Band at Bovington

In preparation for this weekends contest in Weston-Super-Mare, Phoenix were invited to rehearse at the Bovington Army camp on Sunday afternoon. Our MD, Dave Hatton, is based at the camp and arranged for the band to come onto the base for an intensive afternoon of rehearsals making use of the facilities they have.

The plan for the day was to allow us to have a full band rehearsal followed by sectional rehearsals then we'd get together at the end for another full band rehearsal putting everything we'd worked on together. The thought of a 6 hour rehearsal was a little daunting for most of us, but with the help a of a few coffee breaks we all managed to make it through to the end.

Our librarian, Dave Coles, was like "a child in a sweetshop" as he was sent off with the cornets to rehearse in their music library. It must have so difficult for him to concentrate on playing when we were surrounded by shelves and shelves of music.

A mention must be made about our 2 newest contesting members, Mark and Julia on 3rd cornet. Weston will be the first contest for both Mark and Julia and both played superbly well and proved how much home practice they must have been putting in over the past few weeks.

We have two more rehearsals this week, then it's the contest on Sunday. Fingers crossed that all of the hard work we have been putting in over the past couple of months will pay off on Sunday.

Released On 16th May 2011