Brass Bands England Chairman Mike Kilroy has told 4BR that he is determined to ensure that there will be no repeat of the failure to gain enough representative support to hold the organisation’s Annual General Meeting, which had to be postponed due to lack of numbers in Barnsley on the 14th September.

Candid response

In a candid response to questions asked of him both at the time and by 4BR in a subsequent interview, he spoke of his determination that following a series of highly encouraging announcements for BBE in the past year, that the failure to reach quorum to hold the meeting would not occur again.

"It was very disappointing that the response was so poor, but it does show that we cannot take anything for granted and that we have to work even harder as an organisation to attract support for what we want to achieve.

We will take a close look at how we contact bands, representatives and organisations that are stakeholders in BBE, and we will ensure that through better communication we will gain the necessary support for a new meeting to be held successfully."

it does show that we cannot take anything for granted and that we have to work even harder as an organisation to attract support for what we want to achieveMike Kilroy

No resting on laurels

He added: "We cannot rest on the laurels of the excellent progress made in gaining increased funding and the work by our Liaison Officer Rachel Veitch-Straw.

We want to be a proactive, supportive organisation, so we will learn the lesson from this and move on. There is so much potential for what we want to do, that we are determined to succeed for the benefit of banding."