| 30th March -
The band will be competing in the National Brass Band Championship Qualifiers at the Dolphin Centre, Darlington. The band has provided a new trophy, to be awarded annually, to the best soprano cornet player in second section. This trophy – ‘The Mark Nightingale Trophy’ has been inaugurated in memory of Mark who died last year. We are delighted to announce that Mark’s brother, John, will be presenting the trophy at the contest. |
| January 2008, New Instruments - After a very successful year, we were able to purchase 2 new Bb Tubas. The band would like to thank you all for your ongoing support! |
| Sunday 28th October, New webmaster - A capable, willing person has been found to take over Mark's role as webmaster. His name is Dave McNiff and can be emailed here. |
| Saturday 17th March,NEBBA Contest 2nd Section - The Band yet again travelled down to the dolphin centre in a cavalcade including a campavane, to give an outstanding performance of Helen Perkin’s “Carnival” under the direction of a Burl-Ives-esque George Nicklin. Expectations were high and the weeks busy practicing schedule paid off, with us winning a well deserved second place and also trophies for Best Euphonium and Best Basses. This means that a trip to Harrogate for the National Finals is now on the cards in September. |
| The Juniors/Learners practice scheme started on Wednesday Jan the 17th - see the Learners Juniors page for details. |
| Christmas 2006 - the band has worked extremely hard over the christmas period, with some members attending 9 jobs in 10 days! |
| Wednesday 13th December 2006, Christmas Concert at Cockerton Club, the band played to a very full concert room a selection of usual concert pieces with a sprinkling of christmas music. A selection of relatively new pieces were introduced, including Caravan, a big-band style number, Brian Wilderoda gave a magnificent Solo Euphonium performance of Bizets The Flower Song which was deservedly very well appreciated. And, a first for the band, and possibly any band in the county, Yvonne and Steve, our highly talented percussionists debuted a Xylophone duet. |
| Over the last several months the band has recieved an influx of young players the youngest being Andrew who is 9. There are already a few young players in the band and also some older learners, hehe, so a new Learners / Juniors page has been set up. If you are thinking about learning or are interested in having a go then check out this page. |
| Sunday 10th September 2006, Hardraw Scar Contest - The band travelled up to Hardraw Scar full of hope and expectation, with Tony Taylor taking us after only 3 rehearsals. Our program was “Fanfare and Flourishes”, “Crimond”, “Blaydon Races”, “When The Stars Began To Fall”, “Valero” and “Castell Coch”. The band played really well in the warm sunshine, and put in a good performance that we were very happy with. Unfortunately Roy Roe didnt think that we were good enough to be awarded a prize, not even a prize for the “only band that didn’t get a prize”, hehe. But it didnt spoil our day and the copious amounts of drink and bad singing on the coach on the way home left us in good spirits. |
| Sunday 20th August 2006, Concert at the DLI museum - The band turned up at the museum with an eye on the weather, rain was forecast and the clouds were beginning to gather. Luckily the first half was over before a small shower started. But the second half was cut-short by a sudden downpour just before the third piece, never mind,I am sure that the audience had enjoyed the concert before then. |
| Saturday 18th March 2006, NEBBA Contest 2nd Section - The Band yet again travelled all the way to the dolphin centre after a big push with Howard Snell’s “Images of the Millennium”. |
| December 2005 - This saw the band performing at many Xmas related concerts, events and carolling, a very busy time as usual, trying to raise funds to buy some much needed new instruments, and to pay for our new uniforms. Still, we can look forward to doing it all again next year. |
| Sunday 27th Nov 2005 - DCBBA Contest Section B - We trudged along to Spennymoor, to lay to rest Eric Ball’s “Main Street”. |
| Sunday 13th Nov 2005 - Another chance for the band to show off their marching skills, heading the parade of remembrance, from the Holy Trinity church on Woodlands Road down to the cenotaph., with Steve Goodwin doing the band proud with his last post. |
| Sunday 6th Nov 2005 - A very early Santa and Rudolf and co. were paraded round Darlington centre much to the pleasure of the crowd, and when it did start to “rain dear” the puns came thck and fast. |
| Sunday 11th Sep 2005 - Everyone piled on the bus full of cheer, anticipating a good day out in the sun, fingers crossed. The band played well coming second overall and with Brian Wilderoda winning the Best Soloist prize for playing the Blaydon Races on euphonium. On returning to the club, via a corner shop in Catterick to re-stock on the essentials (mainly lager) the band headed to the Shapla for a curry - it was feared that a well-oiled sop player may not actually make it onto the plane the following day for the bands “lads holiday” to Corfu, but miraculously he was as sober as a judge at the airport. P.S. - the holiday was a great success - staying in Kavos, the busiest and liveliest resort on the island, with 2 of the party being the last “men” standing on the streets at about 5am!! |
| Saturday 16th July 2005 - The band had a busy day with the Abbeyfields Garden Party on the afternoon - followed by a “Surprise” birthday concert for Betty Cox, Linda Steel’s mother - which went down very well - after which the bands drinking animals made it to Atlantic til’ the early hours - well deservedly. Many thanks to Ian Langthorne from Peterlee, and Andy Rolfe for helping out on principal cornet. P.S. - the bands mascot “Rosie” was won in the “guess the name of the monkey competition” at the garden party. |
| Wednesday 25th May 2005, Cockerton Methodists Church Concert - The concert went down well, without any fatalities due to people falling off the stage. |
| Sunday 15th May 2005, Whitehaven Contest - A selection of the finest players from the band were hand picked to help Peterlee band at the Whitehaven Contest playing “??”, which with our help they won, result! |
| Sunday 5th February 2005, NEBBA Contest 2nd Section - The Band travelled all the way to the Dolphin centre after months of hard work practising “Variations For Brass Band”. We were all sick of the sight of it and would be glad to get it out of the way. We were drawn to play 6th and waited until about 3 o’clock before playing. We played the piece well and awaited the results - which were far from pleasing , we came a very poor 5th out of 7. We were shocked and very disappointed, so went swiftly to the bar to drown our sorrows and then went on to the Indian. Never mind there’s always next year!! |
| Christmas 2004 - The band had a very busy November and December, with the players going all out doing carolling and a long list of Christmas concerts in and around the Darlington area to raise funds for the band. An hour long concert held on Christmas Eve at 22’s raised about £250, which the band donated to the Tsunami appeal. |
| Sunday 12th of September 2004, Hardraw Scar Contest - The Band travelled up to Hardraw Scar to take part in the contest for the second year running. The program we had chosen was ‘Les Miserables’, ‘Getting Sentimental’, ‘Eventide’, ‘Victors Return’ and ‘Night Beat’. We played third, and gave a good performance, with Dickies trombone solo going down very well, he played it beautifully, and the cornets standing-up obviously adding to the professionalism of the performance. The contest was held in the marquee, as the weather was wet n windy, which did spoil the day a little, so alot of us had to stay in the pub on the afternoon, to avoid the cold of course. We only came away with one trophy, which was for ‘Best 2nd Section Band’, and I think we were all a little disappointed, but we only really had two practices on the chosen programme, so we didn’t do bad considering. |
