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Radio Star AGM With Cakes! community focus shows every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9am until 10am. The shows are an ideal platform for local community groups and charities to promote their events. In the show Phil talked at length about the future programme of events, the charities the band supports, how we are funded and our involvement with young people, developing their musical education through the training band. It is also worth noting that the radio station have recently introduced 'Calon Brass' every second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 7.00pm, presented by Tracy Jones, who can be contacted on Facebook.

Phil Mason, pictured with Dave Williams at the Calon FM studios just after recording the breakfast and community focus show.

Phil Mason, who has over the years become something of an unofficial ambassador for the Band, was recently interviewed once again by Calon FM in order to promote the Band and its news to a wider audience. Calon FM is a community radio station which broadcasts to Wrexham and the surrounding areas from studios in the Centre for the Creative Industries on the Glyndŵr University's campus in Wrexham. Dave Williams is a visually im-paired presenter who has worked at Calon for twelve years, has now interviewed Phil four times over the years, hosts the breakfast and

This year’s Band AGM was held as always, at the Churton Village Hall before the regular Thursday night rehearsal on the 23rd May. The attendance this year may have been boosted slightly by the fact that it was also Anne’s birthday on the day, and tea and cakes were made available for the meeting. This more than made up for the lack of a conventional tea break during the evening, and while it isn’t polite to discuss a lady’s age, the clue may be found in the picture below! The AGM heard reports from the individual officers and re-elected those standing for re-election. Also in addition Jackie Mellor-Jones was voted onto the committee to initially assist Phil Mason arranging bookings until he leaves position.

That’s the best place to find all the latest information on future band jobs.

http://www.farndonband.org.uk

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Shhhh….Librarian at Work We were all very pleased to welcome our librarian, John Reeves back to band at the recent AGM after his recovery from an operation. While we were sure for the most part he followed his doctor’s advice to rest sufficiently to help his recovery, it was also no great surprise that when able, he took advantage of the enforced period of rest to catch up on a bit of library paperwork. He was able to return to band with several bound copies of the updated music library database. Here John explains the important role of the librarian and an up to date database At Farndon we have a wide ranging repertoire of music to choose from. We have music for sad times and times of reflection but also for joyous and celebratory occasions as well as for general entertainment. On Boxing Day 2004, a massive tsunami killed around 230,00 people around the Indian Ocean. A ‘Tsunami Concert’ was quickly organised, involving several bands and choirs in the Chester area, to raise funds for victims and when ‘The World in Union’ followed by ‘Abide with Me’ were played at the end, there was scarcely a dry eye in the house. The same was true when we played in support of the victims of the dreadful Haiti earthquake in 2010. At the other end of the

scale ‘Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral’, in Chester Cathedral, on the occasion of the marriage of our then Musical Director, John Kinley to Jo Dennis who played tenor horn in the Band. We have no less than 69 music solos in the library covering all instruments from soprano cornet to bass and, over the years, we have been treated to many magnificent solos by our talented players. Some of the solos are simple but beautiful. Others require amazing virtuosity. Phil Mason won the ‘Best Soloist’ award at the Beaumaris Contest for his rendition of ‘Grandfather’s Clock’. Mal Hayes played the same piece so fast at one concert that his fingers were just a ‘blur’ during the final variation! In contrast, Sue Frencham’s playing of the hymn ‘Repton’ at the recent concert in Farndon Church really did ‘make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck’. Band members come to rehearsals to play, not waste time looking for lost music. To achieve this, the music library needs to be well organised with the location of all the pieces stored in a computer database and ‘Library Record Sheets’ for each piece to keep track of the individual parts. It is some time since the original database was created but a second edition has now been produced to bring a

total of 1,323 entries in the current database with all the music titles arranged in alphabetical order. There are separate lists for the Junior Band’s 84 pieces, the Ensemble’s 65 pieces, the 70 Christmas pieces and 213 marches, including the march ‘Farndon’ written by our own Chas Rayment. In fact two hundred and thirteen marches are sufficient for the Band to march from Farndon to Wigan without playing the same tune twice!) At Farndon we already have a treasure trove of music to play but it is important that we keep adding new pieces to provide interest and different challenges for the players and, thereby, present fresh and interesting programmes of music for the pleasure of our audiences.

Kinnerley Concert

Festival of Sunshine Farndon & District Brass Band joined forces with three other local bands to take part in the inaugural Wrexham Brass Band Festival, which was held on Saturday 29th June in Queen’s Square and Eagles Meadow in the town centre, on the hottest day of the year! The event was organised by local MP Mr. Ian Lucas. He told our reporter that he had seen in Wrexham and elsewhere that music and the arts can be used to reinvigorate town centres, and he was sure that this event will prove very popular indeed.

I felt quite privileged that the band agreed to travel to my home village of Kinnerley to perform a concert at my local church, St Mary’s, particularly given the distance but they took it on and it was a great concert enjoyed by all. My father is still an active vicar of the parish and being well known myself throughout the community as leading a brass band there was definitely an excitement and trepidation to revealing what we work towards each Thursday evening. It was an honour to lead the band and I took great pleasure and pride in showing off what I believe to be a general rise in the band’s sound and overall standard this year. Since the concert I have been inundated with complimentary and kind comments at church, in the garden and even the local shop thanking the band for their fantastic night of music. The programme was thought to be varied and enjoyable to listen to. I would like to sincerely thank the band for travelling and putting in the hard work to make the night such a success as it was and raise over £500 for the church. I hope, and so do the village, that they will consider entertaining them so well again in the future.

Above, Band musical director Arial West. Right The opening of the event showing the wonderful support the band received, and below St. Marys on one of the hottest evenings of the year

100 Club Junior spotlight

The Farndon junior brass band is having a well deserved summer break after a great year of banding. We finished on a high with a fantastic concert in the band room, with lots of yummy cake provided by the parents. The week before we practiced marching around the field and car park. We started off just marching on the spot, then marching around the car park. At the end we were marching round corners and playing tunes. Next year Whit Friday marches here we come. In May we enjoyed our annual play day at Alyn waters with Buckley juniors. This is a great day of music making, forging friendships and a fantastic concert at the end of the day. We feel that this is wonderful opportunity for young people to come together and make music. We are looking to create a new youth brass band, called Dragons Youth, which will bring together players from North East Wales and Cheshire. Unfortunately there is a decline in funding for music education and consequently fewer young people are learning a musical instrument. The aim is to help keep brass banding flourishing is this area. Thanks so much to Sue and Rhys for all their hard work and enthusiasm in this new venture. Sitting amongst more experienced players is one of the best ways to be inspired and improve. The juniors who also play with the senior band have come on so much, they help the rest progress. I am now able to try more challenging music such as Uptown Funk, which has many complicated rhythms. We played Uptown Funk at the summer concert and it sounded great. We were very lucky that Steve Pugh Jones, the conductor of Buckley Brass and trombone player at Ifton Colliery, attended juniors one evening to give a percussion tutorial. Our drummer loved it and got so much out of the evening. Sometimes I receive a text before juniors from a parent whose child has left their instrument at home, and enquiring if there is one in the band room to borrow. One such evening the baritone player asked this question. Rhys had an inspired idea and instead of letting them borrow a baritone, gave them a tuba to play. The pupil was inspired and thankfully his parents love the sound of a tuba and have a big enough car to drive it around. Another reflection of progress in the junior band is the pupils taking exams. Great success from grade 1 all the way up to grade 5, and congratulations to all those who took exams this year.

Congratulations to the winners in our April monthly draw of the 2018–2019 100 Club season, which took place at the Churton Village Hall on the 25th April. 76 numbers, held by 52 members were entered in this draw and the first prize went to number 73, held by Rhys Lloyd who collected £76.00. Jane Mason took second prize of £38.00 with number 61. In third place long time band supporter Sue Frencham collected £15.20 with number 65. Our May monthly draw took place at the Churton Village Hall on the 6th June. Again, 76 numbers, held by 52 members of the 100 Club were entered in this draw the first Prize went to number 64 held by Sharon Pugh who collected £76.00. Catherine Lindup’s number 4 came out next and won the £38.00 second prize. In third place came Barry Webster who collected the £15.20 third prize with number 27. Our third draw of the quarter was held on the 27th June at the Churton Village Hall rehearsal. This time Katrina Moulton took the first prize of £77.00 with her lucky number 8. Second Prize of £38.50 went to Linda Mellor’s number 88. And finally the third prize of £15.40 went to Rhys Lloyd when his number 74 was drawn. Congratulations to all our winners and thank you for your continued support and lets see if this year we can perhaps reach that magic 100 numbers and boost Band funds and increase the prizes given out!