Future Brass and 90 Notes for a 90th Birthday

Sunday June 12th 2016

We took several spare instruments, mouthpieces (and anti-bac wipes) to the Cliff Park Church’s Royal Fun Day, which was held outside on the playing field at Cliff Park Junior School in Gorleston. This event is organised by the Church for local residents.

We wanted to get 90 people to have a go at blowing their own fanfare note for the Queen in honour of her 90th birthday so ran a 90 notes stall at the event, This was manned by Penny, Sarah, Tina, Joel, and ably assisted by Anne, Joan and Sean (cleaning mouthpieces, issuing candles and certificates).

Volunteers selected an instrument, were given a suitable, clean mouthpiece, and then after very basic instruction, attempted to produce a note.
People of all ages came and had a go, with many doubting they would ‘have enough puff’, but encouragement and perseverance paid off, usually resulting with a sudden, loud blast which took them, and the rest of the field, by surprise.

Each successful blower was given a certificate (see photo) and invited to place a candle on the Queen’s Birthday Cake (see photo).

We had reached 89 candles by the time the Gorleston Community Choir, the Cliff Park Church Band, GYB Future Brass and Fun Day attendees gathered together to sing Happy Birthday and the National Anthem. Joel Heys invited Tony Mallion, the event organiser, to place the 90th candle in the cake, but of course he had to first produce a note in front of the assembled crowd. Fortunately he succeeded, and so we had completed the challenge, and now had 90 candles on the cake. (See photo).

We intend to write to Buckingham Palace and send photos to the Queen to show her how we marked her 90th birthday.

It was a really busy day for the Future Brass players, as they had played at the Civic Service in the Great Yarmouth Minster in the morning (see photo on Band and Great Yarmouth Minster Facebook pages).

We hope that the 90 notes challenge will result in some new recruits for Future Brass, get us some useful press coverage, and a letter from the Queen!

Please take a look at our Photo’s Page of the day’s events.