Royston Town Band

News

September 2009	Fantastic news! The band has been granted £4,493 by Hertfordshire Community Foundation through Grassroots Grants, to run 'Give Brass a Go!' Give Brass a Go! is fun, it's open to everyone and it's about to kick off - the three workshop course will be run by a pro band trainer who will use all his skills and experience to help you find musical skills you might never know you had! The workshops are free to all participants and will take place in October 09, November 09 and February 2010
September 2009	The band were very pleased to take part in another successful Royston Arts Festival in September. The Grand Festival Concert was a fantastic mix of music from Royston Youth Choir and very talented Meridian musicians as well as a selection of pieces from the band. The concert in Priory Park on the Sunday was a more relaxed affair but no less fun! Thanks to all those who organised the festival and supported it by taking part. For more information on the festival click here
March 2009	We were very pleased to receive a Community Service Award at the Royston Town Council’s Annual Meeting on 26th March 2009. The Town Mayor, Councillor Paul Grimes, presented the award in recognition of the fundraising efforts by the band for local charities over many years, and the time and pleasure given to patients in Royston Hospital and local nursing homes on Christmas Day. The band was also presented with one of the Town Council’s Community Chest awards for £150, which will be put towards the cost of the trip to the Whit Friday marches in Saddleworth at the beginning of June. Paul Skerry
January 2009	Your Christmas donations matter! On the 29th January, Royston Town Band presented a cheque for £750 to Home-Start Royston and South Cambridgeshire. The money had been collected during December 2008, when the band had its usual busy programme of engagements in the run up to Christmas. Our main Christmas concert in the Town Hall on the 21st December was particularly well received with the band playing to a full house. With the money made on the night and that collected during our carol playing in the town centre and at Royston Tesco, we were very pleased to make such a generous donation to our chosen Christmas charity. Administrator Tracy Aggett said “Home-Start would like to thank the Royston Town Band for their magnificent fundraising - it means so much to us to know that local organizations are supporting us to carry out the work we do within our local community. The money raised by the Band will be used this year to fund the events to be held for our families over the Christmas period which will include the trip to the pantomime at Stevenage and their Christmas party.” The committee would like to thank band members for all their hard work during December and all the friends and guest players that helped us out. Paul Skerry 01/02/2009
January 2009	Butlins Mineworkers Open Brass Band Festival 2009 Back to bracing Skeggie! Another good weekend this year at the seaside - there was a mass trombone rendition of '76 trombones', dodgems in the rain, a great big band and of course some great playing and a bit of beer. Congratulations to our friends in Redbridge, ELB and Fulham Brass on their fantastic results! That'll be us next time :-)
September 2008	The band was happy to take part in Royston Arts Festival again this year, a weekend extravaganza of events from stonemason demonstrations, to dance shows, to art exhibitions to your very own Royston Town Band performing in the Priory Church Grand Festival Concert featuring solos from Alison Balsom. For more details on the Arts Festival 2008 click here
September 2008	The band are still glowing from bringing home 3rd prize from the 2008 Wychavon Festival of Brass! It was a long day setting out from Royston mid morning after a short rehearsal in the band room and arriving back late evening for a celebratory curry in true band style. The band played a varied programme and its performance of 'Putting on the Ritz' even got a special mention from the adjudicator for being being relaxed and in the style he would look for in an arrangement of a big band classic. A lot of preparation went into getting to the contest so a big thank you to everyone who helped out. A special thanks to Steve at his first contest with the band - for the extra rehearsals, detailed pre contest instructions ;) and even arranging one of our contest pieces!
September 2008	Royston Town Band hosted the fourth annual Picnic In The Park on the 7th September in the Priory Memorial Gardens, Royston. Despite the constant threat of rain during the morning, we persisted with holding the event outside and this turned out to be the right decision. Apart from one small shower early on, we had sunshine for most of the afternoon and the biggest audience turnout we’ve ever had at the event. Royston Town Band got proceedings under way at 2.00pm and this year we were joined by Ware Brass, Fulham Brass Band and CSD Brass. Each band played a programme of 30 minutes, so there was a great variety of music on offer to keep the audience entertained. At around 5.00pm we all joined together for a massed band finale with each Musical Director conducting one piece of music of their choice. This year we were fortunate to get sponsorship for the event from Jamie Porter Ltd which meant that we were able to provide food and drink for all the band members. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank Ware, Fulham and CSD along with Jamie for helping us make the afternoon such a success and we are looking forward to holding the event again next year. Paul Skerry 15/09/2008
June 2008	Royston Town Band undertook a very enjoyable trip to Grossalmerode with a group of about 15 flying out over the weekend of the 6th-9th of June to take part in a new weekend-long festival featuring much music, comedy and celebrations. Arriving on the Friday, we met up with our host families before taking part in a joint concert with the Muzikzug. On the Saturday we had a guided tour round one of the local factories, which was followed by a concert of our own on one of the several music stages set up around the town square. Later on in the evening the whole band and their German hosts decamped to one of several bbq sites positioned up in the hills around Grossalmerode where an entertaining evening was laid on by our German friends consisting of many bratwurst and much questionable singing as a karaoke session got underway. The Sunday was spent with our individual hosts after another brief joint concert in the morning. In the evening a lot of the band spent the time in various pubs watching the start of the Germans Euro2008 tournament on big screens and became honorary German supporters for the evening. With the Germans winning the game there was great celebration in Grossalmerode with fireworks being let off and cars honking their horns well in to the early hours. Everyone felt that Monday had come around far too soon and begrudgingly we all got up early to catch our coach to the airport for our flight home. We can’t wait to go back!
April 2008	We are very pleased to announce that Steve Earley has been appointed our new Musical Director!
March 2008	2008 London & Southern Counties Regional Championship Venue - Stevenage Gordon Craig Theatre This year's area contest was the band's last with Simon Jones as our MD. Many thanks go to Simon who has put a lot of work into the band since he started conducting us in December 2005. Maybe the area result isn't the one to remember - but our result of 4th at Leicester reflects the time and effort both Simon and the band have put in. What will we do without the chopstick and your 'ickle stories about squirrels Simon? :-)
January 2008	Butlins Mineworkers Open National Brass Band Festival 2008 - The band made their annual pilgrimage to Skegness to take part in the 2008 contest in January. Although we didn't get the result we hoped for, most of the band stayed for the weekend and a great time was had by all. With stacks to do from the fairground, to crazy golf, bowling to the musical entertainment, meeting up with friends and of course the bar, it was one to remember.
January 2008	The Royston Town Band has been awarded £500 from the Saffron Building Society's donation programme - Band Treasurer Brian Edwards said: "The money donated by the society will make a real difference." The cash will be used to pay towards the costs of re-surfacing the floor of the bandroom, Society chief executive Andy Golding described the 150 year-old town band as very much part of the community and said that they were delighted to be able to donate money to such a worthy cause. The society's donation programme is designed to support worthy causes in the area in a bid to empower groups to help in their community.
Christmas 2007	December was a very busy time for the band with several Christmas engagements. The month started with a concert for the Royston Christmas Carnival, and this was followed by two enjoyable concerts at the Royston Golf Club and the Royston branch of the British Legion. In addition to the concerts the band also played carols in the town centre and at Royston Tesco. On Friday 21 December several members of the band went around the local pubs in Royston playing carols. We received a good reception in all the venues with free drinks and generous donations from the public. On the 23 December the band had its main Christmas concert in the Town Hall where we played to a full house and the band raised a lot of money for our chosen Christmas charity. Every year the band chooses a local charity to support in the run up to Christmas and for 2007 we decided to collect for the Garden House Hospice in Letchworth. With the money from the Christmas concert and the donations from our carol playing, Royston Town Band raised £1000. The committee would like to thank band members for all their hard work during December and all the friends and guest players that helped us out. Paul Skerry 7/1/2008
November 2007	Leicestershire Brass Band Association Open Contest, Sunday 18th November 2007 Venue - Guthlaxton College, Wigston, Leicestershire At 8.00am on the 18th November the band set off for Wigston to take part in the Leicestershire Brass Band Association contest for the first time. Everyone arrived safely, although we were all a bit wet as it started raining on the journey and stayed that way for the rest of the day. It took us a while to all meet up as the venue is a large six form college based on a rabbit warren, then there was a bit of a delay before we could get into our allotted changing room. Thankfully we had plenty of time as the fourth section was pre-drawn and we were band number 5. This gave people time to get that all important bacon butty, to look around the trade stands, and for Graham to tell anyone who would listen that he sells a lot of the things at half the price they were charging! We were not allowed to play our instruments in the changing room so we had to go over to the showers for a warm-up, which everyone enjoyed. Simon then pointed out that it was important to keep breathing once on the stage. This is an excellent piece of advice for any nervous musician (or anyone that wants to continue living for that matter). This was followed by registration during which time there were a worrying few minutes while Simon tried to locate our drummer who had disappeared. We all then squeezed onto the rather small contest stage to give our performance of Celtic Suite by Philip Sparke. This is regarded as a third section test piece so had been a good challenge for the band. We had spent the last two months looking at the music and a lot of hard work had been done by everyone in the band at home and at rehearsals. Although there were a few nerves, the whole band played well and there were some good contributions from our soloists. The audience seemed to appreciate our performance of this demanding test piece and everyone was positive as we came off stage. We had to wait some time before the results were announced as there were another 9 bands to play, so some of us found a pub where we sampled the local ale. When the results came in, we were very happy to be placed 4th out of 14 bands with 175 points. There were some encouraging and constructive comments from the adjudicator and, although we were just outside the prizes, this was a good result for the band and our best result for some years. We are now looking to build on this result as we work on Lydian Pictures by Simon Dobson for the Butlins contest in Skegness in January 2008. A big thank you to Simon for all his hard work in conducting the band, to Lisa for her excellent organization and keeping us all in order, and to Alan and Eddie for helping us out on soprano and kit respectively. Paul Skerry 19/11/2007
September 2007	Thanks to everyone who helped to organise the 3rd Royston Picnic in the Park this year. Royston Town Band, CSD (Cambridge) Band, Ware Brass and Cottenham Band all performed a short programme followed by a massed band session. The weather held out for us and the audience seemed to very much enjoy their day out in the park.
January 2007	Once again an enjoyable weekend was spent at Butlins in Skegness. Entertainment this year included the international trombone quartet ‘Bones Apart’ of which Becky Smith is a member, Becky learnt to play in the Royston Town Band and still joins us on occasions throughout the year.
January 2007	A cheque for £500 was presented to MAGPAS, this money was raised over the Christmas period but playing concerts and carolling.
June 2006	Welcome to new member Melanie. Katie also moved up to the main band on Trombone this month, she has been with the junior band since February.
19th March 2006	We were delighted to be able to compete in the Area Contest at Stevenage this year. The band achieved 9th place out of 25 competing bands.
21st January 2006	The band enjoyed a weekend at Butlins in Skegness for the National Mineworkers Contest. Butlins had put on a great programme of events for the weekend including the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Royston Band achieved 6th Place in the competition.
April 2006	This month we said a sad goodbye to The Clarke Family who have moved to Spain. Matthew was a baritone player with the band and his Mum, Chris was learning to play Horn in our Adult Learners Band. The band played at their leaving party, wishing them well with a rendition of Y Viva Espana.
February 2006	A cheque for £900 was presented to the Ichthyosis Support Group, the money was raised by the band over the Christmas period. Every year we choose a different local charity to support at Christmas. We chose this charity as there are two young girls who live in Royston who suffer from this rare skin condition. The money will be going towards research into the condition.
December 2005	We are delighted to announce that Simon Jones has accepted the position of Musical Director of the band.
Christmas 2005	Once again we had a successful and enjoyable festive season. The band were busy entertaining the residents of Royston playing carols in the town, outside Tesco and also on a pub crawl. A traditional carol concert was played in Royston Town Hall, with guest appearance by Father Christmas and also a Church Carol Service in Heydon (a local village). A lively evening was had at Royston Golf Clubs Christmas party. And a favourite of many band members was the Nativity Play at Eversden, complete with a real donkey. On Christmas morning we played carols for Royston Hospital and Richard Cox Nursing Home, joining us were several ex band members who were back in the area for the festive season.
15th October 2005	Music from Films and Shows Reunion Concert was a very successful event. More than 40 players performed in the concert of past and present members of the band. Also, in the audience were several ex-members who played in the band in their youth. During the evening Brian Edwards was presented with a gift and the position of Honorary Life President of the band having completed over 63 years service. The evening concluded with drinks in a local hotel which gave us a chance to catch up with ex-members of the band, some of which we hadn’t seen for many years.
November 2005	Adult Learners Band was launched this month.
4th November 2005	A new member has arrived! Molly was born to Lisa and JJ who both play in the band. Molly’s seat on cornet has already been reserved! We hope that she will be musical as she is the 4th generation of a family of band members.
14th August 2005	This summer's social event was a barbecue, a great afternoon was enjoyed by all. A few enjoyed it a bit too much and one member had a bit of a sore head and didn’t make it to work the next day!! Thanks go to Derek and Judy for hosting the event.
16th June 2005	We once again spent an enjoyable weekend with our friends from the Grossalmerode Musikzug when we visited Royston’s Twin Town in Germany. This weekend was the Heimat Fest which is a big celebration weekend. We took part in the carnival parade marching through the town, played lots of concerts and participated in lots of social activities involving schnapps and beer!