Royal British Legion Youth Band Brentwood

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Updated 17th August 2008

The Royal British Legion
Youth Band - Brentwood

The Band Room, The Drive,
Warley, Brentwood,
Essex CM13 3BH
Telephone : 01277 221967
Fax : 01277 221967

News

Sunday 15th of June saw the band participating in the Dedication of a New Standard to celebrate the 85th Anniversary of the RBL Rayleigh Branch.

On what turned out to be a glorious English summer morning the band assembled in Webster's Way car park where they entertained the waiting parade with some incidental music.

At eleven o'clock the parade of amassed Standards, Legion members and members of other Ex-service Associations and Uniformed Cadet groups moved of up the high street led by the band. The parade processed to the Holy Trinity Church where the salute was taken by The Lord Petre, HM Lord Lieutenant of Essex and other dignitaries.

As the Parade entered the church for the ceremony of dedicating the standard, ably assisted by Band Instructor Kelly Griffin who played Last Post and Revellie to high acclaim, the rest the band retired to the RBL Rayleigh club for light refreshments and to prepare for a short concert after the service.

Indeed after the service and a short Charging of the Standard ceremony at the club, the band played a short concert of marches and light concert pieces which was well received by the audience and concluded with a rousing encore of Rule Britannia.

FANFARE TEAM DEBUT

The weekend of 21st and 22nd June saw the eagerley awaited debut of the band's 2008 Fanfare Team. Selected to open the two Beating Retreats taking place on both days, at Warley and Haileybury, the seven members plus our two reserves, had been working hard to reach the high standards set by the band.

The weather on Saturday was typical for a midsummer's day - cloudy and overcast with a chilly wind blowing! Roger Barsotti's Occasional Fanfare No.2 was chosen to open the show and the Team pulled out all the stops and gave a fine performance which was immediately followed by the arena entry of our colleagues from the 17th Tonbridge Scout and Guide Band. Tonight the Team had time after marching off to put their fanfare trumpets away and then take their places back in the band in time for their arena performance. Tomorrow would be a different kettle of fish!

A lunch time departure on Sunday found better weather, although the wind was, if anything, stronger than the day before. Arriving at the fantastic setting of Haileybury College, the band went straight into a two hour rehearsal with The Minden Band of the Queens Division, 17th Tonbridge Scout and Guide Band and the Harpendon Pipe Band. The Fanfare Team managed to snatch a quick rehearsal, concentrating on logistical changes caused by the larger venue and the fact that our band was first on after the opening fanfare. The wind had by now got up with a vengeance, and after some of us had spent the afternoon chasing around after windblown music (some even as far as the cricket field! ), the audience was now arriving and very soon were donning their coats due to the wind.

Right on time, the Team marched into position and I tried to listen for the pre-arranged cue from the announcer. Some hope! A practically non existent PA system combined with a howling wind plus a hasty last minute change of cue, meant it would be touch and go to get the start right.

However, all went well. The Team again pulled out all the stops to give another fine performance and thanks to the much appreciated assistance of our three "blazers" the transfer of the members back into the main band went without a hitch (just).

All in all, it was a great debut by everyone in the team and I personally want to pay tribute to them all for working so hard. I trust these performances were the first of many and we are now looking forward to playing at the "prom" on 13th July.

Brian Ford
Fanfare Team Leader

Nearly Last Night Of The Proms Saturday 13th July

The traditional Last Night Of The Proms concert is full of pomp, circumstance and patriotism. In their first solo summer concert the band paid tribute to this. With an outdoor stage, balloon sculptures of the St Georges Cross, a Pimms tent and banners and flags at the ready the scene was set for a momentous concert.

Opening the performance with Fanfare for a Dignified Occasion was the newly founded band Fanfare Team, under the direction of Brian Ford. With rousing flag-waving tunes, such as The Dam Busters March, Jerusalem and Colonel Bogey, the audience were treated to a show filled with passion.

As well as traditional British marches the band also showed their versatility with selections from Les Miserables, Pirates of the Caribbean and Duke Ellington. The band also showcased a wonderful voice from within our own ranks, Ailis Creavin. In a powerful, first public performance she sang Time To Say Good Bye and Rule Britannia and both were well received.

Of course none of this would have been possible without a lot of hard work from many people. The setting up of the outdoor stage scaffolding, supplied free of charge, by John Marsh of Proplant Scaffolding, Tracey Lozowski organising and selling refreshments, the drum section working hard at selling programmes and CDs, Richard Hyam of REH Electrical Services Ltd for the supply and installation of lighting and a special thanks to all our friends and supporters, too numerous to mention by name, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Instructor Chris Monk

The President of The Tournament of Roses Mr. Corky Conzonire accompanied by his wife Mrs. Marilyn Conzonire arrived in Brentwood on Wednesday 16th July. The main purpose of their visit was to present The Tournament of Roses flag to the band which is the official invitation for the parade.
Their three day visit involved a busy schedule starting with a visit to the band rehearsal where they met band members, parents and staff.
On Thursday they joined the branch veterans at their coffee morning then followed a meeting at the town hall to meet Clr. Dudley Payne Mayor of Brentwood.

Later a tour of the Essex Regimental Chapel given by the regimental secretary Major Tony Jones was of great interest to the President and his wife.
On Friday they enjoyed a tour of the Brentwood villages and gained an insight into the Brentwood community.
Saturday saw the band performing at the Ingatestone and Fryerning Horticulture show and this presented the opportunity for the official Tournament of Roses flag to be presented to the band. Lord Petre kindly agreed to accept the flag on our behalf. Presentations were made and received throughout the stay and it was a pleasure to host such warm and sincere people.
We look forward to meeting them again in Pasadena.

Nice and early on Thursday 17th July the drum section went to the Royal Marine School of Music in Portsmouth and of course, Johnpaul decided we were racing there. He was the one who got stuck in all the traffic while everyone else passed him, so he ended up being last by quite a long way! When we arrived at 8.45 (Johnpaul 10 minutes later) we were met by Cpl Bug and J Christopher RM, who gave us a short tour of the school. Unfortunately we were unable to see all the buildings because there were exams taking place that day but we did see the biggest building there which was an old prison. The prison building was used by the trainees at the school for practicing in. We actually saw them practicing in the cells! At least we could hear them if they made any mistakes.

When we finished the tour we were taken to a classroom where we were joined by Cpl Bug and P Hawkins RM. They took us through rudiments to see how well we could play together and to see if any of us were doing anything wrong. They were really helpful. After half an hour of this we had a short break to rest our arms and drink some tea with some of the other trainees. We then headed back to the classroom to start learning the new tattoo called Drum Coliseum. We managed to learn most of it by lunch time as we made up little sentences to help us remember the difficult parts. We then had an hour to eat lunch and have a look round the shops. We learnt the end of the tattoo which was definitely the hardest part, in about half an hour whilst being filmed so that we can look to see how we can improve! We also had the chance to show just how well our marching skills are, in the parade ground before we departed after a very pleasant and rewarding day in Portsmouth.

Kayley Redrup

Saturday 19th July saw the band warmly welcomed back to the Ingatestone and Fryerning Horticultural Society Summer Show.

The band were introduced to the crowds by the fanfare team and then performed two arena displays consisting of quick and slow marches and a static performance of The Lord of the Dance.
We were privileged to have some very special visitors in the audience as the president of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, Corky Conzonire and his wife, Marilyn were over from America visiting the band.
During an interval in the second performance, we were joined by The Lord Lieutenant of Essex, Lord Petre who received the Tournament of Roses standard from the president on behalf of the band. The presentation was very well executed between all involved and gifts were exchanged between the band and their visitors.

The band will be honoured to carry their new standard during the New Year's Day parade and would like to extend their thanks to Lord Petre for accepting the standard and also thanks to the Horticultural society for allowing us to have the special presentation at their event.

Kelly Griffin

After what would surely be remembered as historic events of the previous day, and a step closer to the USA, the band entered the second phase of the weekend by performing in the 25th Uxbridge Automobile Show, hosted by the Rotary Club of Uxbridge. Typifying the 'anybody's guess' British Summer of 2008, the day was a mixture of sunshine, clouds, light drizzle and cool breeze, and typifying the band of 2008 was excellent drill, sounds, discipline and effort.

The band performed in the arena for two shows, led by Drum Major for the day Richard Snook, who everyone agreed once again did a fantastic job in leading the band. With the only absence of the fanfare team, the first show performed in front of a decent crowd included all the music from the routine of the show the day before, with the static piece 'Lord of the Dance' once again proving the fan favourite, conducted by Musical Director John Seabrook. In between the two shows, the motorcycle and quadbike stunt team put on their traditional performance, and as usual seemed to try and burn all the grass off the field before our second performance! With a few musical changes to the order of play, the second performance (once again graced with a good crowd) was watched and enjoyed by CLLR Brian Crowe, The Mayor of Hillingdon, who received the salute off Richard Snook, as well as an excellent all round performance by the band, who's stamina and confidence seems to be growing stronger after clearly producing yet more results on another challenging but successful weekend, in all departments.

The band must now march on with time as the future that awaits is certainly an exciting one, a glimpse of which was seen by the efforts of everyone concerned this weekend.

Phillip Sergeant

If you are interested in joining the Royal British Legion Youth band Brentwood, we practice on: -

Mondays & Wednesdays 7 � 9pm

Instruments and Instruction provided for �1 a week!!

Please contact John Wyndham on 01277 221967

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