May2000.htm

2000: BTB Year in Review Part III - A New Beginning

May:

The big story in May was our result at the SCABA Spring Contest at Crawley! We somehow managed to gain Second place in our first ever contest in the Second Section since promotion earlier this year. Everybody managed to make it to the new venue in one piece and on time, despite Stuart's attempts at parking and aversion to temporary "concrete block" car park entrances. There was some puzzlement at no less than six out of the ten bands in our section asking for (and getting) an early draw, which meant that the rest of us had to sit around all afternoon and wait. Admittedly the march could have gone better (!), but despite everyone playing well in the Test Piece, it was still an unexpected success. In fact so much so that the cup now resides on display in the Mitchell household, despite the bearded one having said previously that he would only have first-place cups in his house! The results were as follows:

1. Hangleton 185pts
2. Battle Town 184pts
3. St Sebastian Wokingham 183pts
4. Horsham Borough Silver 182pts

Thanks to Ricky and Sandra @ the Senlac for providing the champagne for us to drink from our new silverware in the pub the following week!
The venue for this year's band day was confirmed as Portsmouth. We had been hoping to play at the Millennium Dome in London, but this had to be moved to the end of November. If the Dome is still functioning by then anyway!

The first weekend of May saw the band's first performance in St Mary-in-the-Castle, fast becoming one of the South-East's premiere arts venues. The occasion was a charity concert in aid of the NSPCC and also offered the chance for the band to perform with a choir - not something many of us would have otherwise volunteered to do! Nevertheless the band played very well and the accoustic helped us to produce a big sound which was much appreciated by the audience. We also managed to get a good group out for a curry after the concert, where those of us lucky enough to be in attendance witnessed one of the greatest eating displays seen in these parts since the visit of Glyn Williams. Ruth Cavilla completely finished her curry before some of us had even had more than a mouthful of ours. It's hard to do it full justice in print, but it's nice for the website to be able to congratulate Ruth on something for a change!!

Three band members jetted off to Canada to help out local rivals Sussex Brass on their two week tour of Edmonton and the Rockies. It was a terrible chore, but we're givers...all heart. Anyway, early one Sunday morning while myself, Gudrun and Paul were still sleeping over in Alberta, the poor little luvs that were left behind were sitting in a gale on Alexandra Park bandstand, filling in for the absent Sussex Brass and trying to stop their music blowing away. Obviously not having been there I can't vouch for the accuracy of what follows, but apparently it was "Battle's best concert ever", "the stand-in Sop player was a vast improvement" and "the Baritones were the stars of the show". Hmmmmm...what actually happened was that Will and Chris (successfully) blamed the wind and lack of brakes on the xylophone for any wrong notes in "The Two (G)Imps", at least one piece had to be restarted due to flying music, and Will managed to come to the front of the band to play his solo one piece too early, so had to go back again (for the record, "the Basses told me it was my solo" was the excuse. As if anyone would ask their opinion on matters of any importance!)