The Association of Brass Band Adjudicators and the Yorkshire Regional Committee have told 4BR of their delight at the success of their recent Youth Adjudication initiative at the Yorkshire Regional Championship in Bradford last weekend.

Dip their toes

Four talented youngsters, all under the age of 18, took the opportunity to dip their toes in the adjudication waters by making their opinions on the Fourth Section set work, ‘An English Pastorale’ by Dean Jones.

Bethan Plant, Kai Spencer, Tommy Tynan and Ellie Watson, were mentored by ABBA Secretary David Hirst and training officer John Roberts who gave them an insight into the work, exploring the processes involved in assessing the performances in line with ABBAʼs Performance Assessment Criteria (PAC).

All 11 performances

The four listened to all 11 performances, writing their remarks sheets and compiling their final results sheets in line with normal practice, before listening intently to the official adjudicators David Thornton and Sandy Smith give their pre-results remarks.

An ABBA spokesperson told 4BR: “It was gratifying to note that the four young adjudicators were mostly in agreement with the official result!”

At the completion of the contest the four met with David Thornton and Sandy Smith to receive a thorough de-briefing of how they had reached their decision.

Very successful

Peggy Tomlinson of the YRBBC told 4BR: “We were pleased to be able to accommodate the youth panel with ABBA this year. It was very successful and indeed we found ourselves oversubscribed.

We were very pleased with the initiative and look forward to repeating the scheme in the future.”

This was the first joint venture between ABBA and YRBBC and one that has proved to be extremely successful. We look forward to further youth initiatives of this kind in the futureABBA

Excellent support

The ABBA spokesperson added: “We would like to thank Peggy and her team for their excellent support in this venture and also for their first class hospitality throughout the day.

Thanks must also go to David Thornton and Sandy Smith for participating so readily in the scheme — their professionalism and willingness to help was much appreciated.

This was the first joint venture between ABBA and YRBBC and one that has proved to be extremely successful. We look forward to further youth initiatives of this kind in the future.”