Volunteers to get royal honour for organising marching contests
THE Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service will be awarded to the volunteers who organise and run the Whit Friday brass band march competitions which take place at 11 venues involving more than 300 volunteers in the Saddleworth and Tameside areas
The venues are Denshaw, Delph, Dobcross, Diggle, Uppermill, Greenfield, Friezland, Lydgate, Grotton, Lees & Springhead and Scouthead & Austerlands. The volunteers are based in the Saddleworth and Lees villages.
This award is seen as the equivalent of the MBE and the award was created to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002. Recipients are honoured each year on June 2, the anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation.
A spokesman for the group told 4BR: “We are honoured to have been successfully nominated for this award recognising the year-round work that is undertaken to provide ‘the greatest show on earth’.
“To the visitors who arrive on the evening, it appears to ‘just happen’, however, throughout the area thousands of hours are put into planning and preparation.
“We are indebted to Oldham Council for the infrastructure and advice they provide that only those involved in the running are aware of, the financial support through Saddleworth & Lees District Partnership, not to mention the numerous businesses who sponsor the individual contests.”
(Thanks to 4BR for the information.)
This is a marvellous banding event and it attracts bands from all over the world. It is an exceptional experience for players and one that is never forgotten. This Queen’s Award is certainly deserved and it is nice to see that some aspect of banding activities is being publicly recognised. fourth year students are, on cornets Ffion Morris and Chloe Eagleson, on horn is Jack Lathaby and on euphonium is Josh Dickens. Their performance was recorded, with social distancing, in the college’s Dora Stoutzker Hall and the recording was sent to the adjudicators, Ursula Jones and Christopher Mowat.
Jack Lathaby, speaking to 4BR, said: “This came as a surprise to us all and we’d like to express our gratitude to Ursula and Christopher for awarding first prize. Rehearsing and performing socially distanced was challenging, but this has made it all worthwhile”
This year’s Unibrass Annual Contest will be a very different affair to normal.
The Unibrass championships are organised for university brass bands and have been held at various universities over the years. The last one in 2019 took place at Bangor University, North Wales, and had the Tredegar Band as a guest band. This year it will take place at Sheffield University and will see bands competing both live or virtually and will take place on Saturday, June 26.
It will be the first to be held outdoors at the university’s students union concourse. There are two sections and live and virtual entries will be taking place in both. The contest will be free and not ticketed for audiences and will be live streamed as in previous years.
The chair of the organising committee for 2021, Voirrey Baker, said: “Nothing can quite match the thrill
“After what has probably been the of real-life competition, so we are toughest 30. year for university students, pleased to welcome live perforwe are delighted to finally present the mances from bands both in person 2021 Unibrass Contest at the end of and virtually.” June, giving bands and audiences The Unibrass Contest has certainly alike an exciting event to look forward grown from very small beginnings to after so long without. and there were 21 bands taking part when the event was held in North Wales in 2019.
The universities involved in the two sections at that competition were, in the Unibrass Trophy in result order, Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Huddersfield, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, Warwick, Leeds, Durham, and Bristol.
The Unibrass Shield results were Chichester, York, Cambridge, Keele, Sheffield, Oxford, Lancaster, Cardiff, Southampton, Bangor and Nottingham Trent.