News
30/12/07 Seasonal Musings
It's that time of year when it is traditional to look back on the previous year and look forwards to the year ahead. If we look back we can say that both bands had good years. The'wee' band continued to improve and captured a few prizes at the competitions whilst the senior band had its first season in grade two where they established themselves as being worthy of their place in the grade. So what will next year bring? Well there's a lot of hard work going on at practises and also behind the scenes. We have two longer trips this year to compete in the Championships which are to be held in Birmingham and Lisburn. The grade 4 band have an excellent opportunity to do well in their grade as most of last year's prize winners have been upgraded. The grade 2 band is ahead of the game as far as practises go and maybe this year we will be able to hit the ground running as we are better prepared at this stage than I have ever seen before. If we can keep this up, who knows? I hope you are all enjoying the wee break between practises and as I won't be able to attend the traditional new year gathering at Denny Cross, I want to take this opportunity to wish all the members of the band all the best for the new year ahead...........Sandy
07/12/07 Band Dance and Awards
The annual band ceilidh and award ceremony was held on Friday 7th December 2007 at the Masonic Hall in Denny. It was a well-attended, enjoyable evening with music being provided by the Stuart McKeown Ceilidh band with our very own Ian Armstrong on drums. The Piper of the Year was awarded to Graeme McDougall who made the difficult transition from the junior to the senior band during the course of 2007. The Drummer of the Year was awarded jointly to Ross McNeil and to Joe Fleming, both of whom have come on leaps and bounds over the last year and have shown the potential to become good , if not great, players. The Bandsman of the Year was awarded to Sandy Johnston not only for his undoubted abilities as a piper (guess who is writing this) but also for his support behind the scenes, with the publication of the music book and sorting out this website. Mark mentioned him single handedly staffing the stall at the Scottish Championships but there were a number of other persons including Stewart Paterson and Mags McKay who also took a turn. All those who attended had an excellent night and enjoyed a superb buffet. Thanks should go to the organisers Mark Sutherland, Lesley Adam and Karen Brown. And a special thanks to all of those who supplied raffle prizes which provided £180 for the band funds.
17/11/07 Website Stats and future developments
That's us hit well over 1000 visitors to our site since it was set up in September 07. It is an impressive statistic to have that number of visitors in only three months and just gives some idea of the interest in the band. Voting on the logo preference is still ongoing with 14 people expressing a preference for the D&D logo (above) whilst 10 have expressed a preference for the round logo which features on the banner at the top of each web page. It's unlikely that this poll will effect a change in the layout of the website - I am too lazy by far! However the plan is to sort out some T-shirts and other band merchandise such as baseball caps, umbrellas, fleece tops, etc. The results of the poll will have some bearing on the final design of these items. If you have any ideas for items you would like to see, let us know either through the contact form or speak to me at a band practise..........but keep it reasonable, I'm afraid a Denny and Dunipace Pipe Band porche is not an option !
07/11/07 Championship venues for 2008 confirmed by RSPBA
The 2008 championships and locations are as follows:
Scottish Championships - 24th May, Dumbarton
British Championships - 28th June, Birmingham
European Championships - 26th July, Lisburn
World Championships - 16th August, Glasgow
Cowal Championships - 30th August, Dunoon
26/10/07 Race Night tickets
Tickets are now available from Mark (the Pipe Major) for the Race Night to be held in the Masonic Hall, Denny on Friday 16th November. Tickets are £3 each with half of the proceeds going to band funds - come along and support the night!
02/10/2007 Sandy = duhh!
It appears that I have missed out part of my email address when I handed out the cards on Monday night. The full address should read sandy@clan-johnston.org.uk My apologies for the confusion. Also my apologies to those of you who were confused by the extra dot!
20/09/2007 End of Season Personnel Changes
We would like to express our thanks and best wishes for the future to Alistair Hepburn and John Cameron who have both decided to leave the Grade 2 Band. John is planning to have a rest from the pipe band scene and Alistair has left to become leading drummer with Strathclyde Fire and Rescue. In the grade 4 band Ryan Russell has left to join Bo'ness and again we would like to express our thanks and best wishes for the future to Ryan. We also have a number of new players joining the band and to them we would like to say welcome and now lets get down to some hard work in preparation for season 2008!