found solace in singing.

But it wasn’t until she was well into adulthood that she plucked up the courage to perform in public, at open mic nights in a local pub.

“We mirror Susan’s life because actually the audience start to think, is she ever going to sing?” says Elaine. “I don’t sing for the first half-an-hour, but nobody knew Susan sang until she was in her late 20s, so I just thought it would be great to hold that back.”

When she finally does lift up a mic, “you can feel the relief from the audience”.

Elaine herself was a singer before she started acting, performing in many of the same clubs as Susan.

This is the first time she has played a real person. And not just that of course, because the real Susan Boyle also comes on at the end to sing two songs including I Dreamed a Dream itself.

Elaine laughs: “Actually, it freaked Susan out a bit more than me when she saw me in the wig and the black dress.

“Apparently one of the reviews said you can’t imagine anyone else playing Susan Boyle but Elaine Smith because she looks so much like her. “I don’t look anything like her! Stand us next to each other and we don’t look like each other at all, but actually what I discovered from doing Naked Video all those years ago is I’ve got one of those faces that completely changes with wigs.

“So when Susan saw me she said ‘oh no no no no’. She said ‘that’s made me shake, it’s like looking in the mirror’. Because the wigs are fantastic.”

The 53-year-old actress is very conscious however of the responsibility of portraying her fellow Scotswoman.

She adds: “I didn’t want to do anything but honour her. But I also didn’t want it to be a sugary sing-a-long-a-Susan either, so it’s a fine line.”

The musical has won generally admiring reviews, but for Elaine it’s the public’s response that’s paramount and SuBo fans have travelled from across the globe to see the show.

Word-of-mouth helped sell out Newcastle and this week it’s been standing room only in Aberdeen.

And Elaine, who last appeared at the Empire in Calendar Girls, reckons Liverpool audiences will love it too.

“I think Susan is well-loved,” she says. “People just adore her and her story, and I think that’s really important – it is just a magical story.

“She does two songs at the end and so I feel I’ve done my job if they’re on their feet before she comes on.

“I think for her it’s the welcome from the audience, and I go off and go ‘they’re on their feet Susan, on you go!’

“And that’s the great reward. We know we’ve done our job then.”

I Dreamed a Dream is at the Liverpool Empire from April 17-21.

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4506181572922601838#editor/target=post;postID=8973146113727250306

Re http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-entertainment/echo-entertainment/2012/04/06/elaine-c-smith-talks-about-playing-subo-on-stage-and-why-she-didn-t-want-i-dreamed-a-dream-to-be-just-a-sing-a-long-a-susan-100252-30704382/#ixzz1rGaPB51p

graysea

Enjoyed serving Susan boyle today. She left me a decent tip because of my amazing charmhttp://pic.twitter.com/xVsT1USN

Another Tweet:

Susan in Livingston

graysea

The Susan Boyle Musical – I Dreamed a Dream opens in Aberdeen

Elaine C Smith stars at HMT in musical of SuBo’s life

By Alexandra McDonald

Published: 04/04/2012

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APPEARANCE: Susan Boyle takes to the stage at His Majesty’s Theatre.

THERE were tears, joy and laughter as The Susan Boyle Musical – I Dreamed A Dream opened at HMT in Aberdeen.

And Scottish actress Elaine C Smith gave a mesmerising performance as Susan Boyle as the singer’s early life was played out across the Aberdeen stage.

But it was Susan Boyle herself who dazzled the Aberdeen audience with her rendition of the timeless I Dreamed A Dream and the poignant Who I Was Born To Be.

For the full review, pick up a copy of today’s Evening Express or read our digital edition now

http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx/2712554?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Susan Boyle: Singer and Now Businesswoman

By Marie Sheahan Brown

Who can forget the YouTube masterpiece? She strode and sashayed onto the stage with golden stature and confidence. She sparred wittily with the three famous judges, wearied by their long day of auditions in Glasgow, Scotland. She didn’t look the part of a “professional singer,” although one might perceive that being “currently unemployed” at forty-seven left little extra for beauty-shop pampering. Was she, rather, a comedienne? Susan Boyle audition

Then she sang. The formerly skeptical audience stood enraptured, tears welling as she belted out “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Misérables with stunning clarity and passion.

More than five years after the seven-minute audition video aired on Britain’s Got Talent on April 11, 2009, and promptly hit worldwide news feeds, multitudes in America and beyond remember Susan Boyle. Since she first broke Amazon pre-sale records in September 2009, millions have bought her albums. Each year, a new carefully crafted album has been released in time for Christmas. Since 2009, five albums have garnered sixty-three gold and ninety-four platinum sales levels in forty-two countries. Her sixth album, Hope, will be released on October 21 in the United States.

Scottish and United Kingdom audiences thrilled to Miss Boyle’s first full-length concert tours in 2013 and 2014. Now she’s coming to America—home of an immediate and strong support base—starting in San Diego on October 8, and singing her way across the southern half of the United States at venues in twenty cities. A sweep through the northern states could likely follow in the future.

See http://www.susanboylemusic.com/us/events

Many have written about Susan Boyle’s difficult and graced life. Her 2010 autobiography, The Woman I Was Born to Be, is a good source. Now fifty-three, she carefully revealed late in 2013 that, after decades of mistaken assumptions, she had finally been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. The relief of self-knowledge strengthens and encourages her after a lifetime of dealing with debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, and some difficulty in handling emotions and relating comfortably to people.

“This is a point: People may have problems,” she states in a documentary, “but they’ve got other things as well. And they’ve got a lot more to offer.” (Gammon, Lottie, produced, filmed, and directed. “There’s Something About Susan.” Firecracker Films Ltd. for ITV, 45:37 minutes. 2013)

Fewer analyses have considered her role as a small businesswoman and philanthropist whose personal success has enhanced the lives and small businesses of countless others not only in her native Scotland but also in, for example, America.

Miss Boyle, easily mistaken for a stately five feet ten in the famous video, is, in fact, barely over five feet tall with soft, dainty hands and feet—a huggable China doll. So she does qualify as a smallbusinesswoman despite her multimillions in sales, which also benefit business giants like Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited; SYCOmusic (Simon Cowell); Simon & Schuster, Inc.; Amazon; and, more recently, concert tour bus companies. In significant other ways, she retains her focus on the little ones.

The woman who had “never been married, never been kissed” and remains a virgin has, since 2009, given birth with astonishing fecundity. Lewis Hyde well describes her kind of gift and fertility in his 1983 classic, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property: “I have hoped . . . to speak of the inner gift that we accept as the object of our labor, and the outer gift that has become a vehicle of culture. I am not concerned with gifts given in spite or fear, nor those gifts we accept out of servility or obligation; my concern is the gift we long for, the gift that, when it comes, speaks commandingly to the soul and irresistibly moves us.”

Mr. Hyde first explores traditional “gift economies,” in which citizens are considered wealthy not according to how much they acquire but how much they give. In fictional form, Jean M. Auel’s well-researched Earth’s Children series (The Clan of the Cave Bear and five sequels) describes the creativity and ingenuity that led people to survive, to form communities, and to work cooperatively for mutual benefit. Goods, services, storytelling and musical talents, art, and many other gifts were appreciated in deeper ways than they might be in a typical “market economy.”

According to reviewer JoAnn Schwartz, “Above all, Hyde is interested in examining the effect our current immersion in the market economy and the myth of the free market has both on our view of gifts and on our ability to give and receive them. The market economy is deliberately impersonal, but the whole purpose of the ‘gift economy’ is to establish and strengthen the relationships between us, to connect us one to the other. It is this element of relationship which leads Hyde to speak of gift exchange as ‘erotic’ commerce, opposing eros (the principle of attraction, union, involvement which binds together) to logos (reason and logic in general, the principle of differentiation in particular). A market economy is an emanation of logos.

“In a market economy,” Ms. Schwartz continues, “one can hoard one’s goods without losing wealth. Indeed, wealth is increased by hoarding—although we generally call it ‘saving.’ In contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase—increase in connections, increase in relationship strength. Through this book, Hyde helps us focus on the importance of gifts, their flow and movement, and the impact that the modern market place has had on the circulation of gifts.” (http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html)

Susan Boyle does appreciate the financial security that she had never known, especially in the fearsome years after her mother died in 2007, when Miss Boyle kept her house cold so that she could afford the heating bill. Yet more important, Susan Boyle has said all along, “I sing to make people happy.” When she was a girl, the gift spoke “commandingly to the soul”—her soul. She honed, honed, honed the gift to perfection over decades of world obscurity. She sees with gratitude and humility the effects of this gift on people worldwide. When this gift is pointed out to her in personal conversation, she bows her head and lowers her eyes shyly. “Thank you.”

Miss Boyle’s fame and financial success have boosted tourism modestly in West Lothian, Scotland, with its pastoral more than spectacular scenery, a region that has suffered from bouts of economic depression and unemployment over the past few centuries. In February 2013, for example, following a centuries-old pattern, the main employer in the area—Halls of Broxburn meat processing plant—was closed by foreign owners, leaving 1,700 unemployed.

Lorraine Campbell co-owns and manages The Balbairdie—a nicely refurbished old hotel and pub in Bathgate, West Lothian. When the economy suffers, The Balbairdie feels it. Asked how she copes, Ms. Campbell replied, “You just keep going.” Happily, the local economy has improved some since 2013, according to Ms. Campbell in April 2014.

Miss Boyle has engaged experts like Andy Stephens, manager; Nicola Phillips, publicist; and Andrew Panton, creative and vocal director, to name a few. She has provided jobs for local personal assistants who handle correspondence, scheduling, wardrobe consultation, and myriad other details; gardeners; carpenters to renovate the council house she grew up and still lives in (her first big post-Britain’s Got Talent purchase); a housekeeper; women who fix her hair, do her nails, and apply her makeup for special public appearances and photo sessions; and others who tend to basic needs of a now-busy celebrity who still prefers to live in her home village, stop in at her favorite small shops and establishments, and take the bus.

Miss Boyle has also given seed money and sponsorship for creative business and charitable ventures in her local community and beyond. One start-up, Boyle’s Boutique, is an extended-family cottage industry that sells, among others, products featuring the new Boyle Tartan created for the family. Products may be ordered online.

Susan Boyle’s very capable personal assistant Sadie Boyle (no relation) says Miss Boyle gets about four hundred emails weekly, many requesting her generosity. This kind of response to another’s fame and fortune is not uncommon.

More unusual, and a clearer example of the fruits of the “gift economy,” is the generation of a worldwide community of Susan Boyle supporter-fans who have formed friendships, discovered or rekindled their own creative gifts, invested thousands of volunteer hours, spread financial generosity, and—to a small extent—started creative cottage enterprises for profit or merely to cover expenses.

Several unofficial Susan Boyle fansites live on the Internet. The first and largest, still flourishing, is www.susan-boyle.com. On April 11, 2009, Paul Wood, a London construction worker, watched Miss Boyle’s audition on TV and immediately put up a website. Starting within hours after the audition aired, people from many continents to whom Susan Boyle’s gift spoke “commandingly to the soul” were “irresistibly move[d]” to find out anything they could about her on the Internet. They frequently stumbled across Mr. Wood’s hastily launched site with its prolific discussion threads generating hundreds of written comments every day in the first two months of Miss Boyle’s fame.

To bring some order to the conversational chaos, Mr. Wood launched a companion Forum in June 2009 with more sophisticated software, accessed through the main website. Anyone could (and still can) join for free. The main rules are that one not be an Internet troll (a term and experience many had never heard of), that one behave reasonably civilly as outlined in posted guidelines, and that one not use the Forum itself for commercial purposes (more on that later).

Volunteer moderators and techies keep the discussions and online experience on an even keel. Online advertisements generated by Google AdSense and Amazon sales linked to the website (“SuBo Store”) help pay for the normal operational expenses.

In early 2010, Mr. Wood announced that he was going to auction off the website (some fifty thousand registered members) and its Forum (a few thousand registered members at the time). The worldwide member community could not bear the prospect of being taken over by some unknown commercial entity with other goals. So they decided to bid on the fansite themselves. A few members—by no means wealthy—each voluntarily loaned trusted fellow members a few thousand dollars to buy the fansite during the auction. The effort succeeded in July 2010.

Navigating through some tensions and hurt feelings (typical in any community anywhere), the worldwide Susan Boyle Fans International, Inc. (SBFII) community established itself as a non-profit corporation registered in Delaware, USA. SBFII elects a multinational volunteer board of directors; keeps meticulous financial records and files annual tax returns; maintains bylaws; and holds online annual meetings and elections engaging active members. Technically not a charity, SBFII uses AdSense and SuBo Store income to cover modest expenses and keep a healthy bank balance. Funds left over from voluntary collections (often for tasteful gifts for Miss Boyle for special occasions) are donated to a charity of Susan Boyle’s choice, frequently benefitting children in Scotland. By December 2011, SBFII repaid all interest-free loans given by members to buy the website; it remains debt free. No member gets paid for services to SBFII or personally benefits financially.

From the beginning, even silver-haired grandmothers proficient only with email learned to navigate the fansites in order to participate in a community of people who have experienced an inexplicable response to Susan Boyle—both her singing and her unique way of being—unlike their response to other favorite singers. Within months, members began gathering in person around the globe (often in restaurants, boosting local economies). They attended (and surreptitiously filmed and posted to the fansites for the enjoyment of those who could not attend) Miss Boyle’s performances in various cities (Britain’s Got Talent tour venues in the UK; Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, and more). Supporter-fans flocked to these events even though—until only 2013, when she first tried her own full-length concerts in Scotland—Miss Boyle was slated to sing just one, two, maybe three songs. These gatherings supported local hotels, B+Bs, restaurants, cab drivers, shops, and other travel-related businesses.

Miss Boyle and her team soon experienced that supporter-fans who came to these early events were older or at least more mature than stereotypical rowdies at, for example, Justin Bieber concerts. They saw that typical Susan Boyle supporter-fans are responsible, respectful, fun loving, generative. They include retired or active professionals—teachers, nurses, techies, writers, musicians, artists, farmers, truckers, businesspeople, social workers, radio hosts, professors, lawyers, homemakers, construction workers, postmasters, foresters.

To most gatherings (usually at restaurants) supporter-fans bring homemade memorabilia to share, including commemorative buttons and red scarves to identify themselves in various venues. The popularity of such items led SBFII to add another linked site, “Fan Creations,” linked in turn to the creators’ individual websites. Products include non-Susan-Boyle-related fan creations. Currently, three members offer SuBotique Hand Painted Apparel; Creative Images by tweek (Buttons, Mugs, etc.); and Susan Boyle Professional Singer chronicles gathered from news and other sources.

SBFII members often post creative ideas and images to discuss in writing with one another. Memorably, in 2009, a member from Texas, one from Iowa, and other volunteers, coordinated an international quilting bee. Supporter-fans from every continent, including Antarctica, created and mailed squares for a handmade quilt presented to Miss Boyle at a brunch following her debut solo appearance on the Todayshow on November 23—the day her first album, I Dreamed A Dream, was released in the United States and quickly broke world records in several categories.

Members can upload Susan-related videos that they have created; share poems that they’ve written; upload posters that they’ve designed digitally to document Miss Boyle’s career and accomplishments; upload news reports of supporter-fan activities, complete with photographs; post fine pencil drawings or paintings displaying talent the artists had only recently discovered; and offer a place where members can contribute their own essays. These essays, sometimes written in French or other non-English languages, often try to explain how the wee singer with the big voice; the shy woman who communicates profoundly—cor ad cor loquitur—through music others have written; the multimillionaire who stays in her small lifelong home and still takes the bus—the essentially inexplicable Susan Boyle—“irresistibly moves” them.

SBFII and other volunteers take responsibility to daily and positively post or re-post Susan Boyle news, photos, and encounters on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Their Internet involvement began immediately when Miss Boyle became famous—and once again experienced the bullying known since childhood, only this time inflicted by some members of the media and anonymous commentators. She writes in her autobiography, “What I didn’t know then, because I didn’t have a computer at the time, was that every time there was a mean comment about me in the press, a dozen messages of support would appear in response. On the Internet there was a growing community of fans. I had no idea how many people out there in the world felt moved to stick up for me, and I want to thank everybody for that.” (The Woman I Was Born to Be, pages 188–189)

Miss Boyle’s professional team also encourages creativity from fans. Starting with the first documentary of her life, Susan Boyle: I Dreamed A Dream, produced in 2009 by Talkback Thames, fans were invited via the official www.susanboylemusic.com site (picked up and promoted by volunteer sites) to send short videos of themselves saying “Hello, Susan!” with backdrops representing their locations. Several clips from around the world were chosen for the documentary. As a lead-up to Miss Boyle’s second album, The Gift, she held a worldwide “Susan’s Search” competition, inviting any amateur singer to upload a brief selfie singing “Silent Night.” The winner, Amber Stassi, a thirty-three-year-old paramedic from Brewerton, New York, sang “Do You Hear What I Hear?” with Miss Boyle on the album and at the 2010 outdoor Today show appearance in New York City.

In the 2013 and 2014 concert tours in Scotland and the United Kingdom, Miss Boyle and her team selected local choirs to serve as back-up choruses in every city, receiving standard financial compensation. Already individual choir members in the United States are tweeting: “Aaliyah Buchanan ‏@Itsuko_Sora I’m to pumped, i get to sing for Susan Boyle!!!!” and “Drew Mikuska ‏@DrewMikuska Hahahahaha I’m singing backup for Susan Boyle.”

Already in the twenty cities spanning the southern United States, supporter-fans from as far away as Australia and Scotland are buying tickets. They are organizing pre-concert dinner-camaraderie gatherings for supporter-fans, some of whom they have never met in person but know through their written posts on fansites. Restaurants, hotels, theaters, airlines, public transportation providers, cab drivers, and many small businesses will benefit. Susan Boyle, her team, and numerous music-related vendors will profit.

Yet in Susan Boyle’s “gift economy,” which she neither forecasted nor manipulated, money can facilitate but cannot possibly buy the greatest benefits to the community in which she finds herself to be the generator and principal member. In this higher economy, she is both blessed herself and a blessing to countless others.

As recently reported on her official website, Susan says about her upcoming United States concert tour: “This is a brilliant moment for me. The past five years have been incredible, and it just keeps getting better. I have spoken so often about wanting to tour America and be able to visit different cities for the first time—I’m so excited. This really will be fantastic, and I can’t wait for October. The US embraced and supported me from the beginning, and it really feels like a second home. So I can’t wait to get on the road and perform there.”

Source:Small Business Exchange Northeast