Our trip to the National Finals of Great Britain all started on the Friday morning. We got under way on our long journey 'Up North' at 8am, with only a couple of stops on the way to stretch our legs we finally arrived at our Rehearsal room for a 2 hour blow. The evening was a chance for everyone to have a lovely sociable meal together before settling down for the night for a well earned rest. The Saturday was always going to be a busy one, a rehearsal in the hotel at 10.30am started our day and then those that wanted had the chance to go into Harrogate to do some shopping or pay a visit to the Contest Venue to see the 1st and 2nd Sections, those that chose the contest were very impressed with the Auditorium and also started to get excited for the following day's playing on the very same stage. A quiet evening followed and an early night ready for our Big Day.
Contest day was an early start, we had arranged for the hotel to let us have breakfast extra early so we could eat and then leave just after 7am as the Draw was at 8am. Luckily for us we had a great team to go ahead to do the Draw so the rest of us didnt have to rush and could take our time - Thanks to Sarah and Marian for their extra early departure. We were drawn No 16 out of the 21 Bands playing, we knew were going to play mid-afternoon so decided to turn the bus around and head back to the hotel to chill out and have a relaxing blow. David Hayward, the bands MD for the contest had prepared the band for many weeks ready for the big occasion and had the whole band ready for the task ahead. Later in the day the the band took to the stage and played the Set test piece 'A Royal Mile Suite'. We had been pre-warned that the stage would be a very lonely place to play and how true that was.....only hearing the players sat around you, the counting and watching was to be so important. The very appreciative crowd and of course our fabulous supporters gave the band's performance some very loud cheers and lots of applause.
It would be fair to say that we had played our best performance the day before in rehearsal and on the actual contest day, things didn't quite go to plan. However, as the recording demonstrates there was some excellent playing and with real style in parts. We were very aware from hearing other bands at the finals that the standard was very much higher than we had faced before at our local and regional contests. The adjudicators placed us in 18th position, which we thought was rather harsh (no bias of course). We competed against the Best 21 Bands from Great Britain's fourth section and gained so much experience. Both David Hayward and Robin Wonnacott must take credit for preparing the band to perform on the National Stage and our Thanks goes to them both.
A sad point of the weekend was when Guy Cologne-Brooks walked off the stage, got changed and left straight away to head off to University. The Band will miss him but also wish him well in his sudies.
The next contest for the Band will be in March 2011 when once again we will be trying to qualify for next years Finals.......and we all know there is no reason why we cant be competing back in Harrogate again next October!!!
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