On Friday 27th September the band set off on a trip to Kirkaldy to compete in the Fife Charities Band Contest. The band boarded their coach at breakfast time and headed for the Belfast ferry terminal starting the long journey to Kirkaldy. After a trouble free journey and an enjoyable quiz which was held during the journey the band arrived safely at their hotel and got checked in. A short time later the band re-grouped for a pre-arranged bite of tea followed immediately by a full rehearsal. After this an early night was in order in readiness for contest day.

On Saturday, after breakfast and a light rehearsal, the band travelled the short distance to the contest venue, the Adam Smith Theatre. The format for the contest was to play a hymn, a march and an own choice set piece. The band chose to play “In Perfect Peace” as their hymn, “The Cossack” as their march and “Connotations” as their test piece.

The band, despite the long journey and busy schedule, performed well and were proud to have achieved 10th place in both the hymn and march and 12th place overall on the day in a contest of 20 bands.

The band had an enjoyable evening afterwards before the early Sunday morning start as the headed back home.

Our sincere thanks for the stunning work ethic and hard work put in by our conductor, Brian Connolly and to the band members for the attendance and practice to ensure we played as well as we could. Our grateful thanks also go to our guests, Mark Bingham – cornet and Andrew McGuigan – percussion for their invaluable assistance throughout.

The full results of the day were as follows;