The future of whit Friday

[Accidental]

and with reference to the OP,

If the contests are closing earlier due to policing and stewarding problems, bring the start time to 2pm and close at 10 pm, therefore bands are not losing out the extra time that was there the last few years. If policing is an issue, then have the police train the stewards and if there is drinking issues like uppermill etc put a designated area for families to actually enjoy the marches without the yobs, or better put a drinking ban on streets and leave them to drink and watch from outside the pubs.

What are your thoughts?

I honestly don't think changing the start and finish times will make any difference, except perhaps making it harder for players and bands from out of the area to get there at the beginning (I know we'd struggle). The problems with drunks & yobs are widely acknowledged to be caused by people coming into villages for the evening, and I suspect most of them don't know the start and finish times anyway so I can't see how it would affect their behaviour.

Your other suggestions are great, but they all seem to involve extra work for the Police either before or on the night and the contests are already suffering the effects of cuts in Police Force budgets and staffing levels..... not sure what the answer is to that one!

[Oodle Bugler]

That's a more practical suggestion for him than joining one of the committees. So, go on then, who should he get in touch with? If I recall correctly (not sure from exactly where though, so I may be wrong), you're from the area, so you're likely to have a better idea than most whose ears are worth putting words into.

You miss my point, you can "join" a committee without having to physically attend meetings. How many brass band committees have a full house at every meeting? In my experience much of the business is done through phone calls and e-mails. It doesn't matter if the people you need to speak to live two miles from the bandroom or live in Outer Mongolia. The fact is, they are involved.

And "So, go on then, who should he get in touch with?" I don't have contact details for all contests but if you PM me I will do my best to find out and get back to you.

[Accidental]

I don't have contact details for all contests but if you PM me I will do my best to find out and get back to you.

or folks could just use these links....
Saddleworth
Tameside

[MoominDave]

I'm sorry Oodle Bugler, I tend to get a little fed up of people responding to debates with "Go and tell that to somebody who can do something" (such sentiments tend to come across as shutting down the debate, whether or not they were intended that way), and I let that show, a little unfairly. There's not much point sending me the contacts - but maybe PMing some to Neil could be a useful thing to do?

[Accidental]

I tend to get a little fed up of people responding to debates with "Go and tell that to somebody who can do something" (such sentiments tend to come across as shutting down the debate, whether or not they were intended that way)

I don't think those comments are ever intended to shut down debates, I usually see them as attempts to point people in the right direction so their strong views and often good ideas about how to change things actually get heard by the right people.
Debate is all well and good, but sadly on here its also often pretty pointless. Surely contacting the relevant organisers/committees is going to be more productive than just posting here?

[MoominDave]

Oh no, I'm sure people don't intend to tell people to shut up. But often it feels just a little like that, and each thread so responded to loses a lot of momentum straight away.

I take issue with "pretty pointless". Certainly, talking here is not about taking your point of view and applying it directly where it will have most effect - but it is an excellent forum for taking slightly unformed ideas and knocking the rough edges off them, preparatory to presenting them to those who can do something. Further, the ideas are then out there, in circulation. Banding's current power players take little interest in what we say here, I am told, but that won't stay that way for ever - as the internet generation matures, those who look on this as a dangerous talking shop will retire and be replaced by those with a more enlightened take on the matter.

[Accidental]

I take issue with "pretty pointless". Certainly, talking here is not about taking your point of view and applying it directly where it will have most effect - but it is an excellent forum for taking slightly unformed ideas and knocking the rough edges off them, preparatory to presenting them to those who can do something.

and that's where I take issue, because as far as I can see hardly any of those ideas actually do get presented to anyone....

for example, I've seen dozens of comments on here about our local association contests - including some very good ideas and suggestions - that I know for a fact have NEVER been put to the contest organisers. How difficult would it have been for some of those people to put those suggestions to their own band committees, contact the association, or (god forbid) actually pitch up to a meeting?

[MoominDave]

But the ideas are now out there, achieving a wider circulation. Better that than thought about briefly then dropped after a brief conversation in the pub that is forgotten by all by the next morning, surely? And if you have seen these ideas and have the ear of the organisers - maybe it would be a sensible thing for you to do to be the one dropping the word in the ear? Or emailing the organisers links to the posts. I tend to assume that this is what people do - if I see something that might benefit somebody I know on here, I'll let them know.

[Oodle Bugler]

I'm sorry Oodle Bugler, I tend to get a little fed up of people responding to debates with "Go and tell that to somebody who can do something" (such sentiments tend to come across as shutting down the debate, whether or not they were intended that way), and I let that show, a little unfairly. There's not much point sending me the contacts - but maybe PMing some to Neil could be a useful thing to do?

Sorry MoominDave but I disagree entirely. There are a lot of good ideas on this forum. To suggest that trying to put them into action is "shutting down the debate" is laughable. You say "there's not much point sending me the contacts" why? Do you want to post on forums like this and leave it at that or do you want to do something about it? In a funny way you sum up the banding movement "I'll tell you what I think about it all but if you send me the contacts to do something about it you needn't bother. I'll moan about everything but I won't do anything".

[MoominDave]

Ooh hello, late reply there. Sounds like you've got me all wrong, and I don't really appreciate the inaccurate things you've just said about me.

1) There's no point sending me the stuff because the ideas were not my ideas! Read back the thread. I have enough on my plate bandingwise without trying to solve the issues of people 200 miles away on behalf of somebody else 400 miles away. Thought that was pretty obvious, I must say. Given that all I've talked about in this thread is the above issue, I don't know where you get the idea that I'm moaning about anything to do with banding at all.

2) As you don't appear to have read this thread with any accuracy, maybe it was a forlorn hope that you would have seen the various other similar postings that people have made in the last year or so suggesting direct action instead of talking about it here. Each time such a post is made, one of the effects of the well-intentioned post is to dissuade people from posting in reply to that thread, to some extent. All I was doing was raising that point, and it appears to have raised some people's hackles (yours here) who have read more into what I have written than I have put there.

Maybe we can put this aside that has become distinctly tedious (and ironically rather helped to kill the thread) to bed now.

[Oodle Bugler]

I'm sorry Moomin Dave but you still sum up brass banding.

Your first post "Look at where he is based....etc." nothing constructive, just having a go.

Your second post "So, go on then....etc." again, nothing constructive, just having a go.

If you have enough on your plate bandingwise (your words) how do you find time to keep posting on a thread you're clearly not that bothered about?

I did something constructive and offered contacts through my PM - the messages received so far....er....none.

I love Whit Friday and I know what the organisers have to go through all year round to make it happen (so yes, I've read this thread, I don't need to read it back, as you put 'with any accuracy'). If you want to change it, get involved, don't just post comments on the thread like yours above then say you're too busy.

By the way "Ooh hello, late reply there" well, you have enough on your plate bandingwise (your words) its the same for all of us....

[MoominDave]

We are now talking completely past each other. Some of that is my fault for jumping in too assertively at the start. Some of it is your fault for not reading what I am writing, assuming that I am writing and meaning things that I am not, and insisting on using me as a poster boy for your negative view of "the brass band movement" without evidence. I think it's probably best to leave it there. Hope to have more profitable conversations with you in the future, this one is a dead loss. Sorry to spoil your thread, Neil.

[Oodle Bugler]

We are now talking completely past each other. Some of that is my fault for jumping in too assertively at the start. Some of it is your fault for not reading what I am writing, assuming that I am writing and meaning things that I am not, and insisting on using me as a poster boy for your negative view of "the brass band movement" without evidence. I think it's probably best to leave it there. Hope to have more profitable conversations with you in the future, this one is a dead loss. Sorry to spoil your thread, Neil.

Back to Neil's original post I offered a solution (or at least a starting point). I wouldn't call that spoiling the thread, I thought I did the opposite but yes, I agree, this one is dead.