| December 7, and 8th: Piobaireachd Club, Mini-Gathering and Professional Piping Knockout (whew) A great weekend for piping events in BC.
(Andrew Lee is playing in the photo to the right) A memorable and enjoyable evening with a total of 15 (!) pipers. Contrary to a rumour (just kidding) all these people really do show up just for Piobaireachd; yes the snacks were excellent, but Piobaireachd is the reason for the evening.. A meeting report, and even a photo album, have already been posted on the BCPipers web site.
In this photo, Rob MacNeil is starting off the meeting. While these seminars were well attended, I believe that if more people understood how valuable the information, and how enjoyable the meeting, that there would be even greater participation. I certainly hope we see more of these enjoyable and informative seminars in the future.
(I am not writing too much here, because a video report will be posted on the BCPipers web site sometime later this week - sights and sounds.. Check back.) After dinner, starting about 7:00PM, was the second half of the first round of the BCPA Professional Piping Kockout - another video report will be posted shortly for this event, so I'll not report much here.. except:
In (the fullness of ?) time I will be posting video reports from the weekend - Please check the WPN or the BCPipers site for these later this week |
The Piobaireachd Club was focusing on young pipers this
month, and Jack Lee even sent out an email to reminded us of how great Lynn Bullis' baking
and snacks would be (we didn't need the reminder).. so our weekend started Friday evening
at the club meeting in Tsawwassen . 
Saturday morning, at 10:00AM, an Instructors Seminar.
This was excellent. The collective experience of the Piping Seminar
leaders (Jack Lee, Iain MacDougall, Jimmy Wilson, and James W. Troy) must be well over 100
years! They shared all sorts of interesting, valuable, and amusing tips,
suggestions, and experiences. The Drummers too had a Seminar - lead by Reid
Maxwell. 
The Mini Gathering started at 2:00PM, and was completely
wrapped up by 5:00PM. I still find this amazing, 162 competitors particiapted this
day, in a series of events that ran smothly and quickly. Lots of events, lots of
work by the judges, stewards and other volunteers.. What a team! And it was a great
afternoon. 
The evening started with the lone entrant in the Trios contest - the White
Spot PB entry. There will be two more Pipe Band trio events for the winter season;
at this time WSPB is well in the lead for t $10,000,000 first place prize (just kidding
about the money), but we hope to see additional trios next month.