Butlins 2012 - just the result we wanted

The weekend of 21st-22nd January represented Chalgrove's first outing as an official Second Section band, and the first time the band has taken part in the Butlins contest. This annual event is quite a spectacular occasion, with 4000 band people descending on Butlins in Skegness (or "Skeg Vegas", as it's often known). It's a whirlwind weekend of relentless banding, both playing and listening. 4BarsRest, in their traditional pre-contest article, described Chalgrove as an "ambitious" band, and we certainly lived up to that, achieving ninth place out of nineteen bands. Competing with some of the best Second Section bands in the UK, this was quite an achievement. To add to this, Chalgrove came second out of the group of six London and Southern Counties bands who were also competing, which bodes very well for the Areas contest in March.

This coming week it will be back to the grind again, with sectional rehearsals of the Areas test piece, Cross Patonce.