I can only start this issue of my column by saying to all the band ‘WELL DONE’ for the excellent results we had at Leamington & Leicester and proved that if we all put the effort in we can do well. Both performances were not perfect else we would have been holding two very nice trophy’s and I know that you all know the performance’s were not winning ones but at least it shows we are going in the right direction.

Christmas engagements went well and another well done to all concerned especially those who extended there efforts and did extra fund raising activities, Thank You!

Now 2010 has started well with us attending the ’Butlins’ contest in January even though the outcome on the day was not what we would have liked, this of course was due to many unforeseen problems of which was of no fault of anyone’s other than sheer bad luck! My sincere best wishes go to all who had problems that weekend and can only re-endorse the understanding showed by all members.

‘Saint-Saens Variations’ by Phillip Sparke is an absolute diamond of a piece and I hope you will grasp this quality music with open arms and rehearse it at ‘HOME’ as much as you possibly can to give the music its full potential and pursue that same attitude right through to the performance on the day. Attitude is an amazing contributor to the success of a band and to enable you to give good performance’s which can be achieved if you pull together as a team, good tuning will only be overcome if you have the right attitude and do something about it, there was not much wrong with the tuning the week before the Butlins contest which proves to me and should do to you as players that ’YOU’ are capable of doing it and doing it well, the adjudicator mention mainly only tuning problems so ’Tuning’ is something we all need to concentrate on in this piece and with the right attitude ’WE CAN FIX IT!’ as Bob the builder is known to say.

I as always have every confidence in you as a band so let’s go for it!

It is also wonderful to see many new faces around the band I personally would like welcome them too with open arms and hope that we all continue with much energy and enthusiasm in the coming weeks leading up to the area and then of course to the new engagement season with new music and many hours of happy music making.

Bye for now!