Army Cut Backs & The T.A Bands

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nicholasbarrett

Member
As you may have scene in the recent news, th Territorial Army has had to cut back heavily on training. This has therefore affected the T.A Bands.

I know the Yorkshire Regiment Band post on here at times, but does anyone know what indivdual bands are having to cut back on?
 
Vegasbound

Vegasbound

Active Member
Everything.......rehersals , engagements etc also MoD have stopped TA contracts enabling people to serve with regular bands for extended periods and also rejoins!
 
VenusTromster

VenusTromster

Member
Every band is in a different position and it is based around what the CO's decide. For example some bands are not allowed to meet or do any jobs for the next 6 months and some are allowed to continue to rehearse if they wish (but again some may rehearse every week, twice a month, once a month etc).
Some may be allowed to continue with all their engagements but then some may only be allowed to continue with army jobs and not public jobs (due to insurance issues).

All of these events will no longer be paid but some CO's will still fund basic travel expenses.

However it was announced by the government today that we will be allowed to have a drill night (rehearsal) once a month so we will have to see if this is passed on to us or not.

The difference being with the musicians is that we carry out our 'job' regulary so stopping our training nights (which are our rehearsals) isn't excatly what we need.

It will be a testing time for all bands and the TA in general!
 
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Bones

Bones

Member
VenusTromster said:
Every band is in a different position and it is based around what the CO's decide. For example some bands are not allowed to meet or do any jobs for the next 6 months and some are allowed to continue to rehearse if they wish (but again some may rehearse every week, twice a month, once a month etc).
Some may be allowed to continue with all their engagements but then some may only be allowed to continue with army jobs and not public jobs (due to insurance issues).

All of these events will no longer be paid but some CO's will still fund basic travel expenses.

However it was announced by the government today that we will be allowed to have a drill night (rehearsal) once a month so we will have to see if this is passed on to us or not.

The difference being with the musicians is that we carry out our 'job' regulary so stopping our training nights (which are our rehearsals) isn't excatly what we need.

It will be a testing time for all bands and the TA in general!
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Personally I think this is absolute madness. There has been a number of new bands created in the TA ranks, all with considerable start up costs and ongoing costs as well. To then pull the plug on the training days strikes me as the oddest decision in the world. Bands need to regularly rehearse pure and simple. Should the rehearsals be diminished then players will drift and all the impetus and expense in training these musicians will be lost, and for what.

not good
 
Thirteen Ball

Thirteen Ball

Active Member
Particularly since this government has also presided over cuts which have disbanded a large number of the regimental bands in the regular army as well.

The TA have been taking up a lot of the slack for those bands for the past four or five years. I wonder what happens now?
 
VenusTromster

VenusTromster

Member
Thirteen Ball said:
Particularly since this government has also presided over cuts which have disbanded a large number of the regimental bands in the regular army as well.

The TA have been taking up a lot of the slack for those bands for the past four or five years. I wonder what happens now?
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Not much,

they forget that the musicians ae part of the TA and we are regularly out doing our job. The Army's thoughts are that if they can't have their bands do it, they'll pay outside bands to come and do the work for them, which kind of defeats the object of cut backs?
 
VenusTromster

VenusTromster

Member
Bungle said:
Can't you have a rehearsal and not get paid for it, or are you all mercenaries. ;)
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We have been rehearsing. We were allowed to do that, just didn't get paid, and for the interest of our band we wanted to carry on and our CO (Commanding Officer) allowed this. Some bands weren't even allowed to continue rehearsing. As TA bands are operated outside the regular bands (Corps of Amry Music) and cared for by individual units (Yorkshire Regiment, Lancashire Artillery, Fusiliers etc) what happens to them is decided by their own CO's. The problem is that we can't do jobs as we wouldn't be covered by insurance. Things do run differently from a brass band, we are employed by the army and what they say, goes!
 
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