See footage of NWJPB performing the medley at Portland on MSN. Our Band Director notes that by the last part of the medley, the band was moving along at a pretty brisk pace…but it’s a great learning experience, for sure. He noted that the attack was great, and the crowd loved it. It felt like the biggest crowd we competed in front of all year (at least until the Seahawks game!). Check out this picture. YouTube has the video too.   Â
ÂThe BC Mini series are unique events. Each competition “platform” is in a classroom, and while they allow parents or teachers to go in and watch, for the most part….people didn’t. Congratulations to Morgan S. for his 1st place finish in Grade 4 snare drumming! There were at least 10 competitors in Grade 4. As of this posting, the other results aren’t up on Bcpipers.org yet. I’ll double check my numbers from this post Sunday morning.
Former member Alex M for his 3rd place finish in Grade 3.
“Friend of NWJPB” Danny Hines placed 4th in Grade 3. Part time instructor Holly File competed in her first Grade 2 competition. Way to go everyone!
NWJPB is starting a new initiative to start raising funds for a future Scotland trip. We’re still in the information gathering and very early planning stage, but the Board is shooting for Glasgow, 2008. To get things started, Jennifer Stone (Treasurer) proposed running an online garage sale. Please bring unwanted, saleable items to band practice Thursdays or Sundays and Jennifer has volunteered to take pictures of them, and post them on eBay. The money raised from all sales will go to a Scotland fund.
If you haven’t seen it, click the video link on www.gotoglasgow.com. Getting there will take a lot of fundraising, and a lot of dedication and planning, but if we can make it work, it’s sure be a trip none of us will ever forget.
We’re blessed with a very supportive community, so we’re starting to talk to other orginizations and individuals who have made the trip before, get ideas about when and how to reserve flights, lodging and transportation at the games. We’ll start talking more about the plans as we find out more. The concert should also be primarily focused on fundraising for the Scotland trip. We’ll talk about setting aside a percentage of the income for Scotland. There will be a lot of work to be done, and a lot of questions to answer before finalizing plans, but let’s give it our best NWJPB try! Persevere!
The first in a series of workshops taught by Colin Gemmel from Olympia was a great success Sunday (even though we had some issues with Seahawks traffic!), with 10 attendees. Photos have been posted.
I read a blog post on Pipes|Drums that seems to indicate there are now TWELVE Grade 1 bands in North America. I’m not sure if they’re counting RMM G2’s promotion to Grade 1 this year, but it’s a unique time in the piping world. The article titled Seismic Shift, indicates that there are only 14 Grade 1 bands in the RSPBA. On the other hand, many of the North American Grade 1 bands are Canadian. I actually don’t know if his numbers are correct, and had a difficult time doing research to prove one way or the other (note: the RSPBA website has results searches, but no “band” searches that I could find to show me the list of all grade 1 bands. I started going to all the child organizations under RSPBA and got to the third, Midlands, and they list their bands, but not the grades. At that point, I gave up. I’m pretty sure I’d run into the same problem with North American organizations).
The idea behind the blog is “moving” the pipe band championships to Las Vegas once North America has more bands than Europe. I’ve heard there’s been some discussion about having the championships rotate year to year to different areas. My personal feeling is there should be more coordination between the piping organizations, that there really should be a coordinated effort to get all the pipe bands to the World Championships. We should be using group purchasing power to book flights, signing bands up well in advance, etc. We should be working with sponsors (there’s at least a British Airways pipe band…probably others) to offer discounted flights to groups in pipe bands, and the larger piping organizations should assist with sponsoring bands. Take the top 3 or 4 bands from BCPipers (EUSPBA, MWPBA, etc) in each grade and offer additional incentives or “bursaries” to help them attend.
I personally want to go to Scotland with our band. I’d much rather experience the history and magnificence that is Glasgow for a week than Vegas. Yes, it would be cheaper to fly to Vegas, maybe to stay there too, but Piping Championships should be in Scotland. Shouldn’t they?
Bob Dunsire, founder of www.bobdunsire.com, passed away on November 6th in his home on Camano Island.
The news was posted in his forums this morning, November 7th at 8:00 am, and by time of this writing at 3:45 pm there were already 128 replies on 6 pages of condolences and memories.Â
It’s astounding to consider how much of an impact one person has had on the piping community. His website is widely recognized as the most comprehensive set of resources related to Celtic arts anywhere. Bob donated his photography skills to many bands and individuals, including Northwest Junior Pipe Band, when he took band photos of us at the Pacific Northwest Highalnd Games 2005.  Until recently, he was the webmaster for BCPipers.org, and was known for quickly posting results and information from events, as well as always being willing to help bands advertise their events, getting them added quickly to the calendar on that site.Â
There are many remembrances posted on the form link above, take some time to read through them, he will be sorely missed by hundreds if not thousands of his friends, as well as those who never met him face to face.
His family will continue to maintain his web pages, which have truly brought the piping community together. His forums were started in 2001, and receive more than 1,000,000 visits a month. “Bagpipeweb” was started in August 1998. By April 3, 2001 it had 1,000,000 visits, and as of August, 2006 had reached 9,356,000 visits.
In lieu of flowers please send donations to:
Robert K. Dunsire Memorial Fund for Sarcoma Research
C/O Diana Benson
PO Box 19024
Seattle, WA 98109
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We have had a difficult time finding a good concert venue that was available in May 2007 on a Saturday as we wished to have this year. During Sunday’s Grade 4 practice, Weatherly talked with the theatre manager for Shorecrest High School and we ended up tentatively penciled in for April 14th. This makes the first two weeks of April VERY busy for us, with the first competition of the season happening on the previous Saturday, but this is a great theatre at a very good price, and the only availability we could find that met the criteria established after last year’s concert.
We will likely confirm the date tomorrow (Tuesday). It’s been added to the calendar already.
We’ve created a Google Calendar, this is a really handy online calendar. I posted a page off of this blog: http://insider.nwjpb.org/nwjpb-calendar/. To subscribe (if you have or create a google account) click here.
