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I was missing from our July Meeting for reasons mentioned below, so Colin Ensor took to the helm and did a great job of running the club. According to Colin we started at the usual 8pm with Michael Kristiansen playing Let Have a Ceilidh, then Michael continued with My Mother, The Meeting of the Waters, Thistle Of Scotland, Loch Ruan, Flett from Flotta and Boys of Blue Hill. Up next was Bernard Bamber
who played Galway Bay, Forty Shades Of Green, Singing The Blues, Love Letters in the Sand, My Happiness, Paper Roses, Some Day, He’ll Have To Go, Putting On The Style, Halfway To Paradise and In The Mood. David Rigby was up next, David played Loveliest Night Of The Year, Wild Rover, Beautiful Dreamer, Que Sera Sera, Highland Cathedral and Now Is The Hour. The final player of the night for the stage was Colin Ensor. Colin played Cruising Down The River, I won’t Tell A Soul, Why Did You Make Me
Care, Sailing By, Pigalle, Charmaine and Good Night Irene.
After the stage performances the format changed format to everyone doing their own thing around the room. A small group playing in one corner, others playing solo, swapping tips, helping each other with music or just chatting and drinking tea and coffee for the rest of the night.
The night ended at the usual 11pm when they came to lock the place up. Thanks go to Colin for running things in our absence.
David Batty |
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We will
be meeting this Tuesday 15th August. Doors open at 8pm with a hybrid meeting as usual. We will start with any players on the stage who want to play to an audience, then we will move on to having the rest of the evening as a Practice Night(Informal
chat, playing etc. happening around the room). This way we can cater for most people’s preferences in one night, if you prefer to play on stage please arrive sooner rather than later and we will see the stage performances first. As usual there will be Tea and Coffee on sale at 20p a Cup. See you at 8pm this Tuesday 15th August. David. |
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Our dates till
the end of the year are: 3rd Tuesdays of the month 8pm – 11pm
Our other nights up to the end of the year
15th August 2023
19th September 2023
17th October 2023
21st November 2023
19th December 2023
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St Audries Bay Accordion Week Review |
We were missing from the club last month because we had booked to go to the resurrected St. Audries Bay Accordion Festival. The festival was last on in 2019 prior to covid and had not been run since, which was a great blow to the many people who couldn’t imagine not booking their place at this
event. It could be difficult to get a space at the event in the past because people at the festival usually booked for the following year prior to leaving. I know we have stayed in an AirBnb nearby in the past and driven in each day because we couldn’t get accommodation on the park. That all ended when we had Covid, and then
after Covid the festival was not resurrected by the family who owned the park. The reason may have been because they were selling up, three months ago the family who had owned the park for decades sold it to new owners. Around this time plans were being made by Lisa Lee-Leslie and Sammy Peckover-Mitchell along with the teaching team of Andrew Purkiss, Caroline Hussey, Angie Lukins and Andrew Lukins to resurrect the festival. Plans were made, agreement with St. Audries made and with just
a month or two to go to the date of the festival everything was finalised. Previously the family who own the holiday park ran
the event so didn’t have to charge themselves for room hire. With the festival being run by a new group of people unconnected with the holiday park they had to hire rooms at the venue for the festival. To pay for this a charge of £100 per accordionist for the week was made. This was very reasonable and hopefully the organisers covered their costs of hiring the rooms for the week with this fee. |
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We paid the £100 per person to the organisers and booked our accommodation with the holiday park. No charge was made to non accordionists, so someone with a husband or wife that didn’t play the accordion didn’t pay the £100 (but they could still go to the entertainment at night etc.)
Everyone was free to book
either accommodation on the park, or stay offsite and still attend the festival each day. The festival started with arrival on the Friday, we were soon seeing familiar faces as more people arrived.
Friday night was spent in the main hall with a concert featuring anyone who wanted to put their name down. It was nice to hear a variety of players and playing styles, and catching up with
people we hadn’t seen for years. It was nice to see Harry Hussey there (his daughter was part of the teaching team for the festival). After the concert we moved to the bar and nearby corridors where we were busking and talking until late.
On the Saturday morning the workshops started, with Higher Intermediate Orchestra with Andrew Purkiss, followed by the Beginners Orchestra with Caroline Hussey, then the Scottish Workshop with Angie Lukins. After dinner time (lunchtime in the south) the Vintage Orchestra was run by Sammy followed by the Mixed Ability Orchestra with
Sammy.
The same daytime schedule ran from Saturday through to Monday, then on Wednesday and Thursday. This gave people five days of practice with their workshop leaders to work on the tunes and arrangements.
On the Tuesday we had a break from the normal schedule and instead had a day of technique workshops, this was my favourite day. The workshops on Tuesday were Technique and Bellows, Improv and
Playing by Ear, Chromatic Accordion and Musical Mindfulness.
Each day we had the above schedule and each night we had a concert featuring the camp attendees, then on the Wednesday
we had the usual concert which was followed by a Ceilidh. The ceilidh band was Angie Lukins, Andrew Lukins on Guitar, Andrew Purkiss and Matt on drums. Lisa Purkiss was calling for the ceilidh and guiding newcomers on the steps. A great time was had with a floor full of dancers (some experience and some new to it all). We drove down in a campervan we had just finished in time for the festival, we had Bernard Belshaw parked opposite us. It did take us 8 hours to get there from Leyland because of a few accidents and traffic on
the M5, but we had forgotten about the journey as soon as we arrived.
The park had been updated since we were last there, there were many new caravans, the camping toilets were refurbished, the old chalets were not in use but the new owners were reputedly looking at
refurbishing the old chalets and building extra ones for future bookings.
We were self catering in our van, but for those who didn’t want to cook their own food there was the option of booking an evening meal in advance, a chef from the nearby pub/restaurant came along
and from what I hear the food was great. In the past we have had the option of bar meals throughout the day, this year, with the new owners only taking over a couple of months ago, this was not an option. Hopefully the bar meals are back on next year.
The park is a great place to potter around, walking down to the beach, meeting folk who are sat chatting in various groups, or just enjoying the fresh air and walks. On the final evening we had a concert which featured all the orchestras playing the pieces they had been practicing all week, we also had a spot from the Teaching Team playing a Michael Jackson medley (arranged by Lisa).
During the week we were able to drop in to the shop run by Lisa, this had a wide range of accordions, sheet music and associated musical items. This was also a good place to find Harry Hussey playing an accordion, it was a treat to sit there and listen to him playing and giving us tips and advice.
It was possible to book one to one sessions with members of the teaching team if you wanted, you just approached the team member and asked if they had a suitable time where you could meet them somewhere on the camp.
After the festival we saw a lot of people who had been following the festival on the Facebook festival page, asking to be added to the mailing list for next year, so get your request in early. I can thoroughly recommend attending St. Audries Bay Accordion Festival if you want a good relaxing accordion break at a reasonable price. We went down in a campervan (which cost us around £140 for the week for a pitch with electricity) plus 2 * £100 for the festival itself. Other people stayed in mobile homes on the site, next year they should have a range of Chalets to choose from. On the final day many of us had already reserved our place at next years festival which will be held a week earlier next year to avoid it clashing with the start of school holidays. The 2024 festival will be held on the 5th to the 12th of July 2024 if you want to put your name down on the list. In the past we have had 10 or 12 people from
Leyland attending. Email sabaccordionweek@gmail.com to be added to the mailing list for more
information and to request to be added to the waitlist for accommodation.
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Online Chat/Playing Wednesday
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The next ONLINE meeting will be 6th September starting at 8pm, we have an online catch up with local members and others from far and wide. This is held on Zoom. The night starts at 8pm and will be a chance to chat about accordions, find out what others have been up to, or even play a tune for us. Please share the link below with any accordion folk who might be interested in joining us. If you want to chat about accordion stuff, listen to others play the accordion, or give us a tune then please join us. I will send out a reminder for anyone who forgets the meeting is on, but the meeting will be on, and here is the main announcement of
it. We did have a number of us on the last meeting and we had a great range of music being played and lots of chat about various pieces of music. Simply click this link to Join our Zoom Meeting at 8pm on the 6th September. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82237487230?pwd=LzlLdC9RMCtkb1RMMmVoSXZVR0lMQT09
Meeting ID: 822 3748 7230
Passcode: accordion The link above is the same for every online meeting we have, it doesn’t change from
month to month. You can test your computer works with the link at any time. If you get a message saying you are waiting for a host to let you in, or something similar, then your computer is set up correctly to join the meeting on the correct dates/times. |
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