As you may be aware Brenda Cox stood down as Chairman at our AGM in January after many years of dedication. We will be forever grateful for what she has done for the band over the years; sadly she has also decided to give up playing her cornet. She spent over 60 years’ playing in the band and will be a very hard act to follow.
I was honoured to be voted in as the new Chairman and wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself.
I was born into a musical family, my father was an Army Musician and there were lots of other family members playing instruments. I was never pushed to start playing but I think it was one of my Dad’s proudest moments when I announced that I thought I would like to learn to play. I started playing the cornet at about the age of 9. Dad was playing in the British Airways Brass Band at the time so I joined the Junior Band and was awarded the Junior Band Best Musician trophy in 1982. I joined the Almac Bisley Brass Band in 1993 and had the pleasure of sitting one chair down from Brenda in the horn section, the musical director at the time was Peter Stickland. In 2013 when my children were in their teens I joined the committee.
In her leaving speech Brenda told the band that Peter Stickland had once playfully described her as “she who must be obeyed”. I’m not sure if the same goes for me, but I commit to doing my best for the band and our fantastic followers.
We have a family feel with our group with three married couples Pat & Dave, Lynne & Eric and Gill & Martin. I also have some family members in the band, Brenda Cox is my Aunt, Helen Maguire is my cousin and Dave Garwood is my father.
During the period that the band has been unable to play together we have been continuing our friendship by having online catch-ups every other Tuesday and more recently Dave has been giving us online tutoring every Thursday evening. Unfortunately we have not been able to play music together as a group but we are practising some tunes by playing along to them in our own homes.
On 2nd December we were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of our longest band member, Len Tamplin. The band were privileged to be able to be part of his funeral by forming a guard of honour in the grounds of Woking Crematorium. We send our love and best wishes to Dorothy, Pauline and the rest of the Tamplin family and hope to be involved in the memorial service that will be held later this year.
I am really looking forward to carrying out my new role. We are all hoping that the band will soon be able to get back to rehearsals and playing at local events. Covid-19 permitting we hope to see you at one of our anticipated 2021 engagements:
11 July – Brass on the Grass – Bisley Village Green
25 July – Bandstand in the Guildford Castle Grounds
25 September – Tribute to Last Night of the Proms – Bisley Village Hall
11 December Christmas Concert – Bisley Village Hall
Watch this space!
Finally I would like to thank each and every band member for supporting each other and joining our regular online calls during this difficult time and look forward to getting back to ‘normal’ as soon as it is possible.
If you have any messages for the committee or wish to book the band for a future event please email enquiries@almacbisleybrassband.org
Stay safe!
Vanessa Phillips