The communal support of bands in the local area to National Champion Foden's will be displayed this weekend, when Lions Youth, Audley and Roberts Bakery will join forces to help raise funds to go towards meeting the costs of the Sandbach band to represent England at the 2020 European Championships in Palanga.

Time and place

The concert at Ruskin High School, Crewe on Sunday 12th May (starting 2.30pm) will see each band provide a 25 minute performance with Foden's stars Mark Wilkinson performing with Lions Youth Brass and Gary Curtin featuring with Audley Brass. The event will be rounded off with a number of massed band items.

Proud to support

Organiser Nigel Birch told 4BR: "Lions Youth Brass have developed a great working relationship with Foden's over the years and they gave us considerable support to enable us to compete at the recent European Championships in Montreux. This is our way to now help them."

The strong link between the organizations has also seen Foden's Musical Director Michael Fowles notch up a decade as Associate Conductor of the Lions Youth Band.

Nigel added: "We've joined together with Roberts Bakery and Audley Brass to support Foden's efforts to get to Lithuania as many players of these bands have benefited from their help over the years.

We are all proud to support a local band as they represent England at what is the world's premier brass band contest."

We would like to express our thanks to Nigel for arranging this concert and to Lions, Audley and Roberts Bakery for giving up their valuable time to help usMark Wilkinson

Generosity

In response Mark Wilkinson told 4BR: "We would like to express our thanks to Nigel for arranging this concert and to Lions, Audley and Roberts Bakery for giving up their valuable time to help us.

We are looking forward to representing England at the European Championships and have been extremely busy arranging various fundraising events.

The generosity showed by these bands will certainly help our fundraising appeal as we look to cover the estimated £20,000 costs."

Tickets

Tickets for the concert are £10 with under 14's free and are available from Nigel Birch nigelcbirch@gmail.com or 07507911185