This weekend over 46 members from three Bands within the Yorkshire and Humberside District travelled up to Glasgow to perform in the Boys’ Brigades 125 Tattoo. The three Bands involved were the Halifax BB/GB, 5th Hull BB/GA and the 1st Market Weighton BB/GA & 1st Brough BB/GA plus individual players from County & Bradford Battalions.

It’s been a mammoth weekend for all the members - most starting at 6:00 on Friday night with a 5 hour coach journey to Glasgow, a short night’s sleep before a full day of rehearsals to conclude the day with performing in a Massed band with well over 500 musicians at the Boys’ Brigades 125 Anniversary Tattoo at Breahead Arena in Glasgow. It’s also interesting to note that the sister organisation of the BB – the Girls Brigade was founded ten years after Boys’ Brigade and it was great that both organisations were performing side by side.

The Tattoo featured members of the Boys’ Brigade and Girls Brigade not from just the UK but from all over the world – some had travelled all the way from Hong Kong!! The District would like to congratulate the members for their outstanding commitment towards the trip. They were all told the amount of hard work that would be needed before they even set off to Glasgow, rehearsing long hours to get the music to a high standard, but the members all rose to the occasion. They are a real credit not to just their companies but to Brigade nationally for helping the vision turn into a reality.

Over the weekend there were several challenges to over come, some seemed impossible but each individual member rose to the occasion and battled forward in a professional manner to make sure the job was done.
It’s been a great experience for everybody, not just the young people involved, but for the Officers who too have put in lots of hard work to get things organised behind the scenes. With out people who are willing to give up their free time there would be no BB or no GB and that would be a shame. Thankfully there are a great number of people through out not only the country but the world that give their time freely and ask for nothing in return.

More pictures can be seen in the Tattoo Gallery

and on the websites of:

www.halifaxbbgb.co.uk

5th Hull

1st Market Weighton

Rob Batty

Lindsay Stein, Chairman of the Tattoo Working Group would also like to share the following with everyone who took part:

I'd like to thank you all personally for all your efforts over the past few years, and on Saturday. Thank you for your patience and hard work on what was an extremely long day for all involved. I think we can all be proud of what's been achieved - a group of amateurs - all with work and other commitments, working in spare time with a huge cast of mainly young people and children based hundred of miles apart in four different Countries have managed to pull together what was in world terms, a large Tattoo. In doing so, we had limited budget and resources; and dealt with general indifference from those outwith the Brigade, and in particular, Government agencies.

I have had a number of emails, texts, telephone calls (and a couple of conversations with strangers in Braehead Shopping Centre on Sunday) - all of these positive; and would like to share the following two:

From Scott Martin (Braehead Arena Manager):
"Hats off to you guys for staging a fantastic show, I must admit I really did enjoy the parts that I seen, the pipes sounded fantastic in the venue. I did not envy the enormous task you guys had on Saturday."

From Simon Bain (Sound & Light Solutions - the company who did all the sound & lighting):
"It was a great event to be involved in and very well put together both from an entertainment point of view and on an operational level. When do you expect to have the DVD available? Is it to be on sale to participants? If so I would like to purchase a few copies."

I have attached a letter that you may wish to share with all participants.

With kind regards,

Lindsay

The letter can be viewed here.