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How To Write A Press Release

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Every brass band could have a marketing officer, or, at the very least, someone who is good with words and can turn their hand to preparing a page of text from time to time. In this digital age it is even more important to have someone in your organisation who can craft a quality sentence, with correct and concise grammar, and exemplify your band’s exploits in your chosen media as often as possible. Whether your band sends press releases to the media, sticks them on your website or simply uses them to ensure a consistent message across your social media outlets, a well-written press release is still one of the most useful communication tools. First of all, it’s important to […]

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Funding Advice Seminar Review

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After several months of organisation and liaison, we were pleased to be able to facilitate a funding advice seminar on Wednesday 6th February. Stuart Young introduced the Sheffield Brass Network (SBN) event and thanked Chris Palmer and Sam Craggs of SoundBytes Media for hosting it at The Foundry Studio in Sheffield. Presentations followed by Richard Brown of Arts Council England, Peter Foyle of the South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau (SYFAB), and Rachel Veitch-Straw of Key Fund, with over 30 attendees present from all corners of the Sheffield City Region and beyond, including Lincolnshire, North Nottinghamshire, Doncaster and Chesterfield. Ensembles other than brass bands had been invited to take part in the event and we were pleased to welcome representatives from local choirs and orchestra. […]

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Brass Band Funding Advice Seminar

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The next Sheffield Brass Network event is planned for Wednesday 6th February 2019 and will be held at 19:30 – 21:30 at The Foundry Studio, 3 Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS. Richard Brown from Arts Council England, Peter Foyle from South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau, and Rachel Veitch-Straw from KeyFund have been invited by the Sheffield Brass Network to present funding advice and information of specific relevance to brass bands and music-related ensembles at this event. There will be plenty of time at the event for attendees to quiz the fund representatives with specific band and ensemble-related questions. This ‘free’ seminar will be open to any brass band or music-related ensemble representative(s) within striking distance of Sheffield, however preregistration by […]

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A brass band at Christmastime

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The tradition of singing Local Carols in the villages to the North West of Sheffield goes back to at least the late Eighteenth Century; the Local Carols were generally composed by local musicians, organists or choirmasters and the carols were often given local names. Originally this is thought to have been a reaction against the banning of many carols by both the Church and the State. Some Carols caused controversy and it is known that ‘While Shepherds Watched’ had to be cleaned up by the Victorians for being too crude. There is also strong evidence that ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ was a call to 18th Century Jacobites to rebel [1]. Examples of locally written tunes are, ‘Bright and Joyful’ […]

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Engagement benefits with leisure-time music are multi-layered

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‘Making music is fun, uses different skills to those you need to employ in the rest of your life, is relaxing and stress-busting, and makes you feel better about yourself. In scientific terms, there is now a growing body of’ proven ‘research which shows that this can amount to better physical and mental health: making music really is good for you’ – and therefore ‘saves the NHS and social services money’. ‘Everyone can make music, from a two-year-old to a 90-year-old, whether rich or poor, disabled or not. It can help to bring communities together across generations, social classes, income brackets, disabled’, and able-bodied. ‘An obvious benefit of that is that it reduces loneliness and social exclusion, which are a […]

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Sheffield local carols

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It’ll soon be that time of year again; ‘the December madness’, as some of the brass bands refer to it. If you really want to get into the Christmas spirit though there’s nothing better than to sing along to some carols with a brass band, and throughout December you’ll find all the Sheffield bands out and about all over the place, but if you particularly want to find out where some of the bands are going to play some of the ‘local’ Sheffield carols one of the best places to look is the Village Carols website at http://www.localcarols.org.uk/sings.php where you’ll find a list of many of the venues along with the names of the brass bands who’ll be playing at several […]

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Local bands at Yorkshire Areas

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After day one of the Yorkshire Regionals at Huddersfield this year, Sheffield bands have been doing the city proud. In the fourth section, Loxley finished a creditable third. Sheffield isn’t represented in the Second Section, but Wosboroug Brass is only a bit further up the M1 and under the baton of John Hopkinson, they achieved a good second place. In the first section, Stannington and Unite The Union were both competing in a strong section. It wasn’t to be for last year’s Second Section National Champions Stannington who finished a disappointing eleventh, but it was a different matter for Unite who will be representing Sheffield at Cheltenham later this year with a strong second place. Tomorrow (Sunday) it’s the Third […]

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