Glasgow Branch Report December 2005

The Glasgow branch is pleased to report that we have gained some more new members. They are most welcome and our numbers for those who wish to perform in public has risen accordingly.  We now have a very healthy Bass section and a solid core of descant, treble and tenor players. 

Our AGM went along in fine style as we try to keep it as brief as possible, ten minutes is our best yet. We will be very sorry to see our dedicated Secretary Susan Hill resign after a good many years of uncomplaining service. Thank you Susan for all your hard work, you can now relax and just come to play. We are most grateful to Antje Somerville who has agreed to take over for at least the next year.

We celebrated Christmas with a Public performance at our venue at the Burrell Museum and commanded a good audience-not just friends and family. Our total for the Mcmillan Cancer Care Fund was around £700.00. Thanks to all our sponsors and helpers who shook buckets so successfully. The concert did not start out too well, as we found our practice room had been double booked with a Watercolour painting Class, who looked very surprised when we arrived. We were then shunted to the Staff Room that proved too small for twenty players and ended up in the Lecture theatre. The visitors to the museum were intrigued and amused to see a troupe of people carrying music stands and instruments ranging from Sopraninos to the tail enders lugging Great and Contra Basses through the museum corridors.

We played in the main hall that has very good acoustics for the listeners but is a little vast for the group of players to hear each other-a case for watching our conductor like a hawk.

Our programme included some new pieces, Faure’s “Pavan” and a four movement Concerto by Handel as well as some fun music such as “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic”. Maybe next year we should encourage our audience to join in the “12 Days of Christmas” –with actions of course! That would be fun. It all seemed to go down well and we had a number of people from the audience ask about the range of instruments-all good publicity for the image of the Recorder.  Thanks go to Antje who organised the Charity collection, to Ethel’s young group of players who joined us for the occasion and to our MD Ethel Allan who patiently went over all the really hard bits and wrote some very lovely arrangements for us to play.