Wallacestone & District Pipe Band

The band members have been happy to welcome some new blood into the band over the winter months and are practicing hard for the forthcoming season.
The dinner dance held in November was a great success and piper Jack Condie was presented with the trophy for the most improved player over the previous season.
Well done Jack, keep up the hard work.

November will be a busy month as the band will be holding its Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 12th November in the practice hall
and hope as near a full turnout of members as possible will attend.
The annual dinner dance will be held on Friday 15th November at the
Hotel Cladhan in Falkirk. There are still a limited number of tickets available
at a cost of £20 a head and a good night out is guaranteed.
Please contact Margaret, Kay (or the Pipe Major through facebook) for tickets.

Drummer Alan Wond will be jetting off to Moscow later
in the month to take part in the annual St Andrew’s Night Ball
organised bt the St Andrew’s Society of Russia.
Good luck to Alan and his liver!

A huge “well done” and vote of thanks are due to piper Colin Gordon who took part in the above event last weekend.
Colin, who is enjoying a second spell with the band, not only completed a half marathon, but raised over £550 in the proccess.

With our last contest for the season seeing the band make a welcome return to the prize list, Neil and Stewart would like to thank everyone for their commitment over the past year.
The band’s first year in grade 3B has been quite a success, qualifing for the final at the World Championships, taking 5th place at Cowal Games, 3rd place at the European Championships and winning the British Championships.
Not too bad considering we had to ask to be upgraded from 4A last year!
More hard work will be the order of the day, with a second MSR to learn and a few tweaks to be made to the medley.
Keep up the hard work.

The band made a welcome return to the prize list at Bridge of Allan Games finishing second to Johnstone. Sadly though, it was the a final performance for piper Stephen McGregor who has moved out to sunny Western Australia.
Stephen has taken his pipes with him and I’m sure will be playing again as soon as he has settled into his new life.
The band would like to wish him all the best for the future.

The band produced a decent medley performance to take 3rd place at the European Championships at Forres on Saturday 29th June.
Both the Pipe Major and Leading Drummer were happy with the run, but both agreed the band didn’t quite manage to produce its best in the contest ring. As a positive sign of the band’s ambition, despite a top 3 finish, it was a fairly subdued bus journey home to Falkirk!

The band will be competing again at Melrose on 20th July, then at the
Scottish Championships at Dumbarton the following weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Cp0Rub3j8

The band competed at the British Championships on Saturday 25th May at Bathgate and  produced a much improved MSR performance in beautiful weather to take 1st place in the grade 3B contest.
Pipe Major Neil Henderson was delighted with the result which sees the newly promoted band start the new season as they finished last season, when they won the grade 4A contest at Cowal Games in Dunoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghml8mjO8eA&feature=share

The band had a successful start to the contest season at Dunbar Games
today with a creditable 3rd place behind two grade 3A bands and a first
place in drumming.

The band was sad to recently hear the news that piper (and big game hunter) Kerr Maitland will not be competing with us this season due to work commitments.
Kerr has played with the band since he first learned to walk and recently revealed that one of his finest moments was leading the band from the competition field at Bearsden Games in 2011 when Drum Major Bud Inglis had forgotten to wear his kit!
Seriously though, we would like to thank Kerr for his effort and commitment over the years and hope he will be back playing with us soon.

Although the band website contains many photographs, the link below will lead to another site which has been put together by leading drummer Stewart Gardiner.
It contains many more photographs of the Wallacestone & District Pipe Band as well as his collection of Edinburgh City Police & Lothian and Borders Police Pipe Band images.
Muirhead & Sons Pipe Band from Grangemouth as well as many other bands of yester year can also be seen.

http://clanweb.org.uk/pipebandarchive.html