Anno Draconis
Well-Known Member
We do indeed know the names; this is part of the issue here. If UKBBA is to succeed, it can't be simply another means for the so-called great and good who currently have an iron grip on UK banding politics to line their pockets. I know it's cynical, but I've studied banding history and I know how it works, I'm afraid.
I can't imagine Paddy's proposal ever working, if I'm honest, but using the excuse that bands can't collect subs from their own players is a bit of a cop-out. Players are quite capable of putting their hands in their pockets as and when it suits them. It's simply a matter of incentive, and whether players want something badly enough.
The issue is, I suspect, that in too many bands there's a significant minority of players who don't actually want it; don't give a monkey's about banding in general, or even if their own band survives. I gave up playing myself, for nearly 8 years, because I got so hacked off with banding politics and the ways things worked - I'd be willing to bet we all know at least one person who's done the same, is on the verge of doing it, or is only one crappy result away from doing it. These boards are littered people saying that they "don't play anymore" for one disillusioned reason or another. There might be +/-500 contesting bands, but that doesn't mean there are 500x28 banders who care much about the future of banding. So going to every band and saying "cough up £20 a year plus subs to play or you can't enter contests" is likely to induce some players to hang up their instruments for good. I'm not suggesting that's neccesarily a bad thing, believe it or not - I'm coming round to the point of view that it would be better to have fewer, better run, oversubscribed, busy, successful bands than the current situation of too many bands, too few players to go around.
I think that's unfair. Bands have no wish to contribute to a bottomless pit of money that doesn't achieve very much - the BFBB being a prime example. My band has been regularly paying them £100 a year (until now, we've decided not to renew) and I can't really see that we've received any benefit from it. It's gone to pay the salaries of a Development Officer and a Liaison Officer, who (as far as I can tell) have done nothing that has benefitted my band in any way. If we were guaranteed the comprehensive list of functions that Norwegian bands get from their National Association I'm sure we'd be keener to chip in.
It may come as some comfort to know that this is a situation that almost every UK sport has found itself in at some point. Because we in Britain were the inventors and/or pioneers of a great many sports, the "governing bodies" often grew up organically, by accident rather than design, and left a rather disorganised legacy. For instance the MCC controls the laws of cricket (they even own the copyright on them), even though it's technically just a cricket club, not a national association. At one stage there were 3 competing National Associations for Athletics. So banding's not unique in having a disorganised mess at national level - it's a lot easier to set up decent national structures from a clean start, like they had in Norway or Switzerland. However unless something gets done here in the next few years, I firmly believe that brass bands will more or less die out in the UK in my lifetime. Then those of us that love them will look enviously at the continent, US and New Zealand for their thriving band movements.
