You need some information. Your village used to have a Brass Band and you would like to re-establish it. You don’t know where to start.
It’s several years back but I started a group in my local community (which had similarly lost its Band many years ago) and it was successful whilst I was involved with it.
My own start point was pragmatism followed by faith and some personal financial backing (I paid the bills until the group was self supporting and later recovered my expenses). I wanted some people to do something rather than a full Brass Band to appear, decided that I was going to make it happen and then put some money where my mouth was. As a full Brass Band wasn’t going to appear I set about learning about small group playing and what music was available, Matt Kingston publishes just the stuff needed and at a very reasonable price. We / I needed players, fortunately I know a lot of players and I also contacted every Brass group I could think of seeking folk who’d play with us - even if they could only join-in on a restricted basis. Some of the other Bands were concerned about me poaching players but after discussion and explanation their fears were reduce to nothing. The group met monthly and all the players had their own instruments (either from the Bands that they normally played with or purchased from there own funds). A rehearsal space was a problem but a local church helped at a nominal cost. A conductor was a problem and initially we struggle along, the (experienced) players managed to keep time between themselves whilst someone sort of waved a stick - not ideal but we did something rather than nothing. Eventually our conductor became quite good, better than some ‘proper’ Bandmasters.
That group worked well enough and after a few years even did a couple of small events a year. I’m not certain about its current condition but when I was involved membership had got into double figures and we sounded just about OK. We all enjoyed rehearsals ‘cause the music was both new to us and and right for us, ‘cause we met friends from different bands and ‘cause they were monthly (so small commitment and fun). Subs were small and pay as you go (just a token amount to cover rent and music costs) and we ended up with a small and growing surplus in our funds. I kept meetings fun and kept in touch with every player. Folk turned up ‘cause they enjoyed the meetings, ‘cause I kept reminding them when the next one was and ‘caused I kept in contact with those who missed rehearsals - listen to and support your players.
In the longer term that group could have formed itself into a full Band, that would have been via a succession of small changes over say a decade. So, in my experience, the key things are to start small, accept a long timescale and build on the available skills of existing players. Good luck with your venture, I wish you all possible success.
