News - January 2009
News report posted on 4br & "The Bandsman"
£20,000 boost for the band:
Foresters Brass 2000 is delighted to announce it has reached its
ambitious target of raising £20,000 during 2008 to replace worn out
instruments and equipment.
The Leicester-based band won a £10,000 grant from the National Lottery
and has gone on to match that amount through several fundraising
activities. Perhaps the most significant event saw musical director Pete
Collins and solo horn player Oliver Hatton completing a gruelling 20
mile sponsored run around Rutland Water, accompanied by half the band on
tandems - quite a sight! The band is also extremely grateful to its
sponsors, the Foresters Friendly Society, for additional support and to
its trustees Barrie and Vera Edwards who also made a significant
donation.
Foresters can now boast an entire new set of percussion equipment, two
euphoniums, an Eb bass, a Bb bass, two tenor horns and four cornets. An
order for a baritone and another Eb bass are also about to be placed.
Musical Director Peter Collins told 4 Bars Rest he’s delighted: We
finally got our own permanent band room a year ago, to now fill that
with new instruments and equipment is a fantastic achievement. You don’t
really appreciate the difference new instruments will make until you
have them - the sound, the tuning and of course the morale of the band -
this is an incredibly positive start to 2009.
Even with all those new toys, there is one gap in the band - but
Chairman Dan Baker says that should now be a little easier to fill: Just
as all the new percussion equipment arrived - including three timps, a
glockenspiel, xylophone, tam tam, bass drum and more toys than you can
shake a stick at, our regular percussionist had to step down for
personal reasons. I’m hoping that we’ll have a better chance of luring a
new percussionist - kit or tuned along to the band now that he or she
will have all this fantastic new equipment to get stuck into!