Some of the highlights are varied in their nature. We have the joy and excitement of leading the fireworks parade from the town centre to Cantley Park. The band love this event and this year we added a bubble machine to our armoury which seemed to go down well with both the children and the young at heart. We feel this event brings Saints to the masses and shows how important a town band can be at these types of events.

Following the excitement of fireworks we have a busy weekend of Remembrance events. In the morning the band is split in two as we pay our respects in Wargrave and at St Sebastian’s Church. In the afternoon the band come together again to lead the town representatives to All Saints Church Wokingham for an afternoon service of remembrance. These annual events are a privilege to be a part of. Our early November events show the two sides of our presence in the community of Wokingham, both to entertain and to assist in civic events.

Christmas is always a busy time for any brass band and St Sebs are no exception. There are community events such as the dressing of the Christmas tree, carolling to raise vital funds allowing the band to continue supporting the local community and our Christmas concerts too.
We enjoy them all, but it was once again a highlight to perform The Snowman for a fantastically receptive audience. The afternoon family performance is always special with 100 sets of sleigh bells ably jingled by the young people of Wokingham.

The band has a short break over Christmas and New Year before preparations begin in earnest for the regional rounds of the National Brass Band Championships. For the first time in our history we were competing in the first section this year. The band worked very hard to prepare for this including a workshop with Nicholas Childs from Black Dyke Band. The hard work paid off, and following a fantastic 2nd place at the Oxford and District Brass Band Contest (an excellent opportunity to try the piece out), Saints claimed a very creditable 9th position on our first section debut.

Saints is the band that never sleeps as we now prepare for the St Georges Day, the annual May Fayre, Armed Forces Day and our summer concert.

This summer we are preparing a varied programme of Celtic music and some of Queen’s greatest hits. We hope you can join us at All Saints Church, Wokingham on the 6th of July, and a reminder that members of our Saints Supporters Club get a discount on tickets. You can join for free using this link: https://www.wokinghambrassband.com/supporters

St Sebastian Wokingham Band are made up of some fabulously talented and hard-working musicians and I’d like to thank them all for their continued commitment to the band.
I’d also like to thank all our supporters, everything we do would be pointless without you. We hope to see you at some of our next events and please come and say hello.

John
John Watts BMus LRSM
MD St Sebastian Wokingham Band