MUNICIPAL BAND

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 101, 30 March 1925, Page 7

MUNICIPAL BAND

MAYOR’S APPEAL TO CITIZENS. HELPFUL CO-OPERATION. During the course of a welcome to the Newcastle Steel Works Band at tho Opera House on Saturday evening, tlie Mayor, Mr F. J. Nathan, took the opportunity to make an appeal to citizens for loyal co-operation in the interests of their own Municipal Band. The Borough Council, he stated, had recently increased the subsidy to the band to £l5O per annum and the combination, which had always laced a big obstacle in its indebtedness, was gradually emerging from its precarious state. However, the people of the town could do considerably more for the band and their loyal co-operation and support were urgently sought. The visiting combination, he added, some nine years ago hud been only a C grade band in Australia, having never won a prize in either an A or B grade contest, yet to-day it stood as one of the premier bands of the world. It had set out with the intention of being the first band from the Dominions to take part in any contest in the Old Country und this object it bad attained, and noiv the members were returning to their own country covered with honours. They hud esablislied a world’s record by winning the 72nd Bellevue Championship Contest, annexing a £2OOO gold shield, silver cup, Hawke’s trophy and £l5O in cash, at Manchester in September of last year, and had at Halifax in June proved the winners of the British Empire Championship, thus securing the Sir 'William Bulmer Challenge Cup and -£l5O. Prior to tho Crystal Palace Championship the band had conducted a tour throughout England, and while other bands were assiduously practising they were giving performances which taxed the physical qualities of the players, yet they had emerged with third honours in the contest. Although not the first band to visit the Old Country, from the Dominions, this honour belonging to a New Zealand combination under Lieut. Heard, it was the first band to take part in an actual contest in Great Britain. The attaining of such honours had been made possible by loyal co-operation of the members of the band and the townspeople of Newcastle, and if the local band was accorded an equal measure of support the future might bring with it an equal measure of success.