DISQUS

Hi Richard,

Happy New Year to you!

Yes we did enjoy it, no hiding behind cushions for us, we're made of hard stuff! Well that and Euan's new Yoda Lightsaber kept us safe!

Hope you all had a great holiday, I hope you had chance to find time to relax a bit, though I expect you were pretty busy what with Christmas and New Year both falling on Sunday.

Cheers, Greg.

Hi Richard,




I hope you won't be too scared by Dr. Who. Euan will have his Granddad to hide behind if things get too scarey!





Certainly looking forward to Christmas, though I'm not so sure about volunteering to cook the Christmas dinner was such a good idea! At least I didn't have to brave the hordes at the supermarkets today.





I hope you and all your family have a fantastic Christmas.





God Bless, Greg.

Hi Greg,




Thanks for dropping by. I hope your project to restore your home speeds along in 2006!





Merry Christmas!

I met Louise at university in Aberystwyth and we both had quite a few friends from Cardiff. I was also the Welsh universities Methodist Society Rep nationally so was often down in Cardiff. It's a great city and it was good to be back. I expect it's even better when there's rugby internationals on!

Hi Steve, thanks for your comment. I'm looking forward to playing some of this new music. I hope I can do it justice!

Heh, band and moaning, who'd have thought it :)




It's not the competing that gets me down is the approach taken by the MD when leading the band, so yes, you've hit the nail on the head. I did speak to the MD whilst I was chairman about the lack of praise and encouragement. It usually had an effect for 1 or 2 rehearsals, then I guess it was a case of old habits die hard.





I completely agree with your last paragraph. If I didn't have the young family and my work and church commitments I would continue to participate in the running of the band. For now though, I have a life outside of band so I'm restricting my band activities to playing and running the website (and moaning on here :) )

I suspect I'm in a minority, but certainly not a minority of 1!




I don't think there has ever been the question of whether or not we contest put before the band as a whole. As Watford have a history of competing I think it may be assumed that we still do, but the decision is made between the committee and MD.





The band is run fairly democratically, though there are more vociferous elements in the committee and the band who try to sway opinion. Whilst I was chairman I made an effort to ensure that decisions were communicated and opinion sought from the band as a whole. Not sure if that is continuing though:(





At the moment the band is in a reasonably good growth spell. Having lost many players about 2 years ago we're now pretty much complete and just last week I was contacted by a trombone player who's moved into the area. The benefits of having a decent website is paying dividends in that respect:)

Hi Craig,




What do I expect from playing in a band? For me it is two fold, first of all I enjoy playing for playings sake. It is so completely different from how I spend the rest of my time I find it a good way to relax and unwind; for me playing is a hobby. Secondly I enjoy the thrill of the performance when playing in a concert environment, whether it's a bandstand setting or a concert hall setting.





One thing I don't enjoy is contesting. I can't see the enjoyment in practicing a test piece for months on end and then, on contest day, hanging around for hours, playing for 10 minutes, then hanging around for hours more to be told how badly you played. Band players will always say that this is how a band can improve, and whilst I agree it may be one way in which a band can improve, it's not the only way. I'd much rather be playing in a couple of big concerts where the pieces in the programme stretch the band so that they need to improve to pull them off. In that setting there's no waiting around to play or to hear results and you're playing to an appreciative audience who want to be there (rather than the opposing bands in a contest) and the band can make money out of it (rather than losing money at a contest).





However, the main gripe in my post is more to do with the MDs methods. Of course I strive to play to the best of my ability and would hope the other band members do too, after all, banding is about playing in a team. But, as a hobbyist I don't go to band to be shouted at or have snide and sarcastic comments directed at me. I would expect criticism that is constructive and respectful when it's due and praise when it's due. We get plenty of criticism a lot of which isn't constructive and there's very little praise.





Hard work and team work are definitely required and there are definitely some who don't put as much effort in as others which can be for a number of reasons. My biggest frustration is with players who either don't listen, or don't remember what's been said from rehearsal to the next.

Hi Kitten. Thanks for popping by.

Thanks Graham; I had spotted the WP table prefix config whilst looking for something else and altered it in case there was some undocumented feature that might pull in the WordPress posts:)




Here's looking forward to life on the bleeding edge and future releases.

Thanks Tammy. Yes, some babies seem to get on with Moses baskets fine and others don't. I suspect that Eva would just sleep anywhere though!