Butlins Mineworkers Championships Skegness

19th-20th January 2008

Report
.................................................................................................................................................................................................

Saturday

This year the set test piece was Life Divine - an oldie but a goodie. The piece features the trombone section heavily and we were able to sport 4 trombones thanks to the guest inclusion of Chris Thomas from Cory on 3rd trombone. The band were drawn to play 8th out of the 10 competing bands and put on a good show, with particular praise going to the "Mighty Mount Trombones" (as they Christened themselves) who were on sparkling form.

There was also a shock for Ian Thomas who, just before going on stage to perform was approached by Russell Gray who was conducting Desford over the weekend and was asked to play for them. Although Ian thought it was initially Russell playing games, it turned out to be a genuine request and shortly after having played with the band Ian was back on stage playing on the front row for Desford! The band sends its thoughts and best wishes to the player from Desford and her family.

Later that evening Ian cooked his special chilli for the whole band which gave them plenty of energy for the evening rehearsal! Many thanks to all the dishwashers who cleaned all the pots afterwards.
.................................................................................................................................................................................................
Sunday

Unbeknown to the band, it had achieved 4th place in the testpiece contest and so was in good shape going in to the entertainment contest the next day to achieve a good result. The band had an early start and had practice at 9:00am but were lucky to have another good draw on 6th out of the 10 bands. The band was in good spirits after a solid performance the day before and carried that forward putting on a really solid show. Opening up with Be a Clown, the band immediately followed this with Tanga featuring Jon Small on Trumpet.

Jon was on top form and thrilled the audience with his high range trumpet playing before Neil Pascoe and Martin Sanders were featured in Andy Duncan's new arrangement of the Beatle classic She's Leaving Home from the Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album. The band them played the great Jubilee March by Paul Drury before featuring the Cornet section in another of Andy's arrangements - The Water is Wide. This is the first time the band has ever received applause on a 'slow piece' before it had finished and really seemed to catch the audiences ear. To finish, the band played the Finale from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky. The audience reaction to the programme and performance was great and the band was also happy with the performance and was therefore hopeful of a good result.

However, the adjudicators had other ideas and were looking to award 'innovation' and, rightly or wrongly, didn't find our programme innovative enough. In fact, only innovative for last place in the entertainment contest! Add to this the quite frankly wrong decision by the organisers to deduct a point and a half for allegedly running 3 minutes over time, the band was left in 9th place overall.

Irrespective of this, the band was happy to have put on 2 solid performances and, although disappointed with the result, was focussed to work hard for the next contest and try to impress the judge that time.

A poor result never deflates the band for too long and the weekend ended in fine style before the long journey home to Cornwall on the Monday.

Our congratulations go to Desford who won the contest. The band also wants to extend it's thanks to Kelvin & Alan Retallack, Mark Leigh and Chris Thomas for helping out at the contest.
 
.................................................................................................................................................................................................