The Scottish Brass Band Association has released a statement in respect to their official stance on the proposed formation of a United Kingdom Brass Band Alliance.

Official statement:

"The membership of the Scottish Brass Band Association is surprised to have been excluded from the joint statement issued on 28 June by the Regional Forum and Kapitol Promotions Ltd.

We were neither consulted about the statement, nor informed in advance; nor were we included in the circulation of the notes of the Forum meeting of 18 June.

We had been unable to send a representative to that Forum meeting (all our office-bearers had longstanding previous engagements), although there has been a SBBA presence at almost all previous meetings.

Knowing that the subject of the UK Brass Band Alliance (UKBBA) was to be discussed, we made our support for UKBBA clear to Philip Morris (Kapitol Promotions) at the UKBBA working group meeting on 12 May and asked him to convey this support to the Forum meeting.

For the record, SBBA supports the formation of UKBBA and would have sent representation to the consultative meeting on 2 July. We have not heard of any alternative proposals to UKBBA that would start to reverse the decline in banding.

It has been our experience in Scotland, that having 100 percent SBBA membership gives us great leverage in discussions with central and local government as well as funding bodies.

We have been impressed with the willingness of contest organisers (including Kapitol for almost a year, it must be pointed out) to support that aim in a very effective way.

SBBA will continue to support the formation of UKBBA, because we believe it offer the strongest means of energising a banding renaissance. It is to be regretted that the brass band community has received this setback.

The references to and emphasis on democracy in the Kapitol/Forum statement were curious.

Quite apart from the writing out of SBBA, we are unaware of anyone having been consulted in advance about the huge increase in entry fees (about 250 percent), nor about the move to Cheltenham, which has also hugely increased transport costs for bands north of Manchester."

George Burt
President, Scottish Brass Band Association
4th July 2011