The band is now very close to the Yorkshire Area 'qualifier' for the National Championships. This is to be held on Sunday 8th March at its usual venue of St George's Hall, Bradford. We will be up against the biggest names in banding, Black Dyke, Brighouse & Rastrick and Grimethorpe to name a few! Hopefully the hard work that we have already put in on Gilbert Vinter's popular work 'Salute To Youth' will pay off and we can match or even better the respectable 6th place that we gained at last year's event.

Some new faces will be making their first Marsden appearance at the contest. JJ Lees and Helen Stott, both former members of the now defunct Pennine Brass, have joined the solo cornet ranks with Graeme Taylor moving to strengthen the back row. Another former Pennine player is the experienced bass player Peter Denton, who has filled our empty BBb Bass seat. Peter played in the same Point of Ayr band as Mark Rodgers, enjoying some great successes in the late 1990's. Other interesting links with our assistant principal cornet Mark are that he was JJ's tutor for several years and Helen started out at Delph Youth Band where Mark is now a conductor and teacher. (It's a small world isn't it? But then again Mark does admit that he's been around a bit!!) The fourth new player is Leah Grebenar on second baritone, who is a familiar face at Marsden having helped out in the past, especially on the Riverhead CD recording. Laura Hobbins is coming out of retirement to play flugel at the contest, Johnathan Eastwood has returned to the band on second trombone (so not really a 'new' face) and finally, Nichola Rathburn has joined on first horn. Nichola was a member of the BT Band, which later became Stockport Brass before sadly folding at the start of the year and previously played in the same VBS Poynton Band as our other BBb bass Drew Goodier . We would like to take this opportunity to welcome all the new players and hope they enjoy life at Marsden!

So, the new look band is hard at work at the moment but one person who is doubly busy is our MD Glyn Williams. He will be performing Salute To Youth a week before at Blackpool, as solo euphonium of the famous Fodens Band, who will be looking to add to their impressive record of North West Area wins. We wish them all the best, hoping that they do win, otherwise we will know about it in our final week of preparations!!

Hopefully we will have good news in our next blog and before we know where we are we will be getting ready for the Senior Cup in May when we will be tackling another old masterpiece, Pageantry. There's certainly no rest for the wicked!