Swintons #BrassBandsAtChristmas

Aim: Swinton Band is aiming to spread Christmas cheer and raise money for essential works and workshops for our beginners and training bands

ABOUT US

Swinton band is a family band, formed in 1936 by a group of ex-bandsmen who lived in the village and wished to resume their musical activities. Since then the band has grown and progressed hugely throughout the last 85 years! We currently have around 30 members in our main band, as well as 20 plus training band members. 

The ages in our band range from 7-80. The band offers free lessons and instrument loan, so our only income is from concerts, Christmas and donations.

 OUR VISION

To be able to continue to offer free tuition and provide instruments to all who wish to join us in learning.  We strongly believe that every child should be given the opportunity to enjoy playing in a band and have pride in their achievements of learning a new skill and the thrill of performing live in front of an audience.

The money raised this year from our Crowdfunding will go towards some work that needs to be carried out to maintain the Bandroom, we’d also like to organise a series of workshops for the band and our training band and to encourage more children and young people into music.

After the success with our crowdfunding last year we have decided to approach our Christmas Carolling season in the same way, so that we can spread Christmas Cheer and joy to the people who need it the most.

We are delighted to have been selected for match funding which means that as long as we get 25 individual donations between the 17th November and the 15th December they will be match funded up to the value of £250 per donation (only the first donation per person will be match funded). Our aim with this funding is to take our training band out to entertain the residents of the local care homes who have missed out so much over lockdown so please be generous, the more donations we receive the more care homes we can cover.

THE TRAINING BAND

Our newest recruit is Maisie, she started just two weeks ago and is very keen has a great sound already with the 3 notes that she has learnt on the cornet so we have high hopes for her.

Amy joined us just before the start of the first lockdown, here she is having a 1 to 1 lesson with Catherine one of our training band volunteers. Amy will hopefully be making her first performance with the training band this Christmas along with quite a few others from our beginner group.

THE MAIN BAND

Once again this year due to the ongoing pandemic and reduction of arts performances we have had limited income from what would normally be one of our busiest periods throughout the summer. Here we are at a performance we were able to do at Burnby Hall in Pocklington

Here is the band performing at another of our performances over the summer

LAST YEARS SPEND

After our successful fundraising last year, we decided we would give the training band their own identity and purchase their own band banners, here is our finished product...

COVID SAFETY FOR OUR BANDROOM

We have also invested in a state of the art ventilation system for our rehearsal room here in Swinton costing £8,000, a lot of money for a small organisation like ours. We feel it is a small price to pay for the safety of our members.  This has enabled us to be able to restart rehearsals in our own band room in a safe environment.

We would like to thank the wider community for their support and contributions and hope to see you over the festive period. 

Postal entries for the draw to be sent to Swinton Prize draw c/o 7 The Chase, Norton, Malton, North Yorkshire, YO17 9AS to arrive by Friday 17th December