Firstly let me congratulate our committee on being returned to office unanimously last night and to welcome Jenny to committee membership, we are exceptionally fortunate to have a group of dedicated volunteers so focussed on the wellbeing and enhancement of our organisation, I am a very lucky conductor to have such support.

it was a complete surprise to be our bands second recipient of a life membership, this is indeed an honour for which I am a little overwhelmed in gratitude. To me, our band is very much a team effort and to be recognised as part of that team is very special indeed.

Our contest preparation continues and we are getting right to the pointy end of business, when we will record and submit our work for analysis by the adjudicator. No matter what the result, we need to feel a sense of achievement and pride in the tremendous amount of work each member has put in over the last 12 months, points really don’t matter, it’s the improvement and attainment of skills that we as players gain that counts.

the thing to be very aware of is our dynamics, and this attention to detail is vital to the successful performance of any work, if you are playing loud you cannot play louder and the moment you play loud the articulation of notes suffers…. be aware of the players around you and balance to their sound.

the second point is to watch, watch, watch and when that fails……watch….. I noticed last night during overture, Harold gave some very clear indications (particularly in the meno Mosso section) which sailed past some players without being attended to…. no matter what the conductor does, he or she is right….. and we need to pay attention to that detail.

as always, keep up the great work, the sense of team in our band is strong, let’s keep it that way

murray